File Sharers Can No Longer Hide

Originally Posted by Incognitas

For every film/song you download and listened to or watched without buying the original record,DVD means that the artist,directors,singers,actors,stuntmen,writers etc DON'T get their cut of the royalties.That's what I mean.

In doing the fat cats out of their money you also do the people who make and work in the movies/music industry lose out on what they should rightfully get.I don't give a toss about fat cats of industry but I do care that the originators get enough money to be able to WANT to continue to produce the music/films that I enjoy.Why would anyone work for diminishing returns.Would you?

Is it OK to download a song which I already own on vinyl and, therefore, have paid copyright and royalty fees for?

With the music industry one point that never seems to get raised is why we now need record companies. The internet now allows bands to sell music directly (and simply) and significantly increase their artistic control and slice of the cake. The overall cake might be smaller but in a world where Robbie Williams can apparently command an £80m advance. Of course there are issues of marketing, but massive marketing budgets have given us the crassest elements of the music scene (eg Maroon 5, Busted etc) whilst the most exciting and interesting groups (eg Franz Ferdinand) have emerged on independent labels.

DVDs are just stupidly expensive so I have no sympathy.

But no-one's mentioned software. Software piracy is surely a massive issue for the computer industry which the 'artists' - the programmers - suffer. Anyone guilty of having hooky software out there? Mind you I've just paid £3.49 for Nero OEM when the retail version is about £40. That manual's blinkin' expensive!!

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by andyl

Is it OK to download a song which I already own on vinyl and, therefore, have paid copyright and royalty fees for?

I think the problem comes because the Record industry cannot prove you do or don't have the vinyl copy (after all, all they see from the companies that monitor the file sharing networks is a list of IPs and what files they were sharing).

I personally have no problem with people downloading music if they have already bought it (there have been a few times when I have bought an Album or Single, and over the years, it has been damaged so I just downloaded the songs to my PC).

With the music industry one point that never seems to get raised is why we now need record companies. The internet now allows bands to sell music directly (and simply) and significantly increase their artistic control and slice of the cake. The overall cake might be smaller but in a world where Robbie Williams can apparently command an £80m advance. Of course there are issues of marketing, but massive marketing budgets have given us the crassest elements of the music scene (eg Maroon 5, Busted etc) whilst the most exciting and interesting groups (eg Franz Ferdinand) have emerged on independent labels.

The problem is that the record companies (and media companies in general) directly or indirectly employ a lot of people. OK, the money goes to the studio staff, the band and band's management (not to mention the bosses of the record company). However, the record company also employes possibly thousands (or even tens of thousands) of support staff, ranging from cleaners & office staff through to the managrment. Not to mention the companys they use (video production, CD pressing, printing, marketing). These company all employ people (again, sometimes a few, sometimes thousands). People need to be paid.

DVDs are just stupidly expensive so I have no sympathy.

Not expensive if you look around.

But no-one's mentioned software. Software piracy is surely a massive issue for the computer industry which the 'artists' - the programmers - suffer. Anyone guilty of having hooky software out there? Mind you I've just paid £3.49 for Nero OEM when the retail version is about £40. That manual's blinkin' expensive!!

True, although the retail version of Nero has a lot of features that may not be bundled in the OEM version (for instance, the OEM version of Nero we have at work lacks the Video Editing stuff and Nero Recode, which my full version has).

Originally Posted by scastle

I think the problem comes because the Record industry cannot prove you do or don't have the vinyl copy (after all, all they see from the companies that monitor the file sharing networks is a list of IPs and what files they were sharing).

I personally have no problem with people downloading music if they have already bought it (there have been a few times when I have bought an Album or Single, and over the years, it has been damaged so I just downloaded the songs to my PC).


The problem is that the record companies (and media companies in general) directly or indirectly employ a lot of people. OK, the money goes to the studio staff, the band and band's management (not to mention the bosses of the record company). However, the record company also employes possibly thousands (or even tens of thousands) of support staff, ranging from cleaners & office staff through to the managrment. Not to mention the companys they use (video production, CD pressing, printing, marketing). These company all employ people (again, sometimes a few, sometimes thousands). People need to be paid.


Not expensive if you look around.


True, although the retail version of Nero has a lot of features that may not be bundled in the OEM version (for instance, the OEM version of Nero we have at work lacks the Video Editing stuff and Nero Recode, which my full version has).

But if a record company is re-releasing product on which it has already recouped its investment then that shoulkd be reflected in pricing. So cost should be manufacturing, royalties, marketing, distribution plus a sensible margin. That is certainly not the case. As for the jobs argument, well, in a capitalist economy, companies/people will gravitate towards the lowest cost option. Downloading, legal or illegal, will result in job losses as the distribution chain is significantly shortened. If you look at the travel industry you'll see many, many high street retail closures and job losses because so many people now research and book online. Industries need to adapt to new technologies and the music biz has been remarkably slow to react.

I buy DVDs from Play etc but still think £11 (as opposed to £15-16 on the high street) is expensive.

There are two OEM versions of Nero. I've gone for the cheaper one with less functionality. The more expensive one, which I think includes the functionality your talking of, costs a wallet-emptying £8.49

[ian@huth]

One thing that is being overlooked in those arguments about music and video pricing is that not everyone has or wants a PC and internet connection. They have to be catered for and pricing has to reflect their needs. You have to have most of the existing structure in place in order to cater for them and whilst very cheap online versions will benefit the internet user it will increase the costs and retail prices for high street buyers. Someone ends up paying for material which is downloaded for free or very cheaply and that is the people who are forced to buy on the high street. If you download illegally you are not just hitting the fat cats at the top of the industry.

Originally Posted by ianathuth

One thing that is being overlooked in those arguments about music and video pricing is that not everyone has or wants a PC and internet connection. They have to be catered for and pricing has to reflect their needs. You have to have most of the existing structure in place in order to cater for them and whilst very cheap online versions will benefit the internet user it will increase the costs and retail prices for high street buyers. Someone ends up paying for material which is downloaded for free or very cheaply and that is the people who are forced to buy on the high street. If you download illegally you are not just hitting the fat cats at the top of the industry.

That argument may hold water if the market is static, but it isn't. Legal downloading is expanding revenues.

From the BBC in 2004(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertain...ic/4044303.stm): "UK record companies are celebrating their best ever year for album sales, with a record 237 million sold in the 12 months to September." And if you really want to depress yourself, have a look at the list of the top ten selling LPs (three of which, incidentally, are best ofs where the record company has alreeady recouped its recording costs...... )

[AndrewJ]

Share your hatred of the MPAA

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[ian@huth]

Originally Posted by andyl

That argument may hold water if the market is static, but it isn't. Legal downloading is expanding revenues.

From the BBC in 2004(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertain...ic/4044303.stm): "UK record companies are celebrating their best ever year for album sales, with a record 237 million sold in the 12 months to September." And if you really want to depress yourself, have a look at the list of the top ten selling LPs (three of which, incidentally, are best ofs where the record company has alreeady recouped its recording costs...... )

I think that the article implies that copies sold, both physical and downloaded, has increased, not revenues. Look at the quote

Some 60% of CD albums now sell for less than £10, which meant that although more albums were sold, their sales value fell slightly during the three months to September.

There are a couple of points to take into consideration though. Would the record companies have sold more than 237 million if there was no internet downloading whatsoever. We will never know and can only theorise.
Secondly, how true is the 237 million figure? Is it based on copies sold by the record companies to wholesalers of which many may have never been sold on to customers. Is it extrapolated from sales of a sample of retailers which may be nothing like the truth. How is the figure arrived at as I know of no means whereby an accurate figure can be determined.

Originally Posted by ianathuth

I think that the article implies that copies sold, both physical and downloaded, has increased, not revenues. Look at the quote

There are a couple of points to take into consideration though. Would the record companies have sold more than 237 million if there was no internet downloading whatsoever. We will never know and can only theorise.
Secondly, how true is the 237 million figure? Is it based on copies sold by the record companies to wholesalers of which many may have never been sold on to customers. Is it extrapolated from sales of a sample of retailers which may be nothing like the truth. How is the figure arrived at as I know of no means whereby an accurate figure can be determined.

Either way you read it, punters buying hard copies are not paying more then I used to work in record shops and the record companies offer generous returns policies (5% of orders in my day I think) plus they will offer sale or return deals (particularly to the volume retailers). So I would guess the figures are a fair picture - besides as long at they're comparing like with like historically then it matters not. Conversely the one thing that is damaging creativity is the low prices at which supermarkets offer CDs because they only focus on high volume safe bets (and even then protected by generous supply agreements) as opposed to the wider yet necessarily more expensive offerings of the specialist retailers. Record companies are less willing to take risks because of the way retailing is going.

[SOSAGES]

Originally Posted by AndrewJames

Share your hatred of the MPAA

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i like em they just do what they are paid to do if i worked for me a load more sites would be sent nasty letters

[purenuman]

Originally Posted by Strzelecki

Ok so people could upload huge amount of fake stuff and waste the systems resources whilst it downloads and checks everything! I'm going to upload my own 3Gb linux distro called WinXPPro.torrent

And if many people did that it would end file sharing quicker than the RIAA, MPAA etc could ever hope to.........