Some people suck

[subzero23]

psssh what are you doin still buying CDs?

[Floyd10]

Im asuming they are older

[DrewKaree]

Well its corporation.

Stick it to the man.

To quote Abbie Hoffman exactly from steal this book, "We have been shoplifting from supermarkets on a regular basis without raising the slightest suspicion, ever since they began.

We are not alone, and the fact that so much stealing goes on and the supermarkets still bring in huge profits shows exactly how much overcharging has occurred in the first place. Supermarkets, like other businesses, refer to shoplifting as "inventory shrinkage." It's as if we thieves were helping Big Business reduce weight. So let's view our efforts as methods designed to trim the economy and push forward with a positive attitude."

Your honor, I present to you Exhibit A.

[Floyd10]

Well its corporation.

Stick it to the man.

To quote Abbie Hoffman exactly from steal this book, "We have been shoplifting from supermarkets on a regular basis without raising the slightest suspicion, ever since they began.

We are not alone, and the fact that so much stealing goes on and the supermarkets still bring in huge profits shows exactly how much overcharging has occurred in the first place. Supermarkets, like other businesses, refer to shoplifting as "inventory shrinkage." It's as if we thieves were helping Big Business reduce weight. So let's view our efforts as methods designed to trim the economy and push forward with a positive attitude."

Your honor, I present to you Exhibit A.

umm... dk... what the f*** does that mean?

[DrewKaree]

Next you'll be asking me what the answer is to the question

"How do you keep an idiot in suspense?"

 

(oh, and for Dark Kobold,  )

[Shape D.]

psssh what are you doin still buying CDs?

Are you saing I should download them illegally, Screwing over the artists who wrote the music I want to listen to. Or are you saying I should be purchasing cassettes, records or 8-track?

[Chris]

psssh what are you doin still buying CDs?

Are you saing I should download them illegally, Screwing over the artists who wrote the music I want to listen to. Or are you saying I should be purchasing cassettes, records or 8-track?

8-track, baby!

Actually, they just polled artists on the issue, and very few artists seemed to think it hurt them at all.  My vague understanding of the skewed economics of the music industry is that artists earn more from live events and the P2P piracy hurts the labels far more than the artists.  Not that I'm condoning it or anything.

However, I have not bought a CD in a bit since I discovered walmart.com's music downloads.  88 cents per track or 9.99 for a whole album?  Why buy a CD?  I'll buy them as gifts, but for myself I'll stick to walmart.com's music downloads.

--Chris

[ErikRuud]

This thread has come up at just the right time, because I really need to vent on this subject.

Saturday night we were away from home at a family christmas party.  When we got home around midnight we discovered that some one had stolen our 8' tall Santa inflatible from our front yard. 

Last year he had been slashed with a razor, but I was able to stitch him up.  I guess they decided that they had to steal him this time so that I couldn't repair him again.

Four years ago almost every house in our subdivision had their christmas decorations wrecked in one night.  They tore down lights and smashed them in the streets, the smashed lawn ornaments and threw everything in the street.  The city had to send out street sweepers on a Sunday to cleanup all the glass in the street.  All that overtime was payed by the taxpayers of course.

My daughter is seven years old and three time now, our christmas decorations have been destroyed.  How do I explain this to a little child when I don't understand this behavior.

We live in a nice, average (280.00 to 350,000 dollar homes) neighborhood in a fairly affluent suburb of Chicago.  From what the police have told me, and what I see reported in the local papers, our town has a lot of trouble with random vandalism.  Based on where it occurs, and the few people that have been caught, it is the 16 to 20 year old guys from the really expensive (750,000+ homes) subdivisons that are responsible for most of it.  These kids have pretty much anything they want, but they can't think of anything better to do with their time than to wreck stuff.  The amount of time spent by the police writing up reports for damaged mailboxes is staggering.

A few years ago, my car got shot at while I was driving by a bunch of kids with paintball guns in a brand new Denali.  I don't think they got caught, but I would think that driving around pointing guns out of the car windows is a good way to get shot at by the police.

When I lived in Chicago, I had a Volkswagen Golf that was broken into three times.  The first time they broke a window ripped the Alpine stereo out of the dash.  I found a good repair shop that knew how to deal with the insurance and they actaully managed to put in a better BlauPunkt stereo and have the insurance pay for it.  The second time they broke the window again, and ripped out the Kenwood.  I got the window repaired, but I had not had time to replace the radio, when they broke in a third time.  They got nothing, because the radio had not been replaced.  The end of the wiring harness was still hanging out of the empty hole in the dash!

After that I got a removeable Kenwood system.

The next year my insurance premiums weny up by almost exactly the amount of the repairs!  I told them to get lost and found a different insurannce company.

PS. Floyd you can try to justify it anyway you want, but it is still wrong and it is illegal.

[ChadTower]

So you're saying some guys destroyed the decorations for your entire neighborhood and not one person called the police or tried to stop them?   That doesn't sound right.  There's never a time when an entire block of houses is completely empty for that long.

[ErikRuud]

Yes, That is what happend.

Our subdivision comprises about seven blocks, and no one heard or saw anything.

[ChadTower]

See, while I believe you, I don't believe those neighbors.  There's no way no one noticed that going on.

[ErikRuud]

I'll admit that someone may have seen or heard something, and kept quiet.  There is no way to know.

Our neighborhood is in a wooded area, and the views from house to houes a re fairly limited.  I live on a corner lot, and I only have unobstructed views of two other houses. I have obstructed views of two other hones, and can only see part of one neighbors garage.  The other neighbors house is not visible from my house at all.

There are thick bands of trees seperating our subdivision from the ones surrounding it. There are bike paths through the tree lines connecting the subdivisions.  While it makes for a very pretty neighborhood, it also make it easy for people to move around without being seen.

[ChadTower]

Yeah, that someone or some people saw and won't come forward because they fear retaliation is the most likely case.

[RetroJames]

Re: Xmas Vandalism, just curious...was that around Libertyville or Lake Forest?

[Shape D.]

Actually, they just polled artists on the issue, and very few artists seemed to think it hurt them at all. My vague understanding of the skewed economics of the music industry is that artists earn more from live events and the P2P piracy hurts the labels far more than the artists. Not that I'm condoning it or anything.--Chris

But, they do make money off album sales. And record companys give loans to musicans to recod the album that they pay back with the album sales. Or at least they pay it back with the performance part of the album. If they write their own songs they get that $ without having to pay their debt from it. Meanwhile the record co. makes money of the sales from day one.

And bands don't make money of live shows, Live shows are promotion for album sales. Bands play live because they are musicians, and playing is what they like to do.

[ErikRuud]

1HookedSpaceCadet,

I live in Saint Charles.



ChadTower,

I would suspect that if people didn't say anything, it because they don't care. 
Some people just seem to write it off as part of growing up, "they are just being kids" kind of thing.  I wouldn't think that fear of retaliation is that big a deal in a case like this.

[ChadTower]

Where I grew up, the normal consequence of vandalism is a shotgun pointed at you.  It's taken pretty seriously.

[DrewKaree]

But, they do make money off album sales. And record companys give loans to musicans to recod the album that they pay back with the album sales. Or at least they pay it back with the performance part of the album. If they write their own songs they get that $ without having to pay their debt from it. Meanwhile the record co. makes money of the sales from day one.

And bands don't make money of live shows, Live shows are promotion for album sales. Bands play live because they are musicians, and playing is what they like to do.

Musicians, unless they are an established band, generally make very little off album sales.  That is why you see Metallica fighting more vehemently than Heywood Jablowme against piracy - along with them generally being against piracy from possibly a moral stance

Bands DO in fact make money off of live shows.  Live shows are generally giving a percentage of the gate to the band as an incentive for them to play there.   Again, unless they are an established band, they need to do as many live shows as possible in order to make a decent living.  That's why you see Metallica doing concerts and tours so infrequently, while Heywood Jablowme is touring 364 days a year, EVERY year.

I'm not sure if you've gone to a "top tier" concert lately, but do you really think that The Rolling stones make more money selling a $15 CD or touring for a year and a half doing concerts at their leisure and selling a $200-$250 ticket?  The economics of it EVENTUALLY even out, but the bands DO get paid to perform live.

[Shape D.]

Musicians, unless they are an established band, generally make very little off album sales. That is why you see Metallica fighting more vehemently than Heywood Jablowme against piracy - along with them generally being against piracy from possibly a moral stance

Bands DO in fact make money off of live shows. Live shows are generally giving a percentage of the gate to the band as an incentive for them to play there. Again, unless they are an established band, they need to do as many live shows as possible in order to make a decent living. That's why you see Metallica doing concerts and tours so infrequently, while Heywood Jablowme is touring 364 days a year, EVERY year.

I'm not sure if you've gone to a "top tier" concert lately, but do you really think that The Rolling stones make more money selling a $15 CD or touring for a year and a half doing concerts at their leisure and selling a $200-$250 ticket? The economics of it EVENTUALLY even out, but the bands DO get paid to perform live.

But then you have to look at the money they spend on renting the venue, the sound equiptment, and stage props, ect....

most bands even large ones don't make a whole lot of money touring.

[DrewKaree]

If a band has to actually RENT a venue, they suck beyond belief, and those aren't the people we are speaking of. 

The venues want people to COME to them, and being able to draw them in with a musical act is a way for them to make money.  Have you ever gone to a concert where a beer cost $2 (in the last decade, that is, I don't want to assume your age and you tell me "whippersnapper, way back when I got a beer for a quarter and a slice of pizza for a nickel...punk kids"  ) or a soda was $1?  These venues that get a band there make money hand over fist on the "incidentals" that people buy when coming to see the group.  That premise also is expecting people to believe that Billy Joel is PAYING to RENT OUT Madison Square Garden!  THAT is simply laughable!

True enough they have to spend money on sound equipment and the stage props.  They also had to buy an instrument way back when also.  Those are fixed costs.  Do you believe that when a gig ends they leave all that stuff at the venue?  No.  They use it.  Again, and again, and again, and again and ag...well, you get the picture.  These things simply do not make a big dent in their profits of playing live when averaged out over the life of the product.  When you do 300 shows a year and a sound board costs you $10,000 does it not show you you how cheaply these things will, after all is said and done, actually cost them?

The bigger the band gets, the more lavishly they spend on themselves, but the money is either paid by someone else, or if the band has to pay for it, it isn't as nice a product they buy - UNTIL they get large enough where even their swill is filet mignon to us.

It should be readily apparent WHERE bands make money by simply listening to WHO is making the commotion about WHAT issue.  The RECORD COMPANIES are the ones at the forefront of the gripefest about music piracy, while by and large, BANDS are at the forefront of the gripefest about VENUE piracy, ala TicketMaster et al. 

Do you think you'd hear Eddie Vedder crying and railing against piracy if it affected his paycheck to the extent that TicketMaster did?  You bet your sweet @$$ you would! 

[RetroJames]

*** I Nominate this thread as the most divergent thread of 2004 ***

[Shape D.]

They usually rent the mixing boards, and main speakers from a rental co. or Along with paying the sound company providing sound.

I'm not saying there getting screwed out of a ton of money on cds, but they still are.

And as a musician, Currently rocking the greatest open mic's in Madison WI (or just one crappy one).  I intend on using online file sharing as a form of promoting my band. It has its uses I just cant see taking money away from a band I like, even if they aren't getting that much from it. Id rather steal if from Walmart, scew them over, while they still pay the distributor, thus the band still making money. (I am not condoning this, and refuse to be held liable for anyone reading this and stealing from walmart.)

[Shape D.]

*** I Nominate this thread as the most divergent thread of 2004 ***

your the most divergent thread of 2004!

I'll divergent thread you!


sorry, couldn't resist.

[DrewKaree]

Next we'll be talking about how the voting for most divergent thread has been rigged in Florida and Ohio and how the bands playing at the conventions aren't making any money on them and how frankepanels are dynamite and how p360's are be.....what was the topic?

And hey, I'm in Milwaukee, so Madison isn't a far drive for me - is ShapeD your band's name, or what is the band's name, and how widespread is your touring right now?  Just local clubs or festivals, or are you guys a bit larger than that?

Oh, and to tie this in with ANOTHER thread

1hooked, YOU'RE a divergent thread! 

[RetroJames]

1hooked, YOU'RE a divergent thread!

[Floyd10]

www.downhillbattle.org

and on stealing:
I know its illegal, and to some wrong, but I still do it... reminds me of janes addiction...

[DrewKaree]

www.downhillbattle.org

and on stealing:
I know its illegal, and to some wrong, but I still do it... reminds me of janes addiction...

I'm often reminded of Fade To Black, so I practice sooey-cide.  I'm just lucky I'm terrible at it 

Hey Floyd, I've got a complete and working arcade game that you want, and I'm willing to sell it to you for $30.  Send the money to me, and I'll drive the game over to you. 

If I don't show up with the game and you're out $30, I don't want to see you complaining to a soul that what happened to you is wrong.  It's "karma".  You screw others, in the end, you'll get screwed.  And if I've used karma incorrectly, blah blah blah.  I, as you, don't care about explanations of why it's incorrect.

Oh, and don't cry anymore about how you got busted for paraphenalia but didn't get busted for possession of oregano.  While you display an "it's cool to pick and choose the laws I flout", thankfully there's an organization of folks to make you realize society doesn't appreciate your attitude and have instituted punishment for your apathetic ways.   

Put a better way - karma bit you in the arse.

You steal from the grocery store, so you got busted for everything except possession of oregano, which isn't a crime......yet.   

[Mameotron]

Drew,
 You seem to be the resident expert on MP3s, so correct me if I'm wrong here.

[Floyd10]

I dont believe in karma, or god for that matter. its survival of the fittest. the rich will get taken from.

[lucindrea]

I'm just glad they dind't take my checkbook that was sitting in my car.

OMG, I can't believe you just said that.  Dude, not to rush to judgement here, but you were practically asking to have your car broken into.  At least that's the attitude of both the theif and the cops.

The only thing worse than leaving the doors unlocked with the keys in the ignition and the engine running, is leaving anything of value in plain sight in your car.  CDs are one thing, but things like money, credit cards, and checks should never be left in your car period.  You can buy new CDs, but bad credit from identity theft, or loss of your life savings, could be much harder to repair.  And the cops as well as the insurers are likely to laugh in your face when you come crying to them about the stuff stolen off your dash or front seats.

I personally won't even go into the store for 5 minutes without locking my briefcase in the trunk, or at least putting it behind the seat out of plain site.  People are f*ckers for taking what's not theirs, but if you know there are bears around, it's not very smart to leave food on the driver's seat...

heh my POS car has the entire back seat filled up about 1" deep on the seat ( add in the distance from the floor to the top of the seat and you get the idea ) everything from a spare jacket to old newspapers back their and a good deal of stuff on the passagner seat also , not to mention the car is missing weather striping on one side and the paint is peeling ...
personaly i'm not woried about a theif taking the 2 amps in the trunk , sub woffer or cd player ... i doubt they would be able to find em 

oh , this doent stop me from removing the face plate to the raido though ..


as as for all this about good people doing minor things and getting screwed ...  it's mostly greed ... and the fact that non-decent people dont give a sh-t , the simple fact is when a 3rd time felon goes to court , the lawoyers know they are not going to go all out to pay the fees , and the judge knows whatever they do will not change anything ( i still think some judges should throw away the key on some of these guys ) .. but if they can make an example of you , make some DA's resume look good , or make a layores morguage payments for the next 6 months , then decent people get screwed

[DrewKaree]

Drew,
 You seem to be the resident expert on MP3s, so correct me if I'm wrong here.  MP3 is a compression format, so I would expect that even though you can produce really good quality audio it won't be as good as the original CD.

indeed.  mp3 is a "lossy" format.  There are a few "lossless" formats out there, but if you can even FIND a player for those formats, it'll cost you, and prolly be proprietary.

I haven't tried your tutorial, but can you really get MP3s to sound indistuinguishable from the original?

unless you're an audiophile the likes of which would normally be hanging around an audiophile forum and not this one, you'd prolly be hard pressed to tell the difference between a CD and something ripped to one of the higher rates.  Usually 160 and up is considered CD quality.

Oh, this kind of relates to the thread because I think that making an MP3 of a CD is just like making a tape copy.  That may not matter to the copyright lawyers, I just think it's not the same as burning an exact copy of the CD.

I don't know the legalities of making a tape/cd/8 track (was it even POSSIBLE to record to 8 track?) of an album. 

What I DO know is that I make a 1:1 copy of each CD I own, and only play the copied version, and stash the original in a safe place so that when my kids leave my CD's laying all over the friggen place, they aren't permanently destroying something I paid far too much money for in comparison to a cassette tape.  After that, I rip each CD to my computer in mp3 for additional security and so I won't need to put in each CD while playing a song.

[DrewKaree]

I dont believe in karma, or god for that matter. its survival of the fittest. the rich will get taken from.

So you were rich.  At least with drug paraphenalia.  Oh, and you were flush with oregano as well. 

You weren't fit enough to keep your stash in a secure enough place that you'd never be found. 

Congratulations.  I now realize that the police, while purporting to be a "law abiding organization" are simply nothing more than the most "fit" to take from those rich from their "surviving".

And all the world said hooray 

[Shape D.]

You seem to be the resident expert on MP3s, so correct me if I'm wrong here.  MP3 is a compression format, so I would expect that even though you can produce really good quality audio it won't be as good as the original CD.

I haven't tried your tutorial, but can you really get MP3s to sound indistuinguishable from the original?

Oh, this kind of relates to the thread because I think that making an MP3 of a CD is just like making a tape copy.  That may not matter to the copyright lawyers, I just think it's not the same as burning an exact copy of the CD.

In my opinion no MP3 will sound as good as a cd, they typically use a 5:1 compression ratio, thus removing 80% of the data to recreate the song. Although most people won't be able to tell, you lose a lot of crispness and deffintition in the high end.  And I can almost guarentee you'll never notice the differance in a car, if thats where you're listening to them.

[Dartful Dodger]

I dont believe in karma, or god for that matter. its survival of the fittest. the rich will get taken from.

When the drugs, laziness, or a rough prison anal rape takes your life, you'll at least understand why you didn't survive.

[Dexter]

In my opinion no MP3 will sound as good as a cd, they typically use a 5:1 compression ratio, thus removing 80% of the data to recreate the song. Although most people won't be able to tell, you lose a lot of crispness and deffintition in the high end.

[Shape D.]

I'll agree that most people won't be able to hear it. But I can, and I hate it. But I also work as a freelance recording engineer, thus used to listening for subleties in the music.


          FREELANCE =  UNEMPLOYED

[DrewKaree]

Survival of the fittest?  I've got that....although the darned thing wouldn't animate as my av, so I dunno how this'll show up

[Floyd10]

Wal-mart is a huge victim for me, and look... they are in the top ten for income. hmmm... ur right, me snatching some robitussin and cds brought their downfall . Although I plan to do that...

[DrewKaree]

Wal-mart is a huge victim for me, and look... they are in the top ten for income. hmmm... ur right, me snatching some robitussin and cds brought their downfall . Although I plan to do that...

Yeah, it's funny how people gripe about how expensive things are, yet can't seem to understand why any business wouldn't pass on the security measures they pay for to the customer 

Maybe you've never heard how Wal-Mart started out.

Why don't you practice your teenage rebellion on the next Wal-Mart down the block, the local drugstore, and see if you feel the same.

I'm slowly coming to realize that you've never fully thought out any of your "rationalizations" or are so self-absorbed that it wouldn't matter if every box on the shelves said "Floyd10, you will die the minute you leave the store if you steal this product" - you'd view yourself as some martyr for some inane cause.

[Stingray]

...was it even POSSIBLE to record to 8 track...

Yep. I've got a bunch of copied 8 tracks in a box somewhere that I got from my father in law. Somehow I doubt he still has the recorder.

-S