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Music Survey Request
chopps:
done...
Paul Olson:
I used to download a lot of music, but there isn't a whole lot out there worth the trouble anymore. I don't find it morally wrong at all anymore. They are lobbying successfully to kill fair use and the public domain, there is no way I could ever steal that much from them.I read that the movie or music industry is trying to charge universities a flat fee to pay for all of the people downloading. If that ever happens, I will download everything just to get my money's worth.
Before they got crazy with DRM and fighting downloading, I bought a lot of music (and movies). At least one tape or CD a month for over 20 years, and VHS or DVDs for about 10 years. When the technology became available for me to download replacement copies of music and movies that I owned licenses to, I expected to be able to do it. Then they started claiming that I was a thief because of it. I also downloaded music to try, and if I liked it I bought it. Not anymore.
In my case, I can actually claim that downloading from the internet didn't cost them money. Their reaction to it certainly did.
DaveMMR:
--- Quote from: pcolson on December 07, 2008, 07:41:07 pm ---When the technology became available for me to download replacement copies of music and movies that I owned licenses to, I expected to be able to do it. Then they started claiming that I was a thief because of it. I also downloaded music to try, and if I liked it I bought it. Not anymore.
In my case, I can actually claim that downloading from the internet didn't cost them money. Their reaction to it certainly did.
--- End quote ---
You're charging head first into gray territory. I don't wholly disagree with you (I've, on occasion, downloaded albums for free because I didn't feel like recording my vinyl copy), but buying a copy of something doesn't suddenly give you unrestricted freedom to all subsequent formats or releases of the material. You can make "backups", certainly - but if you owned it there'd be no reason to go and download it, thus the RIAA's reaction to such things.
Secondly, there's no "try it before you buy it" rule in place. That's made up by websites dealing with pirated goods to pretend they're abiding by some obscure law that never existed. I assume that the only person who can authorize a demo of the work is the copyright holder.
Lastly, to say that downloading doesn't cost the record companies money is entirely wrong. It's Business 101. I'm definitely not siding with the RIAA here (if you ask me, their gouging caught up with them). However, someone NOT buying a product is lost income. They still need to pay the bills. So yeah, it cost them money.
Paul Olson:
The riaa claims that you are not buying a physical object, you are buying a license. If I break or lose a cd, I should not lose that license. I wasn't even talking about rebuying licenses that you already own when a new format comes out. I think a license should include that, but I wasn't going into that. How many times should we have to pay for the same thing?
I was saying that I downloaded music to try it, then I bought it if I liked it. Back then, when all of this was new, most sites claimed that you could keep it for up to 24 hours. I went by that rule at the time, as I wasn't really familiar with the RIAA back then.
I wasn't claiming that they don't lose money from downloading, I was claiming that I stopped buying because of their stance on it, not because it was available. I wasn't making a general statement about everyone.
You are right that there is no try before you buy rule, but it is standard practice with any product outside of music, movies, and software. I can't think of a single other product that I can't return if I don't like it. Now we know that before we buy, but it didn't use to be widely known. I have bought copyrighted material that sucked, and I didn't know until after the fact that I couldn't return it like I could everything else in the store.
I don't try to make legal justifications for downloading, it is illegal. I do think that the music industry would lose a lot of cases if they actually went to trial, but I don't know of anyone who could afford to make a legal stand against them. I lot of people ask me how to find stuff online, and I usually tell them it is not worth the risk.
Xiaou2:
When I was starting to buy music on a regular basis as a teen... I started to see the prices climb higher and higher. $10-$12 wasnt too bad... but when titles were $15-$20.. that was the last time Id buy regularly.
Today, you can get a DVD for $7 with a decent movie... yet you cant get a decent CD
for that! How pathetic is that overpricing? A DVD holds 10x the data, and is much more
entertaining.
Not only that... but the Record companies have been reducing the sound
quality with horrific levels of digital compression. Its made the music sound flat,
undetailed, and it even distorts in spots! Why did they do this? To make the cds
sound louder! I will NEVER pay for music again because of this downgrade in quality.
Even many compressed Mp3s I have sound better than some of the latests cds!
Pretty funny, that people who bought the new Metallica Cd, found that the
Guitar Hero tracks sounded 50x better than their overpriced cds!
Even in my teens.. when CDs were first coming into heavy popularity... They started
to change over from AAD, to ADD... and finally to complete Digital DDD. They said that
DDD was supposed to be the best... and yet my AAD cd was easily noticbly better
by MILES! The pure DDD was again, Flat, distorted, awful. And I was far from being called an Audiofile! I was horrified back then... but thought that maybe things would get better. Boy was I wrong!
Not only that... but after sound quality left... shortly after came the cookie cutter
formula. No more use of synths to create original sounds in music. Heck, even
typical instrumentation became all Samples instead of real... which made every song
sound exactly the same. And then finally, the Singers all sung the same way.. and
were not even good singers. Music became a corporate exercise instead of a
wonderful creative process... and they ruined the entire industry, much like they ruined
just about every other area in life.
And now... they want to make you pay $1 or more for a single compressed to hell,
track? lol. I dont think so.
Its bad enough when your CD which was supposed to last forever... wont play
and you get no discount for your previous investment. (They have long had the technology to cheaply make CDs last 100x as long) But now, when your PC and or
music player dies.. all your hard earned cash is Gone. Proof of purchase? Sorry,
dont mean squat to them. There is no foundation for that, intentionally.
Its very shameful and sad. I actually was looking forward to buying the latest
Megadeth cd. However, after hearing how brutally bad they butchered the sound
quality on it... Ive passed. And as much as I Love their music.. .I REFUSE to pay for
that garbage. And NO, Im NOT going to pay $20 for some new format if/when it
kicks in.
Im not made of gold. +$20 for a Blueray disc?! Yeah right! Aint gona happen.
They can make billions more if they drop prices. The mass media costs them pennies to
make.
People should stop buying all media for a year or two. Let the entire industry fall to pieces. Then maybe when people try to rebuild it... it will have some actual Value to it again.
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