[Pauly]

Saw this today, hey I'm on Virgin LOL. Will be leaving PeerGuardian turned on from now on.

Virgin warns illegal internet music downloaders - Telegraph

:eyeroll:

[K7_Munky]

most of the bands I discovered was through downloading but I dont do it as much anymore

[Crucified]

Originally Posted by Metal Ken

You probably wont find much support for your argument. Personally, i'm for it. i'm fiercely loyal to my favorite bands, however, i do download albums. If i like them, i buy them as soon as i can to show support, and to of course have the band sign when they come by locally. If not, i delete that shit and forget about it. Simple as that.

if i have an album downloaded its generally because i haven't gotten around to mail ordering it or seeing the band live yet. i'll always buy the album if i lik eit and if it's something that's say, out of print i try to buy patches or shirts and such from the tour.

[s7eve]

I watched this the other night http://podcasting.sbs.com.au/videopo...ht_Podcast.mp4 (I'm on an Apple and cannot check it for viruses but it should be right as it's an SBS podcast, the only way I could play it was by opening it with VLC).

The audience is made up of representatives from the Music industry, IP providers and illegal downloaders, I think the program left a little to be desired however it gave a good cross section of views regarding the subject.

[Chris]

Originally Posted by Pauly

Saw this today, hey I'm on Virgin LOL. Will be leaving PeerGuardian turned on from now on.

Virgin warns illegal internet music downloaders - Telegraph

:eyeroll:

Eyeroll indeed. Who the fuck downloads Coldplay?

[Jongpil Yun]

Two words:

PUBLIC GOOD

It's what music has become, FYI.

Like I'm saying, at this point, music is a public good. It fits the definition to a T. It's both non-excludeable, and non-depleteable -- it's just that the public has been slow to realize this. We've seen throughout human history that people will not pay for a public good of their own volition in great numbers. Call it theft all you want, the free-rider problem will not go away.

By the way, when I found out about Meshuggah, I downloaded their entire discography. But guess what. Meshuggah owns, so now I own (almost) every CD of theirs. Still looking for a copy of Chaosphere. Same with Nile, same with Necrophagist, same with Dragonforce, with one difference. After listening for a week, I didn't buy a single damn Dragonforce album.

Take what you will from my anecdote, the point is that music is now a public good, and while I still purchase quite a bit of it, from my point of view, it's essentially a charitable donation.

[s7eve]

So would you also consider a patented design a public good JP?

[Jongpil Yun]

No, because a patented design is excludeable via fines, litigation, or other legal means. EVERYBODY consumes music -- the sheer volume of "offenders" makes it impossible to exclude. Not so with a design. You have a very limited number of producers there. Patented designs are technically club goods, if I recall correctly.

If everybody had Star Trek replicators, or even just some kind of high-fidelity rapid prototyping machine, and used them to produce things for private use, THEN patented designs would likely become a public good.

[Drage]

I've rarely downloaded albums ever since the discovery of myspace music.

[s7eve]

Originally Posted by Jongpil Yun

No, because a patented design is excludeable via fines, litigation, or other legal means. EVERYBODY consumes music -- the sheer volume of "offenders" makes it impossible to exclude. Not so with a design. You have a very limited number of producers there. Patented designs are technically club goods, if I recall correctly.

If everybody had Star Trek replicators, or even just some kind of high-fidelity rapid prototyping machine, and used them to produce things for private use, THEN patented designs would likely become a public good.

I'm confident that your arguments would not stand the test of a court room. Yes everyone consumes music but the majority of people listen to and obtain music legally. An obvious problem with your argument is that you are being exclusive with one and inclusive with the other, everybody uses something covered by patent law but you exclude everything except the Star Trek replicator, not everyone has the latest Missy Higgins release but you cover this by including all music. For the argument to be fair, for the comparison to be accurate you need to apply the same measures to each which you clearly do not.

We are bound by the laws of the land, the law of the land says that it is illegal to download Master of Puppets as Metallica own the content, if you purchase MoP you do not purchase the rights to the music, you are simply purchasing a licence for personal use. There is a separate fee for the licence to public broadcast, by your argument a radio station could play anything they choose without compensating the artist. On the other hand you can legally download Periphery's songs as the content owner has given you that right free of charge.

If we apply your thinking to other areas it is easy to see its flaw. Everyone is having sex, you work out the rest.

I've also seen this argument applied to copying original content from the net and reproducing it, everybody uses language and the written word to communicate however plagiarism is a well established law, you of all people understand the consequences of plagiarism. No one can legally copy a book and distribute it, at the moment it rarely happens due to the economics of copying a book but when it does the law does not look kindly upon it, how is copying a musical work any different to copying a written work?

I like to look at this a little differently. Making music is work, it is reasonable for anyone to have the right to be fairly compensated for their labour. In the case of recorded music the musician is producing a good for which they should have the right to charge whatever they wish, as a consumer you have the right to refuse to pay the asking price if you feel that it is too high however if you choose not to pay for the good you have no right to ownership, if you choose to take it anyway against the wishes of the owner it is theft. What if the owner records something that they do not intend to release and the only copies are in locked premises, now it is very easy to enter a locked home, do you have the right to enter the home and copy it? In the same way just because it is easy to get around the security of a website does not mean it is right to take whatever you wish from it.

There are stolen goods everywhere, if I knowingly obtain a stolen TV I am breaking the law and if I am found in possession of that TV I will be prosecuted, if you know where to look and it is not hard to find out stolen goods are just as easy to find as pirated music. PIRATED music, it's called that for a reason.

I'll finish with this argument regarding everyone is doing it, it can not be controlled. In Australia we have isolated communities in which everyone is raping, abusing and neglecting children. The problem is so widespread that it is more prevalent in those communities than the illegal downloading of music is in the online community, just because everyone is doing it does not make it right.