Yay!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/34616.html

:beerchug: .

nice...but dont celebrate too much yet, i guarantee you its only a stay of execution....theres entirely too much money at stake to let it go by the wayside that easily...prolly tonnes of little s**tbird lawyers doing their reviews, precedents, and rewrites as we speak...the saga continues....

Doc Brass... :dodgy:

What does anybody think about this article:

http://www.overclockers.com/tips00503/

Here's my response:

" You think P2P can't be stopped? Well, laws against murder don't stop all murders, but they do make murderers. "

But that is no different from the situation now. Copying music and movies is already illegal, making pirates out of the people doing the copying. If P2P networks are made totally illegal (in the US), the pirates simply become 'pirates and P2P users' - doesn't seem that much worse to me. And I am pretty sure that if they banned P2P networks then somebody somewhere would just come up with a different way to share their files. I read a forum post somewhere saying something like "you can't win a battle against a larger more dedicated army who will work for less" - this is basically the situation we have with P2P and digital media - the people creating the P2P software and people like DVD John are part of a huge group of talented and educated people who are willing to put allot of time into developing file sharing systems for no return. I don't see how media companies can compete authorities against this, particularly seeing as music and video piracy isn't regarded as bad amongst the general public (unlike murder). Ten years ago if a film came out in the cinema and somebody had got hold of a copy of it on VCR, mum dad granny and the dog would happily sit and watch it, fully aware that it was illegal. Similarly people have for ages copied tapes and CDs onto tapes to give to their friends, not caring at all that this activity is illegal - so now how is prosecuting pirates going to get public support?

Similarly, legislation concerning digital technologies always seems to be out of date or circumvented even before it is officially introduced - the people making up new laws and the technology to enforce them are always one step behind the much larger, and just as talented group of people working against them, for nothing.

I can make two parallels between history and this situation:

1) English pirates bringing goods such as tea into the country and selling them on the black market - these pirates were widely liked by the public as taxes on these goods were very high at the time - the only reason the piracy stopped was because the pirates were essentially out priced by legitimate traders after the government lowered the taxes sufficiently (http://www.thehistorychannel.co.uk/classroom/gcse/crime_punishment2_earlymodern.htm, go down to 'smuggling').

2) Poachers in England - large, rich landowners had large numbers of game on their land while the poorer public went hungry. Poachers started to take this game and this crime was very popular because it meant people didn't have to go hungry so often. This only came to an end when economic conditions improved and poaching was no longer necessary.

I didn't find a link for the second one in my brief look, but I did find this: "Laws are pointless if they cannot be enforced and courts are useless if their judgements are treated with contempt." - After speaking with many people about the issue of music piracy, many of whom have little/no knowledge/experience of it, I haven't found one person who supports the record industries position or the 'relevant' legislation. A memorable point made to me about the situation by a 50 year old was "The record industry has always manipulated the system, the only difference now is that they manipulated it into something they don't like".

Does anybody here support the record (and now motion picture) industries position? Can we get some kind of flame war going about this? It feels like a long time since we had one about something other than a petty one on one vendetta :smile:

I don't think you'll have any takers Jeff. as you say, the opnion on "shared" music is pretty unified

scary_jeff: I hate you and your mother and I kicked your dog in the shins.

Will that do? :razz: I know I'm not going to argue in favor of the recording industry. :smile:

Plus recently there was a ruling in Canada that it isn't illegal to use P2P...they said that uploading was still illegal, but knowing my country nothing is ever going to happen.

Don't you have a blank media tax, the proceeds of which go to the record industry?

I personally think the music industry is the opposite of what it should be i.e. it should focus on helping the artist to accomplish their own artistic projects rather than figuring out the best way to gain the most profit in the next quarter. The fact that the publisher gets around 80% of the profits from an album sale is just offensive, even in cases where the band themselves paid for recording, mixing and producing, as well as marketing thmeselves with a street team and creating the album covers and inserts. While it is true that publishers need to support themselves as well, they don't need to take 80% of the album sales as their own. They're just being too greedy, when what they're selling is effectively someone else's creation.

The artists who back up the record companies and complain about lack of profit because of piracy should try to remember why they became a musician in the first place. And don't tell me it's for the money, because almost all musicians get very little money to support themselves. And of course, there's the musicians who are already rich beyond their wildest dreams, who are really in no position to complain about lack of money (at least you've got a contract and the record company pays you a salary, not matter how small it is). If they complain about having to provide for a family or a new boat, or to pay the huge electric bill your home cinema creates, well they sholudn't have made the commitment if they weren't able to support it financially. GO GET A JOB THAT DOES. Almost every job on the planet pays more than a musician, and you know who you can blame for that? Greedy Record Company executives who take too big a bite out of what you made.

It seems the RIAA is simply scared that this new fangled compression technology will be the death of them all. Well, remember back in the early '80s? The same record companies and bands were scared that tape swapping would be the end of their careers. The same with second hand CDs. And then CD-Writers. and then mini-Disc Recorders. And now, after all of these previous pirating techniques before it have come and gone, peer to peer networking will be the death of us all. Hell, those other things hardly made a dent in the long term. Music sales have been going up for a long time, and are certainly a lot higher than when they were during the tape swapping fiasco.

Really, I think that if the music industry doesn't swiftly change it's priorities from making mo' money to financially supporting artists, it should at least accept the fact that piracy is a part of the industry as the music itself, and isn't going away. The music indsutry as it stands is a complete mess, and is certainly the polar opposite of what it really should be.

Good god, what a rant. I apologise for any lack of cohesiveness or correct grammar and spelling, it's almost 3am :smile: