Are there any threads discussing the ehtics of downloading music?

My father is a Union Man. It is the American Federation of Musicians, not the Teamsters, but it is a Union. He makes his living playing the guitar and so far my life has been pretty damned good because of it. I got my Card back in September, even though I have no intention of making it my life's work. But he has. And his pension is funded through the sale of those recordings he has worked on. Mind you, he would never rely on such to pay for his golden years - but many are not as lucky - or employed - as my father. The debate about stealing music is not necessarily about the stars. It is about the working men and women who play the sessions and gig as sidemen for your entertainment. What they do each time they pick up an instrument is earn the money to feed and house their families, invest in their future and raise their family.

So, if you steal from them - do you also steal from your grocer? Do you fill your tank and then drive off without paying? I know many still stiff their waiter – thinking they are paid plenty for the work they do – even though any moron knows damn few waiters in this country are paid even minimum wage and rarely get 40 hours a week. I’m just interested in what justification File Sharing junkies have for their theft. And don’t blame the record companies – if you see the inequity in the situation, and still steal what little money is going to the artists – then you have to rationalize your contempt for them, not the faceless Corporation that is complicit in your larceny.

And to add fuel to the fire – I present the unlikeliest of hero – Ms. Courtney Love - who has finally put together an idea worthy of this debate.
http://www.jdray.com/Daviews/courtney.html

go tell it to your blog

cunt.

that's not the same at all, i realize, but it was fun to say.

name-calling narc!

In the end, if there's a living to be made from playing music then people will make it. If there isn't then that's sad but it wouldn't be the first trade to become obsolete or suffer massive redundancies. Courtney Love's article above is perceptive, but she really ought to realise that Capitalism is based on making profit from other people's toil. If you're not satisfied with your job, you're free to find another one. But I don't see any sudden shortage of people who want to be pro musicians.

Perhaps the music industry is just the teeniest bit obsolete? Perhaps they've been flying high on inflated profits for decades and it's time to get back to reality? Just something to consider.

"People used to be able to make a living whaling, too." The music industry argues that it needs to recover costs. We can't see, say, Aimee Mann's tax returns, but she seems to be "making a living" outside the hype machine. Would (again e.g.) Mariah Carey be raking in millions without the popstar industry marketing the hell out of her? And not that she probably doesn't work hard, but she does it in a lot more comfortable conditions than Aimee Mann. Would she still want to be a musician under AM's conditions?

There are two mindsets, I think. That artists get huge because they are "good" - either in terms of their "art" or their ability to "reach" large numbers of people. Or that artists get huge largely on the basis of industry support. Downloading will have different effects depending on which way you think things work.

I think.

I think that 7% referred not to industry revenues but units sold (US albums, specifically: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4566186.stm

2. is there a moral justification for downloading/piracy? no. of course there isn't. there is also no moral justification for driving an SUV, for sending your children to private school, for lying and cheating to make a fast buck (or, for that matter, a fast fuck), for the appalling over-consumption of the capitalist west ... the list goes on. these, i would argue, are more pressing concerns. once we've worked out a way to stop people being selfish cunts who will grab everything they can get their mucky little hands on, then we can address music piracy. it's currently about #234,386,334 on the list.

3. the music industry - hell, the entire entertainment industry - is still working on a 1970s-style bandwagon model. it needs a vast, vast kick up the arse. i'm astonished it's taken it so long to cotton on to the downloading "threat" at all.

4. er, that's it.

-- Mark (r-...), January 2nd, 2006.

That would be a good analogy, except that Authors get money every time the book is borrowed, and of course the library pays for the copies too. My sister is an author and she ends up getting about £500 a year just from 10p everytime someone takes one of her books out of the library. And all of that money goes straight to her, which is pretty positive. I'd love to see a simular system set up for downloading.

Downloading has the potential to bring more money to musicians not less it's just most people are too fucking stupid to see how it could work.

It's like watching thousands of rich people trying to erect a desk without an instruction manual.

Oh god, not that hackneyed old cliché again.

is this true in the US? I've never heard of such a thing.

So why should the customer pay $1/song [or more!] on iTunes? How does that begin to make sense? If anything, it smells like a way for the industry to make even more money while drastically eliminating the need for local distribution models, aka music stores and their clerks.

-- jhoshea (totalwizar...), January 2nd, 2006.

I don't wanna waste my good clichés on you.

Downloading single tracks is good for music because it works again the labels' hit compilation practice, which is killing music.

As for downloading albums, if I download an entire album and like it, then I will more or less always buy the album.

No, in the U.S. libraries benefit from the "right of first-sale," which allows individuals to do what they want with a purchased item: sell it, lend it, copy it, etc.

My question has never been about the industry – I purposely attached the Love diatribe in order to show there is an artist friendly delivery stream in the offing. But no artist deserves to have their work stolen. So far the consensus seems to be that it is easy, relatively risk free and therefore OK. How sad that the moral compass skews so righteously against the creative and yet all this energy has yet to be directed at how to steal from the robber barons of Oil, Electricity or Orange Juice.

so much more than what? blank media and recording devices are ridiculously cheap! and often made by the exact same companies, e.g. sony, that are complaining about them!

There was a time in the not so distant past when people's concept of ownership wasn't the driving force in artistry. Musicians have ALWAYS made their coin by touring, musicians always WILL.

I've yet to meet a singer, session musician or songwriter who is anti-downloading. I've met plenty of industry types who are, though.

i'm not against the creative. i'm against the jerks that the creative get involved with to sell their wares.

[N]o artist deserves to have their work stolen.

I completely agree with this, but I wonder what effect it would have on musicians as a whole. Would there be a significant number of them who would believe that that selling their music would no longer be financially feasible (regardless of its truth)? Would it hurt the art form as a whole?

Much more than they need. US copyright law directs a set royalty be paid to the companies whose copyright may be violated by those who purchase such products.

If you make a piece of art, WONDERFUL! That's a great, great thing, one of the greatest things in the world. If people like it and want to pay money for it, GOOD FOR YOU! As a critic, I'm gonna try as hard as I can to bring your art to those people (who, hey, can read my words for free, even by just going to a bookstore and browsing).

If they don't want to pay for your art -- and for most of human history, aside from monarchs and rich patrons, they often didn't, right? -- then, well, yeah, that's not fair, but as you may have heard life isn't fair, is in fact often monstrously unjust in much worse ways listed upthread. That's why we need art to begin with!

Bad argument and you know it. The digital era and CD/DVD writing means that the quality of the copy relative to the "original" and the durability of the copy are both virtually 100%. Cassettes could tear, melt, whatever, and sound quality was variable.

Plus the ability of a 20-year-old with a computer and an ADSL line to accumulate a reasonable facsimile of the entire history of the pop music over the space of months... well, even the most avid taper couldn't pull that off.

So your argument comes down to ease of accumulating quantity? Do you think the average 20 year old with an ADSL line is going to BUY the entire history of pop music? Do you think that access to that ADSL line is going to keep that 20 year old from buying cds at the local store? I certainly don't.

i don't think it's a bad argument. millions of people bought blank tapes and copied albums onto them and gave them away. and tapes sound fine!

There are free downloads all over the place. Yet you seem to think that it is OK to steal someone else’s property who has not given that permission. If you find an artist who freely gives you their work, OK. But you are assigning this Non-value to all music based on what I can assure you is not the valuation used by the musicians and producers of the tracks.

Frankly, this view of the value of a musicians labor is insulting enough that I think most would prefer you not listen to their work. The Klezmer Orchestras in the Bronx expected a paycheck after performing in the 20’s. Django and Grapelli expected to be paid for their recordings in the 30’s. I expect the piano player in Miss Kitty’s saloon got a bag of coin each night. It is the ease of theft that leaves you grasping here.

Sure musicians’ tour. My dad was on the road 190 days last year. Does that mean the 70 days he spent in the studio doing sessions should be thrown out for free to whoever wants them? It is not his intention as the performer – and contractually he is protected. There are penalties built in if the label does things with his work that are not in the initial agreement. You do not have the right to add a rider to his contract – or any other performer – so you must be stealing. Don’t romanticize this. It is not you helping the poor downtrodden artist who can not help themselves. They have a Union – just like the Guilds protected the musicians of the Middle Ages from those who would try to steal the rightful fruits of their labor. You take to satisfy your own greed. They have set a price for those who would like their work. If no one pays it – they would lower it. But if it continues to be stolen, then the next step would be to assess a fee for every Modem sold, for each new internet device sold, for every CD, DVD, Jump Drive and Hard Drive sold. As long as their work has this level of value – that people would flout the law – they can pretty much get whatever they want from those who make such laws.

-- Tom Quixote (carbonate...), January 2nd, 2006.

OTM

1. The idea that people will create music "as long as there is a way for them to get paid is ludicrous. People will create music even if they can't get paid. I do.

2. I (and I'm sure many of you) go to work every day and create stuff. I don't get paid a piece of the purchase price of every piece of electronics that I designed. MAYBE if I happen to patent an idea, I can get a limited time to license my idea to others for a piece of the action. What I will NEVER get is paid for something I created until 75 years after my death.

3. Filesharing is not stealing. It may not be ok, but it's not stealing. It is copying.

4. Show me the artist, who, if confronted with someone who genuinely could not pay for their music, would tell them to fuck off and come back when they had money. True, this argument is currently somewhat disingenuous, as anyone who is downloading music is someone who, by definition, has money (for their computer, broadband, etc.), but as time marches on, this question becomes more relevant.

5. The point should not be whether or not people should be able to share music/movies, etc. It should be about how do we pay artists to create. Is it time for a broadband tax? A new patronage system? Labels with salaries? Some kind of pension fund?

I don't know the answer, but I do know that by reducing the argument to a stealing vs. not-stealing tautology, we are overlooking the wonderful fact that we have, through digital technology, found a way to eliminate scarcity in the arts. This is something that should be celebrated, not feared.

Yeah, except that US law says it's stealing, not copying.

Frankly, this view of the value of a musicians labor is insulting enough that I think most would prefer you not listen to their work.
This sort of strident snarly aloof attitude doesn't really strike me as the sound of someone who wants to talk ethics; it's a shriek of "YOU'RE ALL WRONG" that sure as hell don't facilitate further discussion. If you'd like to talk, I'm perfectly happy to do it and to listen, but if you're just here to troll, let me know so I don't waste my time.

One point: Downloading music does NOT negatively affect record sales. The percentage of people who download music from p2p or audioblogs or any other source which does not pay the artist or label directly that would have otherwise bought the album is beyond negligible. The tired and silly trope of the "music pirate", downloading gazillions of tracks without ever paying for albums, is a myth of such scarcity that they might as well be narwhals. There is NO LOSS. No animals are harmed in the making of the movie. What seems to stick in your craw, this idea that a listener is taking the efforts of the musician for granted, strikes me as a very alien, possessive and patently unartistic way of thinking.

I do know that by reducing the argument to a stealing vs. not-stealing tautology, we are overlooking the wonderful fact that we have, through digital technology, found a way to eliminate scarcity in the arts. This is something that should be celebrated, not feared.
What he said.

I definitely think they shouldn't be. And from that file-sharing becomes not merely justifiable but a moral duty.

Compare slavery. It was wrong to treat human beings as property too. But for a while, the legal system allowed that to be the case. It wasn't that in the 18th century it was "right" to treat people as property. It was always wrong. But the law was in error.

Now, there were plenty of people who made an "honest" living trading in slaves. And when slavery was abolished, some of these people suffered. And we should, to a certain extent, feel sorry for them. Like anyone else, they were wrenched out of an economic niche they had adapted themselves to and had to suffer economic loss.

But the fact we feel sorry for them doesn't mean we should return to slavery.

Now, I'm not saying that treating music as property is *as* bad as treating people as property. But it is analagous in several ways :

The law treated something as property that shouldn't be. I feel sorry for all musicians who work hard and make a living under a system where ideas are treated as property. But because I feel sorry for them, doesn't mean that it's right to treat ideas as property.

And now we have the technological capacity for large scale civil disobedience against intellectual property law.

And the musicians will have to do something else.

If the people who say musicians always made their money from live performances are right, then musicians won't suffer much. I suspect that's true for a medium popularity rock-band but not a skilled session musician. And session musicians will lose their careers.

That's hard. But it's hard for a steel worker or coal miner who's job goes abroad too. Or anyone else who loses a job or vocation because of economic shifts. And unlike the case of the steel worker which is possibly morally neutral (ie. there's no reason why the British steelworker should have the job more than the Chinese or vice versa) we have to welcome the actual shift to ideas as non-property.

-- Reggie (reggi...), January 2nd, 2006.

No, it's called "copyright infringement." The RIAA calls it stealing.

And, at least for now, US law is not JUST a continuation of RIAA/MPAA policy. They keep trying, but the push-back from constituants is loud enough that congress hasn't COMPLETELY capitulated to RIAA/MPAA interests.

but i think you overstate this:

session musicians will lose their careers

not because of file-sharing, they won't. there have been lots of threats to session musicians' careers over the decades, from the advent of self-contained pop and rock bands to sampling technology to various advances in computerized recording, all of which have made it easier for musicians to make records without the aid of pros or virtuosos (and all of which would be silly, and difficult, to legislate against, though you know the musicians' union would push for legislation if it could). but file-sharing doesn't affect this equation at all. musicians still have to make records, and i'm not aware of anyone having seriously proposed that musicians have changed the way they make records because of the fear that someone might download them for free.
and i'll take alma's word for it that her dad's pension is affected by record sales, which i wasn't aware of but which makes perfect sense, but typical sessionmen (including, presumably, alma's dad) do not earn their basic pay based on sales. they get flat fees, just like normal working people.

With some sorts of records it does.

Hit compilations saw a seemingly unlimited growth in sales until Napster came along. The growth has stagnated by now, and they are even on their way down. The kids download the most recent hits and burn their own compilations rather than buying compilations put together by labels.

Teenagers download a lot of stuff they dig to such an extent they would normally have bought it if they didn't have the download opportunity. This probably has a negative effect on hip-hop sales and hard rock sales in particular.

The download opportunity may also mean old hard-to-find back catalogue titles sell even less, as people prefer downloading that old album rather than order it and wait for months.

However, I would say, in almost all other cases, downloading has a positive effect rather than a negative one. I have bought a lot of albums during the past 4-5 years that I would never have bought hadn't it been for the fact that I was able to listen to mp3 versions at first.

...

No, it's called "copyright infringement." The RIAA calls it stealing.

Even if you argue that it is ethically ok, you can't deny that it is stealing under accepted definitions of the word (note that under some circumstances stealing can be ethical). Webster's New World Dictionary has "steal" as "to take or appropriate (another's property, ideas, etc.) without permission, dishonestly, or unlawfully, esp. in a secret or surreptitious manner." That's definition no. 1. If you recognize the existence of intellectual property, then it follows that copyright infringement is stealing, since it is the unlawful appropriation of intellectual property belonging to the copyright holder. Also relevant is the "surreptitious manner" in which much downloading takes place--nicknames in p2p networks, invite-only torrent sites, etc.

If you do not recognize the existence of intellectual property, then the notion of "stealing" would have little meaning to you, since it necessarily invokes the idea of laws that you do not define yourself.

So, to set right the false oppositions drawn above: 1) it is copyright infringement; 2) which is a kind of stealing; 3)and it is done by means of copying (which is of course why it infringes copyright).

To state the obvious at dreary length: It costs money to make records. This is true because it costs money to survive. Somebody has to pay for the food and the rent, and somebody has to pay for the transportation and healthcare (if you are getting fancy). Furthermore, when your tweeters are blown or your hard drive bites the dust or the neck of your bass cracks etc. that stuff has to get replaced. If, to save money, you record at home, whatever system you record consists of computers and components that cost money. The mastering of your finished product costs money. The tools of the trade cost money. Furthermore, the time that you spend working carefully day after day on your art is time you are not spending generating an income at some other career- the time comes from somewhere, and time you give to your art is time you stole from whatever it is you do to make the money to give you the free time to make the art in the first place. (Unless you are lucky enough to have the perilous opportunity to try to make a living making your art.) It is more expensive to make some kinds of records than it is to make others. No sooner need this be mentioned then inevitably people point towards the innovative, wonderful records that have been made with limited gear or at almost no expense in almost every genre (and here's where people bring up Springsteen's "Nebraska" being a 4 track record or the Germs "Forming" 7" or the straight-to-walkman recording of Throbbing Gristle's first album or most punk and hardcore or lots of early rap not to mention the entirety of the home taper noise scene and the lo fi indie pop scene). That said, if you don't want to make a lo-fi DIY made at home on the cheap record, if for some insane reason, you want strings on your record, and you have asked someone who lives in one city to play on one thing but they play an incredibly quiet/delicate acoustic instrument (harp, clavichord) that needs to be professionally recorded if it's going to work and so on and so on etc. suddenly the expenses add up. The rationale of "well you *can* make a record cheaply" does not fit every person's aesthetic. Frankly I'm glad that those records I've already listed sound the way they do- but you couldn't make Van Dyke Parks "Song Cycle" on a 4 track and you couldn't make Billie Holiday's "Lady In Satin" on a 4 track and you couldn't make David Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars" in Garageband on your laptop etc. Now as long as you are a touring musician and you don't completely suck and you're really really really lucky, you will be able to make some money touring and selling merch etc. But that leaves out a lot of people who we only know about because some brave fool at a record company decided to throw some money at them to make a record. Maybe they wanted a big hit because they were evil sharks, maybe they wanted a big hit because they wanted lots of people to like the same artist they liked. For whatever reason, the record wasn't a big hit, the artist sank like a stone, and then years later people are ranting and raving about a Linda Perhacs or a Vashti Bunyan or a Karen Dalton etc. etc. (i.e. people who are incredibly unique talented artists but who were not well oiled touring machines and primo business people). Without someone funding the recording (and that someone tends to be the supervillain record label) the recorded evidence of their work wouldn't exist.
My points are few and hopefully uncontroversial:
1) not every record company is motivated by "evil"
2) it costs money to make records
3) artists have to live somehow, and if they can't make a living making their art that is going to affect the kind of art they make, and often it's going to impact the scale of the canvas on which they work- if everyone is a hobbyist with a day job, that's going to allow some awesome work to still get made, but certain kinds of statements are going to be far less likely. Nick Drake could easily have made "Pink Moon" at home; it's doubtful that he could have made "Bryter Layter" at home. Personally, I'm glad that a label existed and threw enough money around to keep Joe Boyd going as an engineer.
Obviously to download music is to express curiosity and interest in someone's art- that's a totally positive thing, and often it's the first step towards finding out more about an artist, or going to see them live if they tour. Downloading is inevitable given the nature of current technology so the only thing to do is to try to adjust to it. But the fantasy scenario that exactly the same range and diversity of great art is just going to keep springing forth fully formed from a musician's head straight to your hard drive once the last A+R dude is strung up by the guts of the last record company robber baron with no money changing hands between said musician and the real world in which that musican has to eat and make rent is really corny. Sure some record companies are run by creeps who hate art and are just sleazy and evil. But most people I know that run their own label and go without so they can put out somebody else's record and give up rooms of their houses to be occupied by cardboard boxes filled with somebody else's artwork- they are not evil people, sorry. They're people who are so insanely supportive of music that they spend their life trying to evangelize on its behalf. Usually they go away with little enough to show for it- but to compare them to slave owners is out of line.

Depends on the definition of "to appropriate". Going by the definitions at m-w.com, the main definition is "to take exclusive possession of" (my emphasis). According to this definition, copyright infringement is not stealing, even if one recognizes the concept of intellectual property. (If a copy disappeared from elsewhere on downloading, it *would* be stealing; as would obviously be downloading the *rights* to the song (what a thought!) instead of just a copy of it).

Definition number three in the same dictionary is "to take or make use of without authority or right", according to which your interpretation is the sound one.

Having said that, dictionary definitions are not really the point here (oh no, she stole a kiss, call the police!), legal ones are.

Re: appropriate, my Webster's has "to take for one's own or exclusive use" (my emphasis)--and even without that I think we can agree that appropriation basically means taking for oneself something that previously did not belong to one. Esp. as the definition I cited said "take or appropriate", i.e. parsing the notion of appropriation is not really necessary. Do you think that when the definition says that you can appropriate someone's ideas without permission it means that the person will no longer have those ideas. If intellectual property has meaning, then copyright infringement is stealing. No that is not the legal term, but I don't think stealing is a crime in the u.s. anyway--theft, fraud, larceny (each of these w/various subdivisions) etc. are. More specific.

No, if the topic is the ethics of downloading, then legal definitions are not the point.

Fair point, as is the theft, fraud, larceny etc one.

Do you think that when the definition says that you can appropriate someone's ideas without permission it means that the person will no longer have those ideas

Mno, but if it was said to me that A had appropriated the ideas of B, I think I'd feel it was implicit that A had also taken credit for coming up with the idea, ie that the "creator's rights" were perceived to be *taken away from* B.

If intellectual property has meaning, then copyright infringement is stealing.

Again, I think it's not as clear-cut as this: Intellectual property can be seen as the right to be identified as the creator of a work, idea etc, rather than the right to control its use. In the same way, I'd say that the ethics of the patent systems currently in use -- eg rights to be compensated for work and ideas vs rights to deny its use for the common good -- are not obvious.

Just to be clear: My doubts about the illegal copying = stealing equation is not meant as an ethical defence of the former. For this reason I suppose this particular subdiscussion may be a bit of a thread derailment into nitpicking and sophistry (for which I take my fair share of the blame), and so would rather not go further into it. I'd be happy to read any comments you have, though.

(I guess there may be a Marxist-type capital-vs-labour situation lurking here?)

we were talking about corrupt and bloated multi-nationals. not Island records in 1968 or music lovers in rooms filled with cardboard boxes. The cardboard box people who love music are PRECISELY the people who benefit from the internet and downloading the most. Never in a gazillion years could they have reached that many people before the internet. Or sell that many records DIRECTLY to fans without a corrupt distribution network to deal with. most small labels don't end up having much to show for their efforts. this is true. that's the same with anything. not everyone is going to make a good living doing what they love. I'm insanely supportive of music and i have spent my life evangelizing on its behalf and I ask for NOTHING in return. And I promise not to bore you with the stories of blood, sweat, tear, & money it has cost me to live my life if you promise not to bore me with stories about how expensive it is to record a good harp player.

i did benefit from major labels throwing money at people in the 60's and 70's because they had no clue what would hit or what was good. but you can bet that someone was hoping linda perhacs was gonna be another joni mitchell and make some money. she wasn't signed for charity. here are some recent acts that major labels have thrown millions of dollars at, 30 years from now, who will be the next Perhacs? And their are hundreds more where they came from. And there always have been cuz the big boys don't no shit about shit:

Cellophane
Slo Burn
downset
Drain sth
Snot
Kilgore
Ultraspank
Monster Voodoo Machine
Flashpoint
Pushmonkey
Apartment 26
Taproot
Slaves On Dope
Shuvel
Primer 55
Deadlights
Union Underground
Systematic
Godhead
Nonpoint
Spineshank
No One
Pressure 4-5
Pure Rubbish
Beautiful Creatures
Soil
Flaw
3rd Strike
Pulse Ultra
Glassjaw
Switched
Grade 8
Twisted Method
Unloco
Depswa
Motograter
Memento

I'd guess a lot of people would want to go down that road. I think intellectual property is a good thing in general, but it's not an absolute. It's something which might have to be limited. Often enough, the law agrees. In the pharmaceutical industry, for instance, the pharma companies have sole rights over their discoveries for ten years, then anyone can produce the drug. When you get the likes of McCartney or whoever making literally hundreds of millions of pounds by dint of being a good songwriter at the right place and time, you have to wonder whether the rewards really equal the work done.

The interesting thing about downloading is that it makes violation of current intellectual property laws so incredibly easy and relatively risk-free. And that makes people wonder whether it really is so evil to deprive incredibly rich people or organisations of the few pounds you theoretically owe them for using their intellectual property. Let's face it, we wouldn't necessarily think it's ethically wrong to take a few bucks off Asda or Sainsburies. The main motivation for not stealing from gigantic corporations like those is not that we feel it's ethically wrong, but that we don't want to be caught shoplifting.

well yeah of course that's true. and it has nothing whatsoever to do with downloading. it began the moment someone invented a synth that sounded decent enough, which was a good 40 years ago if you want to start with the chamberlain and the mellotron, for example. blame them, not downloaders. actually, i'm sure it started way before that. but in either case, downloading was/is not the problem here.

Maybe you'd like to see it that way, but the law defines copyright quite clearly, and it's copyright I have in mind when I invoke the ideas of intellectual property and unauthorized downloading. It means that someone has the right to authorize and/or limit the dissemination of a work. If you don't have their permission (explicit or implicit--e.g. buying a cd or crappy itunes file is done with their permission), you are violating their copyright, taking the work for your own without their permission, and illegally. It really is that simple, and again, whether or not it is ethical, it is stealing. As is selling promo copies, by the way--and who cares about that?

um, record companies might think that that's stealing, but i'm reasonably sure the u.s. government wouldn't agree. a sticker on a cd from sony or universal that says "promo only, not for sale" doesn't quite have the weight of any actual law behind it.

But it's not as simple as that! Notions of intellectual property are very arbitrary! In some areas, intellectual property is defined in time, in others not, etc. If you invent a drug, your distribution rights last for 10 years. If you right a book, copyright runs out 70 years after you're dead (or something like that). If you post to an internet board, you probably have no distribution rights as such. Etc, etc. With such a hugely flexible and clearly artifical concept as intellectual property rights, it becomes pretty hard to nail down what's ethical and what's not, what's stealing and what's not. And maybe there are degrees of it too. Surely it's way more reprehensible to illegally download the work of some struggling artist than that of the Rolling Stones?

I'm actually not sure about promo copies, but I always thought that was a similar copyright thing? Not sure really.

in all this time i have heard no gripes at all from anyone about the second-hand trade boom thanks to ebay, amazon marketplace etc. why are record companies seemingly satisfied by second-hand trade assuming it means the items were sold to result in financial gain for the company/artist only once? not that that can be proven at all. how expensive is it now to duplicate CD packaging to the extent that copies can be sold online? it is surely rife, perhaps not as common as simple downloading. does anyone really monitor that to a sufficient level? can it be done? it seems as unstoppable as illegal downloading.

>Yes, the law is often arbitrary

No, the law is being fucked with so Disney can have their "Infinity Minus One" duraiton of copyright.

xpost 2:

Stevem, I seem to remember to remember the RIAA making *some* noise about the 2nd-hand market a few years back, but I think even they thought that going after that would be a step too far.

xpost re: promos
Hm, probably the courts would say that in accepting a promo copy you're agreeing to the label's assertion that it is their property. So you're knowingly selling their property--not sure how liable the store is for buying it, or a buyer down the line would be for knowingly purchasing it (since it's reasonable to assume that a store has the right to sell the stuff it's selling). All very petty stuff, obv.

You've never heard of me. I mail you a $100 bill with a note saying "Put this somewhere safe. It's mine. Don't even think about spending it. If I am ever in your town, I'll swing by and pick it up."

you will not be able to find a single lawyer who doesn't work for the record industry who agrees with that.

On the other hand, you upload a promo for illegal sharing, that's about as dang unethical as it gets.

Some very hard to find album, you record, rip and share, generally won't cost anyone any lost revenues. And when the album is reissued/remastered, it's more the likely the person who cared enough to look for it and download it would buy the new snazzy packaged and remastered version.

That's beyond odious. xhuxk's not on this thread but even if he weren't music editor, that wouldn't fly. It wouldn't with lots of others, too. And it would be a big zero at newspaper feature sections, I bet. It looks custom-designed for free-lancers and other hangers-on with which the label wishes to establish a quid pro quo relationship, just the way the Velvet Revolvers of the industry are promoted. I get labels trying to leverage something out of me 99 perecent of the time.

More music journalists should write about the practices in an adversarial manner. It wouldn't fix it but some people would start thinking more reasonably.

I'd say the decades long practice of record stores selling promotional copies pretty much demonstrates there's little or no legal exposure. There was one used chain in southern Cal that refused to take promos in a weird manner. It went out of business.

Second, there's no way for a record company to prove that a promotional copy sent to you was sold by you, even if it shows up in a store. There's always a possible exception to the rule: Amoeba, for example, requires you to sign for cash received. However, they don't align what was just passed at the buyback counter with who is specifically receiving cash for what, so that would not even establish a chain of custody.

In any case, since promos are routinely given away by the people who receive them, or tossed into communal "grab" piles at places like publications, even a Cd digitally watermarked to a specific ID can't be chained to the person.

"Shouldn't an artist be allowed to decide how their music is distributed?"

I think the answer to that is (legally and ethically) - sort-of.

Right now, radio can play your record, and you, as an artist (or copyright holder), do not get to set a price for that privilege. People can play a cover version of your music, or even record and sell one, for a nominal license fee. Fair use dictates that some copying or backing up of content is allowable (although much of this is still in legal limbo, with people afraid to be the test case). So maybe the "answer" would be some sort of compulsory license for music.

And as for the semantic hair-splitters (eek) - Just because something is illegal does not mean it is "stealing." Copyright infringement is illegal, but it is NOT stealing. Just as murder is illegal but is not stealing.

Throw them away. I don't get a ton of promotional copies but in the amount I do, a noticeable portion gets thrown in the trash. Copy protection and odious deliveries have noticeably trended upward in the last few years and there are now a lot of cases in which I'll take a look at the thing and dispose of it without listening.

The record companies practice what they believe they can get away with. Since so very few journalists bite them on the hand for it, there's not much of a cost associated with such practices.

Here's how I rationalize it. It's very easy, really. Watch! I don't buy new albums. This means you wouldn't get my money no matter what. Period. Anything I buy comes from the used record store and I pay what it is actually worth to me: $3 - $7. I have been buying used albums since before the invention of mp3s. I don't have time to sit around and download crap, but you can bet if I did you wouldn't notice because the last album I bought new was a rare oddity from many years ago, I'm sure. Sometimes I even rip 10 of the used CDs to single mp3 CD to save a little space and sell the originals back to the store! That's how little value the physical product has to me.

Also, this is just my personal opinion, but I don't happen to believe that musicians should be multimillionaires and mafia-owned record companies definitely should not be multimillionaires. I feel that too much emphasis and adulation is given to entertainers, anyway. Often, the "entertainment" does not enrich my life in any way. In fact, many artists who are rich as hell and idolized by millions are often divisive and probably create more problems in the family unit and the communities around the world than the amount of good they do. I'm glad people are starting to wake up to the fact that stars are not gods anymore. They're just people, often idiots, who fade into obscurity and embarrassing old age.

Very few artists do I actually want to support. The ones I have been impressed with are often so damn rich already, I don't feel the slightest bit bad about buying their albums at used record stores.

If used records were made illegal? I would stop buying music and listen to the radio.

To the megastar musicians complaining about losing their money:
So, you want to sing and dance for a living? That's great, so does everyone. So, you got a big break? That's great, but I don't respect the smoke and mirrors act that is promotion and publicity. That's great if people want to pay $15 - $18 for a CD, but it seems they don't. So, capitalism being what it is, it looks like it's time for a little reassessment on the part of the music industry. Maybe the big guys aren't fit to run the business anymore. It doesn't seem like they have their finger on the pulse of the nation, anyway.

http://cgi.ebay.com/YES-Tormato-Relayer-2-on-1-CD-NEW-SEALED_W0QQitemZ4813954512QQcategoryZ307QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Also, complaining that "sales are down by x%" willfully ignores the way music-related spending is *distributed* as a result of downloading. Lots of people buy records that they wouldn't have bought without d/l'ing them first (as mentioned many times on this thread). I've spent money on gigs that I wouldn't have attended had I not d/l'ed the music first. Repeat: I would have NEVER spent that money if I hadn't d/l'ed the music first.

Suppose I spend 80% of my money on CD's and 20% on gigs. Then I decide to d/l more and buy only the music I really really like. I discover more bands that way, attend more gigs, and now I spend 50% on CD's and 50% on gigs. I'm spending just as much money, but less on CD's so now CD sales are down, record companies are raging mad, and again it's all my fault.

Or how about this: without d/l'ing (legal or illegal), how many billions of dollars less would be spent on iPods and other mp3 players? In light of this, Apple was the first to plan their business model accordingly -- they realize that fluctuations in music sales (iTunes) might be correlated with iPod sales. If sales dip, you can recover your overall bottom line by selling more iPods. Sony, OTOH, wants me to buy CD's, NOT copy them (and until recently, leaving my computer vulnerable to viruses in the process), and STILL expects me to shell out money for mp3 walkmans. So fuck Sony.

The secondary market is no different for an album than it is for a car. GM does not expect you to send them a check if you buy a second hand Caddy. But they sure as hell have a right to expect one from the original purchaser. Where that fails to address this issue is that you can not Xerox a car. But you can take the work of a musician and copy it. But can does not make it right. It is theft.

Again – there are many artists who offer their work for free. But those who do not should not be fodder for your avarice. The only justification you offer is a lack of respect for the industry and an ideology that Music is somehow less worthy of being protected and owned because it is art. So is a novel. Would you suggest that a person is justified in making copies of a book and passing it around? It says not to do that right on the inside. But because it is art these people do not deserve protection?

People will always create music. And if they share that creation – great. But when they enter into the business of putting together a record, using dozens of people in the process, create something more than just a little ditty – instead making a huge ass entertainment for the people willing to pay for it – then it is their intent that it is property to be sold. Not art for the sake of art. This is not about music. It is about a commodity created for commerce and being hijacked by thoughtless people who think they have some moral entitlement to another’s labor.

I see that in a lot of the music downloaders. Many many peope listen. And then there are many others who just witlessly pile stuff up on hard disks because the person with biggest pile wins, or something like that.

I've known several small labels that have done things like put codes hidden in the packaging to trace who's selling promos.

Believe me, when you run a record label where you're PRAYING you'll sell 1,000 copies, and months before the CD is released it shows up on eBay, it stings like hell. I think, particularly for small labels, where you're not blanketing everyone but sending out promos to specific, relevant, potentially interested people, that those people would respect the label enough not to sell the promo, at least prior to release, and not to upload the whole thing to soulseek. Doesn't always work that way, though.

No, but it's perfectly easy to read books for free at a book store or a library. The music industry is opposed to the notion of "try before you buy" -- the only reasons being, one must assume, that it is greedy or offering an inferior product.

Most albums I have downloaded I have since deleted, just as most promos I have received lie cluttering my living room floor, awaiting my "stealing" them by selling them or giving them away (would that anyone even wanted them!).

What would you suggest I do if I just want to hear the songs on "X&Y" once or twice and determine that I don't want to buy them? Must I first BUY them for you to be morally/legally satisfied?

OTM

As a specific practice to gather some perhaps valid intel for the purpose of cutting people off a promotional list, I'd agree it could have some use. Beyond that, probably not.

Believe me, when you run a record label where you're PRAYING you'll sell 1,000 copies, and months before the CD is released it shows up on eBay, it stings like hell.

I'm sure it does, Dan. I have an aquaintance who has been battling pirated copies of one of his artist's CDs on eBay and Amazon for some time. He's really angry about it and has a right to be.

Yeah, I wonder how many of the people with 10000000 GB hard drives full of MP3s actually listen to even a fraction of that stuff. And by listening I mean more than just previewing a few seconds of a track. It usually takes me at least a couple of listens all the way through an album before I can start to decide if I like it or not. I wonder how people have the time to listen to even a small fraction of this stuff.

yeah. or do something like that broadband tax someone mentioned. just tax all the isp's a flat fee every month and be done with it. make everyone stop crying. i'm sick of the hypocritical crying and wailing. why won't you buy our 20 dollar CDs anymore!!?? Boo Hoo!

Another question: Would anyone give a crap about MIA, Lady Sovereign or lots of other stuff from the UK if it hadn't been peddled by a label with a significant promotional budget and just put up for download as Lady anybodies on Myspace?

Venturing a guess -- No, because the signal to noise ratio is too high on the latter level.

xpost to Marc

It's a thought that has popped into the head of many. I hear the beer is really cheap in Bulgaria and Rumania.

But could purchasers who might have liked the tracks been taking for free rather than buying them down WalMart? Maybe, except the only album in the last three months of the year to spend more than a single week at the top of the chart was Eminem's Greatest Hits. So, the most successful album comprised almost entirely of tracks you could pick up off the first incarnation of Napster, and which would already have been in most fan's possessions one way or another. It all suggests people will buy decent stuff they already own if the package is right, but have no intention of shelling out for substandard stuff they don't already have.

Have you never dreamed of living in a record store, able to listen to whatever you want whenever you want? Someday that will be possible for me, and it'll fit in a tiny box inside my computer.

Perhaps in doing so I have done something unethical. But at the same time, I spend about $400/month on cds/shows/etc. I evangelize and proselytze for my favorite acts, and styles, and eras.

And you know, if I couldn't download stuff to listen to, I wouldn't have legitimately purchased all those scores of records. I probably wouldn't be spending my cash on Eddie Gale records because I wouldn't know who he was. I wouldn't be digging on my Archie Shepp vinyl because I probably wouldn't even have a record player, which I purchased so that I could buy the albums I couldn't find on cd.

Now I also have downloaded a number of albums that I absolutely adore, and yet would never go to the store and pay for them. Why? Well, I prefer my music to be mp3 or vinyl. CDs are a waste of space, and offer none of the peculiar charms (inefficiencies?) of vinyl, tapes, 8-tracks, etc. I don't want to buy a CD that I have no place for in my life.

As a side note, imagine if all the critics didn't get free CDs with which to sell to acquire other CDs of interest. Imagine how many albums have only come to light because some guy sold three copies of Kidz Bop to acquire them? Not saying that it's wrong or even comparable, just interesting.

Nope. Because the pleasure of visiting a record store isn't duplicated by sitting in front of a computer, no matter how bloated the hardware.

I evangelize and proselytze for my favorite acts, and styles, and eras.

Sure.

Well, I prefer my music to be mp3 or vinyl. CDs are a waste of space, and offer none of the peculiar charms (inefficiencies?) of vinyl, tapes, 8-tracks, etc. I don't want to buy a CD that I have no place for in my life.

If you're trying to be logical, this makes no sense. As neurotic idiosyncracy, OK.

As a side note, imagine if all the critics didn't get free CDs with which to sell to acquire other CDs of interest.

Amateur.

no it's not. promos are not considered saleable goods. hence, being ppromos.

If you knew that every time you illegally downloaded an MP3 a kitten (somewhere on earth) would die, would you still do it?

# of ugly kittens in world / total # of kittens in world = probability of offing an ugly kitten

Because it's not that complicated. Reading The Ethicist in the New York Times Sunday Mag for awhile and you get the idea what he's going to tell you.

For example, "Dear Ethicist: I download pirated music every day because I can and I want to accumulate the equivalent of a record store in my computer. But I'm a rock and roll preacher, a proselytizer for the music. That's good right?"

Answer: No, you're rationalizing that stealing their music is OK because you SAY you're a booster for them with the implication that
you're cheerleading benefits the band as much or more than simply
buying their CDs."

Yes.

Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun wrote (somewhat obliquely) in 1985

One reason of which...1985 and Harry Blackmun wasn't thinking about the existence of a virtual thing placed in cybserspace which could be downloaded and immediately converted into a material -- a very physical thing.

an old story from the LA Weekly about life for most bands on major labels, using the example of Mary's Danish (remember them):
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/99/18/music-pearson.shtml

i am definitely more likely to buy something on an indie label than i am on a major, though.

CLOSE SHOT A WHISKEY TUMBLER

That sits on an oak side bar under a glowing green bankers
lamp, as two ice cubes are dropped in. From elsewhere in
the room:

Man (off)
I'm talkin' about friendship. I'm talkin' about
character. I'm talkin' about--hell, Leo, I ain't
embarassed to use the word--I'm talkin' about
ethics.

Whiskey is poured into the tumbler, filling it almost to
the rim, as the offscreen man continues.

. . . You know I'm a sporting man. I like to
make the occasional bet. But I ain't that
sporting.

THE SPEAKER

A balding middle-aged man with a round, open face. He
still wears his overcoat and sits in a leather chair in the
dark room, illuminated by the offscreen glow of a desk
lamp. This is Johnny Caspar.

Behind him stands another man, harder looking, wearing an
overcoat and hat and holding another hat--presumably
Caspar's. This is Bluepoiont Vance.

Caspar (cont'd)
When I fix a fight, say--if I pay a three-to-one
favorite to throw a goddamn fight--I figure I got
a right to expect that fight to go off at three-
to-one. But every time I lay a bet with this
sonofabitch Bernie Bernheim, before I know it the
odds is even up--or worse, I'm betting the short
money. . .

Behind Caspar we hear the clink of ice in the tumbler and a
figure emerges from the shadows, walking away from the
glowing bar in the backgound.

. . . The sheeny knows I like sure things. He's
selling the information I fixed the fight. Out-
of-town money comes pourin' in. The odds go
straight to hell. I don't know who he's sellin'
it to, maybe the Los Angeles combine, I don't
know. The point is, Bernie ain't satisfied with
the honest dollar he can make off the vig. He
ain't satisfied with the business I do on his
book. He's sellin' tips on how I bet, and that
means part of the payoff that should be ridin' on
my hip is ridin' on someone else's. So back we
go to these questions--friendship, character,
ethics.

xpost
Yes, as Blackmun observes, downloading is materially different from stealing physical cd's, yes, clearly. But the definition of "stealing" is sufficiently broad to encompass cases in which the original owner is not deprived of the use of some thing the person stealing has appropriated. (By the way--"theft" also, as it is defined simply as "an act or instance of stealing".) Again, avail yourself of a dictionary, or simply define things as you please to protect yourself from the consequences of doing so. The tendency of some on this thread to treat "infringing copyright" and "stealing" as mutually exclusive is arbitrary and self-serving.

Or do labels chage their deals with artists after the fact ? Ha-ha. "Sorry guys we didn't recoup because of illegal downloads so you get nada". Some would argue that it might eventually discourage them from investing in artist development - if they are stupid enough to really believe massive downloads are their only problem. I doubt they are and I think they stopped doing that before the Internet already.

Agreed. It happens slowly.

The others are listening to and sharing private, below-industry-standards lossy audio files. Not the same product and little harm done, we've heard how it encourages promotion.

I'm skeptical it's great for promotion but go with what you're saying.
My view is it's the same mentality at work as with the teenage software pirates of the Eighties. These people were never going to buy copies even if deprived of their warez, so calling it lost sales
stretches it.

Then the question becomes "how do you promote/choose from myriads of artists on a largely decentralized network ?".

Now there's the question no one has been able to answer. If anything, it's trending in the opposite direction, that is the abundance and multiplication of "items" makes it fruitless labor to locate something unless you already know its name.

Never going to happen. It will just be different flavors of the same old same old. Exponential growth of "items" and the subjective nature of description of music, and the general way it is poorly done by people who think maximization of hits and commerce first, guarantee it.

For decades I've shopped in record stores. Much of it is devoted to speculative buys. In a store, even with a really big catalog -- like Amoeba -- I can find something that is almost always guaranteed to be something I'll like, because I know it when I see it. Computerized list-making and sorting with catalogs of "items" orders of magnitude larger have never come close to making the same approach realistically manageable. Plus, I've never been much impressed by cross-linking, if you liked this or downloaded this, then you are sure to like [this] approach.

George the Animal Steele OTM indeed.

GTAS - What does "I know it when I see it" mean? Do you mean you buy music based on the packaging? You can' honestly believe that this is a better way to find new music that you will like, can you? I mean, I've definitely picked a bunch of records out to LISTEN to (at a DJ store) based on their cover art, but I am, more often than not, totally off-base with my mental prediction.

And I think that the reason these systems aren't open-source/free is that they have to have a big back-end setup behind them to stream all the music, etc. The player and the plugin are available.

Only partly kidding.

Heh. Now there's a bushel of flies in the ointment. It's hard enough for me to keep my own resources productive.

It's hilarious to watch all these people talk about copyright law when they have absolutely no idea what the law even is.

If you're going to pretend you know what you're talking about, at least try to cite some legal sources.