Student fined $675K for 30 music track downloads - Page 11
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MafiaAreJerks
Bahrain8 Posts
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ColdLava
Canada1673 Posts
On August 04 2009 04:13 baubo wrote: Again, you're not saying anything related to the subject, which is: IT'S ILLEGAL. You can complain about the record companies all you like. Personally, I think they take on the risk, they should deserve the most money. But again, that's immaterial to the current argument. Because it's still ILLEGAL to download such musics. And the people who own the music are pissed off and wants to punish people who do. I don't see how that's hard to comprehend. You can say this is bad business practice. But that's just an opinion. The fact is America is a country where people are suppose to obey laws. And the law says downloading and sharing copyrighted music is illegal. That's all there is to it. Dude, you were arguing that illegal downloading is hurting musicians. I explained why it's not. If you don't want to do something because it's illegal, that's fine. Just know where our perspective comes from.. And yes the guy got caught for somehting he knew that was illegal, that is true. But this is where morals should step in and not ruin the guy's fucking life. The music industry is the absolute epitome about what happens when power becomes absolute and starts controlling laws and rulings. | ||
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Medzo
United States627 Posts
On August 04 2009 05:22 ColdLava wrote: Yah so lets just ruin the guys life and basically make his life worthless for the next 5 years. Why don't we kill his first born child too? The producers make money two ways (usually both ways), 1.) up front when they sign the contract to produce an album, and 2.) they make a percentage on the CD too (at the artists expense). They are much, much, much better paid than the artists. The artists are the ones who work the hardest and get paid the least, generally. I got my numbers from Confessions of a Record Producer (it was attached to a course I took at college), where it took a sample contract, and basically broke it down. But no, 1% cut on a record is not good money, at all. Basically, that 1% is going towards paying off the debts that the CD cost in the first place, and then after that it's profit for the artist. That's extremely hard to get though if you're not a band that's doing really really well. There is a big difference between killing someone and having someone file for bankruptcy. Bankruptcy wont be the end of his life, especially if you look at the reasons for his bankruptcy. He'll have some trouble but all in all it will be a slap on his wrist for commiting a crime and getting caught w/o cooperation. People get much, much, worse penalities for having or selling drugs. Also I would like to see this record company sheet you talk of. I can see a record company paying a royalty of 3% to producers and the artists. This would be if you were looking at an individual CD. That is because it is not the artists who create and distribute the CD. The record company first would have to buy the right to create and distribute the music in addition to the "3%" royality on each CD. Im sure if you're an amateur artist than 3% royalities wont do you much, but it was never suppose to. You make money from licensing your work and the concerts you work on. The record company is its own company, it pays the costs of creating and distributing and it will earn most of the profits. Think of it like this. If you wrote a novel and published and distributed it yourself it wouldn't be very successful at all. But if it got onto Oprahs book club suddenly you would have a ridiculous demand that you couldn't even handle yourself. The producers and record companies provide artists with the demand increase and the distribution of their music that they would not otherwise get. If you want to truly use numbers and %ages you would have to look at every number from the creation of a song to the guy buying it at a store. This is including the cost of shipping a CD from X to Y, this is including the cost to ship the materials to physically make a CD from X to Y, this is including the cost to pay the lawyers and everyone elses salary that works for each individual business including the shipping companies and even the artist who drew the font of the band name on the CD cover. | ||
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ColdLava
Canada1673 Posts
Read the thing i put in spoilers for you. (i edited in after you quoted it, sorry) i explain everything ... EVERYTHING edit: and i'm also going to add that most contracts are pretty standard. i mean, they're the same contract offered from band to band. i'm sure U2 has a contract of their own with a team of lawyers working on it for them though, but for most artists, that's pretty much the standard (the contract i quoted for you) | ||
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Elvin_vn
Vietnam2038 Posts
Mark my words. | ||
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Appendix
Sweden979 Posts
If you want to make a living through music in the future, your revenues won´t be coming from track sales, but from gigs and concerts. It will be more of a service than a product. The music will be free, the experience wont. This is where you read it folks. | ||
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Whiplash
United States2928 Posts
On August 03 2009 16:54 cUrsOr wrote: I write music, and I am against "sharing". I find that most people who are for it, just want to justify not paying. My wife, and my brother in law, both of who I respect very much, happen to dissagree. It's someone else's time, effort and ideas. I'm essentially a socialist and think lots of things should be public property, but since I live in America and have to pay to eat and drive and do anything- damn right I think Music should have the same costs. In a better system, maybe not though. SOCIALIST? UNAMERICAN THAT'S FOR SURE GO TO FRANCE!! | ||
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Medzo
United States627 Posts
They dont have to sign those contracts or go with the certain producers and labels, but its so greatly in their benefit and profitable to an artist that they will. Those opportunites are obviously hurt when you steal from the provider. | ||
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Clow
Brazil880 Posts
This is bullshit. I'm not in favor of 'piracy', but those fines are just way too much. I doubt anyone here have no 'illegally downloaded songs' on his computer. | ||
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FragKrag
United States11554 Posts
you like free stuff i pirate you can too but don't make stupid justifcations. | ||
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Medzo
United States627 Posts
Honestly that seems reasonable to me. And honestly when you break the law and then fight it when you're caught you deserve to be fined. I really think you guys need to take a look into how bankruptcy works. His life is NOT ruined by any stretch. He will be limited and have some options taken away for a few years and thats it. Its way way waaaay better than if he were to of gotten caught selling pot. | ||
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StorrZerg
United States13919 Posts
On August 04 2009 05:51 Elvin_vn wrote: TL NET will be sued for sharing pro-gamers's replays. Mark my words. first we need to hack a data base inside t1 or Oz and nab thousands of them | ||
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[-Bluewolf-]
United States609 Posts
On August 04 2009 06:20 Clow wrote:I doubt anyone here have no 'illegally downloaded songs' on his computer. Speak for yourself only please. And yeah, I do not have a single illegal song on my computer. | ||
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ColdLava
Canada1673 Posts
On August 04 2009 06:06 Medzo wrote: Dude artists dont pay the cost of making the CD the record company does. If an artist gets a 3% revenue royality that is a before cost cut. If they get a 3% profit cut than it is 3% of the profit made after the costs. The benefit the producers artists get is exposure and they liscense the work for $$$. It is in their benefit. You are stealing from the record companies by downloading, but you are also stealing from the artists because guess who takes a cut in the loss of money? The artists. They dont have to sign those contracts or go with the certain producers and labels, but its so greatly in their benefit and profitable to an artist that they will. Those opportunites are obviously hurt when you steal from the provider. Ummmmm no, that's why it's called RECOUPABLE ADVANCES and I bolded it just for you. And like I said many many times before this, I think the internet exposure which gets you much more live revenue and radio interest far far far exceeds album sales, when you're not a top tier level at least. I mean, for every song that plays on the radio, you get publishing rights. By the way, something I mentioned earlier but I haven't mentioned in my few past posts is that artists do get publishing rights from their CDs that don't count towards the recoupable advance (unless the artist stupidly gives it away in the contract). Those do take a hit when people instead download your music, but I think the exposure + possibility of radio play + night club play etc etc etc far outweighs it as you get publishing rights/money from that too. But that's only if you make your own songs in the first place | ||
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VIB
Brazil3567 Posts
I went in a live show of a comedy group that got nationally famous because of the internet. Ticket prices ranged from $50 to $150, which is very high for our standards. All the ~300 tickets sold out in 2hours so they announced a second show after the first one (this was the one I fit in) and the next batch of ~300 sold in 2 days. And these guys were making shows like these every week. About one month after this show they signed a contract with MTV and now they have their own 1h show on MTV Brazil every thursday. So you can have a clue of how much they're making. Anyway. When I watched their show here. At the very beginning. Before any jokes, one of them asked the audience: - "How many of you have watched us live before?" - one or two out of 300 raise their hand - "How many of you are here because you watched us on youtube?" - every freaking one of the 300 payers, including me, raise their hand At this point I was thinking to myself. "Well I guess at least these guys understand how beneficial file-sharing is for artists today. You will never see those guys fighting piracy, that would be stupid." But about ~1min later the same guy asks the audience: "Oh and btw.. if you have any cameras. Please don't record this show and put on the internet. Piracy hurts us, artists." W T F? How can people be so dumb? What the hell is so hard for you guys to understand? Isn't this above example obvious enough? What the fuck is wrong with you people? | ||
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Medzo
United States627 Posts
On August 04 2009 06:30 ColdLava wrote: Ummmmm no, that's why it's called RECOUPABLE ADVANCES and I bolded it just for you. And like I said many many times before this, I think the internet exposure which gets you much more live revenue and radio interest far far far exceeds album sales, when you're not a top tier level at least. I mean, for every song that plays on the radio, you get publishing rights. By the way, something I mentioned earlier but I haven't mentioned in my few past posts is that artists do get publishing rights from their CDs that don't count towards the recoupable advance (unless the artist stupidly gives it away in the contract). Those do take a hit when people instead download your music, but I think the exposure + possibility of radio play + night club play etc etc etc far outweighs it as you get publishing rights/money from that too. But that's only if you make your own songs in the first place I responded to your recoupable advances earlier. I think that for a small or amateur artist free songs and internet exposure is much better than signing a contract when youre not big. But when it comes to downloading a new Tool album, they would certainly make more if it wasn't available for free illegal downloading. | ||
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IntoTheWow
is awesome32277 Posts
On August 04 2009 02:02 Gregsen wrote: You wouldn't claim a picture by picasso for free, would you?! There's lots of copies of picasso work everywhere for free, but with less quality than the original. Just like a MP3. ![]() edit: typo | ||
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mister.bubbles
Canada171 Posts
The profits from the sale of CDs mostly go straight to the record label. The artist hardly sees any of them. A while back this used to work fairly well since recording equipment was ridiculously expensive and only a large and rich organization could afford to provide it. Consequently this is roughly how things would generally go: The record label discovers and signs an artist The label then pays for the band to record an album (which was very expensive at the time) The label then sells the album, collects money and pays a small cut to the artist. Unfortunately this system has become obsolete since the cost of quality recording equipment has plummeted and continues to drop at an astronomical rate. These days artist and aspiring producers and enthusiast are able to amass the gear necessary to make high quality recordings fairly easily (by which I mean a dedicated enthusiast with a normal job should be able to do so over a few years). Here is how things are beginning to evolve into: Bands with written material decide to make a recording for whatever reason. The band then seeks out an enthusiast with a home studio or use their own equipment The band pays to make the recording and then uses the internet and live shows for exposure The band makes a profit at shows and selling merchandise I think as the music industry starts moving this way things will be a lot better. Bands will have more creative control without a label holding a contract over their heads. The existence of musicians is guaranteed so small studios will always have a way to profit. As studios become smaller and more numerous the demand for sound engineers and producers will increase making this career option more viable. Everyone gets a chance to make at least a small profit while doing what they love be it playing, recording or producing music. This brings me to my point. The concept of treating a recording as property only benefits record labels. The only purpose of a record label is to allow artists without vast sums of money to get a chance to make recordings and to promote the band. It no longer costs vast amounts of money to make a recording. The internet promotes artists far better than labels have ever been able to (in addition to evening the playing field between really huge bands and unknown bands in terms of exposure). Thus, having recordings be public property only hurts record labels and to some extent super popular bands like Green Day or Metallica. SMALL TIME ARTISTS ONLY BENEFIT FROM GIVING AWAY RECORDINGS FOR FREE. RECORD LABELS ARE GREEDY ORGANIZATIONS WHO ARE CLINGING TO AN OBSOLETE SYSTEM THAT ALLOWED THEM TO PROFIT OFF OF BANDS. This is just my opinion and I'm not sure how accurate my facts are, but I'm pretty sure this is mostly a correct assumption. | ||
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Rakanishu2
United States475 Posts
It costs Microsoft lots of developement dollars to make the content on their products. It costs record labels next to zilch. Microsoft gets most of the proceeds from its sales. Artists get crapped on. It's stupid and it's going the way of the dinosaur. The fact that the government is taking action against a kid to the tune of half a mil for something more kids do than graffiti is absolutely ridiculous. Yea, certain things are illegal, like copying someones ideas and distributing them all over the place. When the artists, and not the music industry, step up and forbid people from stealing their music, you might have a defendable position. But greedy record labels who already fleece the artists going out and prosecuting students? *Harrison Ford Voice* Get out. | ||
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Medzo
United States627 Posts
On August 04 2009 06:57 mister.bubbles wrote: I think there seems to be a lot of confusion in this thread. The profits from the sale of CDs mostly go straight to the record label. The artist hardly sees any of them. A while back this used to work fairly well since recording equipment was ridiculously expensive and only a large and rich organization could afford to provide it. Consequently this is roughly how things would generally go: The record label discovers and signs an artist The label then pays for the band to record an album (which was very expensive at the time) The label then sells the album, collects money and pays a small cut to the artist. Unfortunately this system has become obsolete since the cost of quality recording equipment has plummeted and continues to drop at an astronomical rate. These days artist and aspiring producers and enthusiast are able to amass the gear necessary to make high quality recordings fairly easily (by which I mean a dedicated enthusiast with a normal job should be able to do so over a few years). Here is how things are beginning to evolve into: Bands with written material decide to make a recording for whatever reason. The band then seeks out an enthusiast with a home studio or use their own equipment The band pays to make the recording and then uses the internet and live shows for exposure The band makes a profit at shows and selling merchandise I think as the music industry starts moving this way things will be a lot better. Bands will have more creative control without a label holding a contract over their heads. The existence of musicians is guaranteed so small studios will always have a way to profit. As studios become smaller and more numerous the demand for sound engineers and producers will increase making this career option more viable. Everyone gets a chance to make at least a small profit while doing what they love be it playing, recording or producing music. This brings me to my point. The concept of treating a recording as property only benefits record labels. The only purpose of a record label is to allow artists without vast sums of money to get a chance to make recordings and to promote the band. It no longer costs vast amounts of money to make a recording. The internet promotes artists far better than labels have ever been able to (in addition to evening the playing field between really huge bands and unknown bands in terms of exposure). Thus, having recordings be public property only hurts record labels and to some extent super popular bands like Green Day or Metallica. SMALL TIME ARTISTS ONLY BENEFIT FROM GIVING AWAY RECORDINGS FOR FREE. RECORD LABELS ARE GREEDY ORGANIZATIONS WHO ARE CLINGING TO AN OBSOLETE SYSTEM THAT ALLOWED THEM TO PROFIT OFF OF BANDS. This is just my opinion and I'm not sure how accurate my facts are, but I'm pretty sure this is mostly a correct assumption. Your assumptions arent too bad except you seem to think that recording a song is the same as creating a record. Unless you plan to only sell digitally, its not the same. There is still a LARGE LARGE LARGE LARGE LARGE market for CDs and even records. Record companies are far from obsolete, for now. | ||
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