Should it be illegal to download music?

[Stacey]

"Way to go MetalX" Could not have said it better.

 

[thebaronjocelin]

Artists are entitled to just compensation for their work. Illegal downloading is stealing.

So it's just compensation for me to pay fifteen dollars to listen to a new album, while the geniuses that made it get fifteen cents a sale, and the labels that sell it get ten dollars?

Yes, I believe that downloading music, games, or movies illicitly is stealing. I know that if the artists that made it subsist off the royalties paid to them by the labels and publishers, I would feel like $#!+ if I downloaded one of their songs. But the sad reality is this: I toil two hours to buy a new album for the sole sake of treating my ears and supporting creative expression for the artists I love; the record labels that mediate grow slothful, greedy and gluttonous as they chew on the fruit of my labors and drink the sweat of my day's work and revel in it. Meanwhile, the artists that create that masterpiece are barely paid enough from it to eat. Is it "just compensation" yet? For anybody?

The RIAA grasps at straws to justify the thievery, the pure, green-eyed debauchery that they engage in from day to day. They fight to keep us from having any right to "own" the music that we pay for. Which is to say that if I went out and bought a hammer today, and my good friend borrowed it to shingle his roof, that not even the smith that made the hammer, but the merchant that sold it to me, could come and lock me up. Is it just yet?

I mean to insult no-one by posting this message: nobody's knowledge, nobody's opinion. I think that your point, Ted, is well justified. And I think anybody that has the gall to take money from another human being, no matter how extravagantly that person lives, is stealing. But neither we nor the bards that live richly on our money are the most lowly. It is those at the RIAA, and Columbia Records, and Atlantic, and Virgin, and Capitol who are most lowly- for claiming ownership of something when the only hands they have laid on it, the only effort they have distilled into that lump of plastic that's in my player as we speak, is to affix a price tag to it. It's wrong. And it's sure as hell we aren't the only ones who are stealing.

Praise be to whatever deity that independent music still survives, however subsidized.

 

[Nodsu]

So, tell me, do you have a permission to use your avatar? Or did you steal it from some hard-working artist?
You also have lots of photos, videos and artwork on your homepage. Do you have the rights to do that?

 

[ravisunny2]

Actually, the greatest musical masterpieces of all time were written when copying sheet music was a non-issue

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So, tell me, do you have a permission to use your avatar? Or did you steal it from some hard-working artist?

Right on, Nodsu!

 

[thebaronjocelin]

The music and videos are all from either imeem, YouTube, or Google Videos. I'm sure that none of those sites, being in the corporate limelight, could escape justice if they offered users to option to illictly embed content. In fact, they wouldn't offer an embed code in the first place. However, they did, and made it readily accessible, so I assume it's legal.

The photos and artwork are all from google images. In my opinion, those who post without watermarking or disclaimers automatically open themselves to freedom of use by outsiders. But if any of them asked me to remove it, I would.

And while I hardly doubt that even the authors or creators would consider my use of their products stealing (and might even be glad I tried to be evangelical about my love of their work), I did take it from hard-working people, and always have the courtesy to respect their wishes, if they make them known.

However, this is entirely beside the point. I never accused any creator of music of fault, I accused the companies that distribute it. So before we jump to presumption that I'm disrespectful of those who take from their body and soul to make masterpieces like what I've posted on my homepage, and a pitfall of an ad hominem fallacy, let's clarify that no actions of mine were ever intended to harm those people. And then, maybe, the personal attacks can dissipate. After all, this is an ethical discussion, and any hypocrisy of mine shouldn't undermine my argument. Take it by word, guys.

 

[Nodsu]

The music and videos are all from either imeem, YouTube, or Google Videos. I'm sure that none of those sites, being in the corporate limelight, could escape justice if they offered users to option to illictly embed content.

I suppose you don't read computer news much.. Anyway, how do you think they would check every video whether it contains any copyrighted material? A million monkeys that have learned every copyrighted piece of work by heart watching through every clip uploaded by all the users?

Oh, and there's this really popular website called ****** Bay.. Surely they would be shut down if there was illegal content there

The photos and artwork are all from google images. In my opinion, those who post without watermarking or disclaimers automatically open themselves to freedom of use by outsiders.

But how about all the tracks on all the CDs that are not marked in any way?
And I sure haven't seen any disclaimers next to all the music tracks I see available for download on the internet?
How would one know if the item she is downloading was posted there willingly by the author and whether it is allowed to download it?

 

[Alex.A]

Nodsu, we get your point, don't push it.
Yes, everything on the internet has a owner and a copyright but we can easily use those things for our purposes and it's almost impossible to control this because there are like billions of images, videos, articles and more and who can take care of every little avatar?
The same thing is about music. But all this story is not an excuse. Yes, we can download music but the law says that it's illegal. In the dictionary stealing means taking something without the permission of the owner. If the song isn't free or we don't have a permission, we steal it. My point is that even that it is illegally, nobody can stop all the people on the earth from downloading. It's too much.

I saw that people have different opinions about this case, but if we think rationally and we study the law, downloading music is stealing and stealing is illegally, even, maybe, it shouldn't, for the reasons from the posts written before mine.

 

[Nodsu]

OK. But i downloading music is "illegal", then downloading enything else is "illegal" too. There is no way to know whether anything you download is "illegal".

So why should we punish the people who "illegally" copy one specific artform and let all the others go free? Only because the music industry happens to have the funds and lobbying power to push decision makers?

Instead of blindly following the "holy" law, people should stop and think about some things like:
- Should we honour laws that are obviously broken? Think about all the humorous laws like being forbidden to eat ice cream on rollerskates or whatever. Sure, most of them are thought up, but you get the idea.
- Laws are written by old corrupt geezers mostly motivated by lobby and money from certain interest groups. Only some laws are universal and undisputable like the ones forbidding murder.
- When talking about "stealing" and "rights", think about who says what is stealing and what anyone is entitled to.
- Laws are supposed to be impartial. The same punishment goes to everyone. Yet we see those people who download music punished severely, but not the ones who download images. Does the law say that music is in any way superior to other arts?

BTW, in my country it is legal to download music. So it sort of depends on what law one decides to "study" or follow blindly

 

[Alex.A]

Yes, I just wrote that. Downloading anything is illegal too(not only music), only if its free or you have permission. But because its very difficult to control this huge internet traffic, all this story of illegality is resumed only official, on the law's paper. So it will take a looong of time until someone will really can do something about this. BUT, the law is supreme and all those thing you wrote about it is your opinion but if someone is accused of downloading illegally, you cannot defend with that. As I said, ain't gonna happen in the near future.
In your country is official legal to download music or you can download with no problem, cause nobody cares and make investigations? For example, in my country(Romania), normally, its illegal to do that but our download is working non-stop without any tiny obstacle, no one really cares. That's different.

 

[Nodsu]

It is officially legal. Basically, we are all filthy uncivilised thieves, according to some people

 

[ravisunny2]

Basically, we are all filthy uncivilised thieves, according to some people

Remember Katrina ?

 

[munch2477]

I know this is a little off topic but i am in desperate need of finding the cracked version of bearshare...can anyone send me a link to download it? I used to have it but i deleted it by accident and now i cant find it. I have limewire and i think it sucks compared to it (I only download legal stuff:suspiciou ) Thanks

 

[tifc8lraz]

Techspot does not condone such actions of piracy.

 

[MetalX]

No, we do not. But we are allowed to express our opinions that we think downloading copyrighted material should be called "downloading free information" instead of "piracy".
(Or at least I think we are, and if we're not... I have some unexpected issues with being a member of Techspot. Although Techspot is extremely pwnage )

 

[mikescorpio81]

At the end of the day, downloading music is stealing. You hear it, you like it, you run to your PC and download it. then you burn it to listen to in the car or upload it to your iPod or mp3 player and listen to it walking around. Your friend hears it and likes it so you pass it on to him.

If you like the artist, support him so he will make more music. If you like the song so much, pay for it. Much easier and you can proudly say that you did not steal your music collection.

It's heaps cheap anyhow and as I said before the quality is much better than those you download (in some cases). I used to download alot of music but now I opt to buy it. Makes me feel like I'm doing something right for a change! :grinthumb

 

[SNGX1275]

I know this is a little off topic but i am in desperate need of finding the cracked version of bearshare...can anyone send me a link to download it? I used to have it but i deleted it by accident and now i cant find it. I have limewire and i think it sucks compared to it (I only download legal stuff:suspiciou ) Thanks

You aren't going to get any help with that on these forums, or if someone does help you with that publically it will be deleted as soon as a mod comes across it.

Whether or not our members here use pirated software or download movies/music illegally is not of concern to anyone involved with decision making on this site. Where it becomes a problem is when information is posted on how to engage in these types of behaviors.

 

[Alex.A]

How ironic is that!:haha:
Here we are talking about how illegal is to download music and we encourage that piratery isn't a good thing and he makes a post right in this thread about finding a crack to a program which gives you the opportunity to download cracked programs and music.
:unch:

 

[TimeParadoX]

Let me put it this way;

You spend a large amount of time to create and write a song, you record it, and you are the sole owner of the song. You have no other job, and depend on the royalties for money. You used to make a lot of money from songwriting and singing and all of a sudded, your income is cut in half. You'd be pretty angry too. Just like if you made an OS and it got ripped, or you made a game and it got ripped. Especially with games and OS's, which take a lot of money to make.

Now you decide

But still, If you seriously like the person who sings the songs or what ever you're downloading, you'll still buy tickets for their concerts and Tshirts and stuff so it's not like they'll go bankrupt over the songs you'll download over Limewire

 

[thebaronjocelin]

It's heaps cheap anyhow and as I said before the quality is much better than those you download

I completely agree that buying is the way to go, but I strongly disagree with the sentiment that music these days is cheap. Yes, it's far cheaper than back in the day when Granny had to go out and buy a wax cylinder to listen to anything, and run the risk of it melting in the pre-AC days, but it's still far from as cheap as it could and should be.

Remember the days when a traveling minstrel would be lucky if a family put him up for a day, even if he was the best performance to ever grace the village? Ah, those were the days. I bet he never had Ye Olde Record Label breathing down his neck, taking 98% of his profits. Bureaucracy sucks, eh?

so it's not like they'll go bankrupt over the songs you'll download over Limewire

Firstly, I'd be very careful about mentioning LimeWire on TechSpot. We don't take kindly to the name of any piratical program being brought up nonchalantly. And, though the artists are completely made, and they do get money from merchandise and live performances, it's still nice to give them a little gratification every once and a while. Especially independent artists: they make little enough as is.

 

[Nodsu]

A P2P program is not "piratical" in itself - it is the people who commit crimes, not computers.

If we went down that road, then pretty much everything computer-related (plus photocopiers, DVD recorders and any audio equipment with recording capabilities) would be taboo (because you can use computers for copyright infringement (and I believe most people here have done it (unknowingly at least))).

 

[thebaronjocelin]

I completely agree, however, we did rib a guy earlier for mentioning BearShare. And both programs are, well, usually exclusively used for copyright infringement. Not to mention his quote:

not like they'll go bankrupt over the songs you'll download over Limewire

Which mentions it in a piratical context.

 

[munch2477]

steal from the rich...give to the poor - robin hood

 

[thebaronjocelin]

The poor in Robin Hood were starving. We are not. And we cannot eat music.

 

[ravisunny2]

steal from the rich...give to the poor - robin hood

Times have changed.

Now it's more like 'steal from the poor... give to the rich'

 

[thebaronjocelin]

Well, the artists still aren't exactly poor. Though I bet they yearn for the days of vinyl (and, in turn, lack of piracy).