Seven Crimes That Will Get You a Smaller Fine Than File Sharing

To be honest, if I knew there were people downloading music of mine I'd be honoured more than anything. Besides, if someone really likes the album enough, and they're real music fans, chances are they will definitely buy the album.

Besides which, not all of the albums that I want or like can be found in stores in NZ, and they can cost $32 and beyond. It's ridiculous. I don't believe in buying from iTunes or anything either. Why? How would I possibly feel fulfilled for buying digital music? I want a physical copy.

The thing is, file sharing helps out a lot more than not having it. A fan will always buy your stuff. Also, it works hand in hand. Musicians should put all their effort into the making of their music so that it's actually worth buying. Thankfully, a lot of musicians do this.

I guess all I have to say is that I'm definitely pro file sharing.

Oh, and also, the RIAA should really only be against tweens pirating the latest Jonas Brothers album or whatever. Why? Welp, do the RIAA have anything to do with bands like Negura Bunget, Melechesh, Ved Buens Ende etc?

Exactly. A lot of the bands out there that don't really make a whole deal of money and play "obscure" stuff would never get helped by the RIAA, yet the RIAA would want to punish people that download from artists that have nothing to do with them? I may be viewing this wrong, but to me it just goes to show you how greedy the RIAA are. Wanting to profit off people that have nothing to do with them, and making life unnecessarily hellish for people like that US student.

That poor guy's gonna be screwed for, potentially, the rest of his life.

hahaha funny image there.
second,if they have to charge me...my god..im the HITLER of warez,and so is every other man in bulgaria,and thats just one country.
if they want me to give them my money,loose the damaged cds that dosnt play after a day,give me a small usb,or atleast give me music in FLAC format in 432hz pitch,not some 192kbps mp3 bull****
then i would gladly give my money to have a collection of nice quality art

Originally posted by debunky

Originally posted by mental modulator

20 years ago I would have a wonderful career,,, unfortunately
many of us can't keep at it forever on our own dime.

[edit on 23-8-2009 by mental modulator]

And 200 years ago you could have had a wonderful career as a blacksmith. Sorry, but while we still need people to make musik, but no longer for the recording and distribution. That has become way too simple and way too cheap to justify giving money to anybody for it.

As a performing artist you will have to perform if you want to make money from it.

Besides did you know that printers of sheet music were proclaiming the end of culture when the first electric pianos and similiar devices appeared? If you look at the history of music "professional recording artists" where a pretty short phase. One that is about to end.

and so music will suffer the fate it is suffering... Pink Floyd could not have produced the work they did if they had to maintain a full time job just to support bills and food.
In a field that is hard enough as it is to gig, travel, individual practice, group practice and write... anyhow taking another eight hours out of the day and being anchored to a boss's schedule, so the art will suffer at large...

We will have an auto tune world and the ART will suffer as time dictates.

FIGHT the man by fooking the foot soldiers!

reply to post by mental modulator


thats a good point, and its always been my understanding that Concerts and merch is where most money comes from. if you can a big enough show, you run a chance of getting signed, which is a whole other thread, haha.

how does one get more people at their show? make their music available to everyone, have people who would maybe not heard your music otherwise, and ultimately remember the artist afterwards. downloads offer an equivalent of microwave cooking a meal in 60 seconds. Couple that with the ever increasing amount of time we spend on the computers with more people getting online every day.

15 years max for murder!?!?

Where i live its life

It's a pretty sad state of affairs when you could walk into a music store kill the staff, take all the cd's, burn the place to the ground and you would still probably get a lesser fine/sentence than a suspected file sharer.

I used to to just say boycott the music industry's but recent events have shown you can't even do that any more because the Governments will just use tax money to bail them out.

The systems completely corrupt and organisations are rubbing our faces in it and getting the most ridiculous laws passed on a daily basis.

regardless of the fine...

Musicians produce a product, as do I an electrician..

I produce electricity, they produce entertainment/songs..

Why on earth any of you think you have a right to either is above me.....

Walmart has toilet paper... do you have a right to that??

Pay for what you use, this is just silly....

sorry your ipod doesnt have your fav song...boo hoo

Hmm lets see this through...

Murder, Robberies, Dogfights etc. is actually better than file sharing fines?

RIAA, you really make the world safer (Sarcasm)

These people are nuts! Charging Teens and Children millions of dollars for music! RIAA, we do not need entertainment police!

Originally posted by drsmooth23
reply to post by mental modulator

 

thats a good point, and its always been my understanding that Concerts and merch is where most money comes from. if you can a big enough show, you run a chance of getting signed, which is a whole other thread, haha.

how does one get more people at their show? make their music available to everyone, have people who would maybe not heard your music otherwise, and ultimately remember the artist afterwards. downloads offer an equivalent of microwave cooking a meal in 60 seconds. Couple that with the ever increasing amount of time we spend on the computers with more people getting online every day.

Merch and gigs is where it is at... There is nothing I can do, it is what it is.
There is a minimum stream of income a group of four or five have to maintain.

reply to post by JayinAR


The article made no distinction I saw. Trying to justify theft is always ludicrous. There is no justification for stealing. Add to that trying to say one wrong justifies another and you have some very childish arguments.

Here is a story if you can be bothered to read it, it's about a Scottish singer who didn't make a single penny from her #1 Album, why you ask?

MacDonald earned nothing from her number 1 Album

Nothing to do with file sharing, it's the greedy bastard promoters and agents who take it all.

Unless you start out keeping tight control of your music, then there is nothing down for you, the Industry rips everyone off from the start, example, those big drinks you buy at the cinema? cost? in the UK about 6 to 9 pence, does that justify a £2.00 price tag? no way.

There are thousands of bands out there who get nowhere because they wont tow the line, Torrent sites if you take the time to check are in one of the biggest fight back battles ever, why? because people are sick and tired of extortionate prices and way over the top profit making, especially when only a tiny amount goes to the artists themselves.

It's fine for the likes of Bono to be screaming make poverty history with all the other do gooders, while they sit on fortunes earned off the backs of all of us, and for what? to make them famous.

Don't get me wrong, good money for good music is great, but no way can the prices charged be justified anywhere.

Music should be free, the gigs and tours should be the earner, as many bands are finding out, there is no money to be made from a CD any more, I've even sat in radio studio's where a little piece of paper pops up when a song has finished playing, because they are charged by the second, not by the song, and different prices depending on popularity.

It's fine calling people losers and retards for downloading music, why don't you try and understand how it works before laughing at the expense of others? because some of you really do not have a clue what your talking about.

What the people who run these industries seem to forget is, it is we who have the money, it is our money they lust after, you cant go on ripping people off then claim foul when it does not go their way, which seems to be the Norm these days as we saw with the financial crisis, the people who created the problem got their money back, while those who lost everything got nothing, it amounts to betting on a horse using some one elses money and a tiny amount of your own, then demanding a refund when the horse comes in last.

Unless they are taught a lesson it will go on and on, now they are worried because their guaranteed income is dwindling, I download, but I download because I believe I have a right to see what I am expected to buy before I do, not some sampled crap played on a radio that has no resemblance to what is in the shop, unless you want the super limited edition imported paper version imported from the planet Mars.

Originally posted by Karlhungis
www.prefixmag.com...

1. Child abduction: the fine is only like $25000.

2. Stealing the actual CD: the fine is $2,500

3. Rob your neighbor: the fine is $375,000

4. Burn a house down: The fine is just over $375,000

5. Stalk someone: The fine is $175,000

6. Start a dogfighting ring: the fine is $50,000

7. Murder someone: The maximum penalty is only $25,000 and 15 years in jail, and depending on your yearly salary, would probably be far slighter a penalty than $2 million

I just came across this article and thought it is worth sharing. It helps shed some light on the absolute absurdity that is associated with the penalties dished out for file sharing. Our justice system has sold out to corporate interests.

The above crimes are REAL crimes. File sharing is not in the same league and it is absolutely absurd to think that it deserves a similar fine.

Edit to add: Treason only carried a fine of $250,000 when Scooter decided to leak the identity of some CIA operatives.

[edit on 23-8-2009 by Karlhungis]

-I thought treason meant a Hanging.

reply to post by Karlhungis


I have always found it strange that for me to download a song and listen to it i'm breaking the law. But if musician decides to cover a song, they can play it live and actually profit from someone else music without having to pay for it. Only when they record said cover and sell that for profit, do they violate the law.

Free music is not about stealing, its about weeding out the poser musicians and entertainers. A musician must perform and if you give away the music, it makes the live performance the item of value, granting riches to only those musicians who are able to perform.

[edit on 24-8-2009 by iamcamouflage]

"if i staged burning down my own house and pinned it on someone else then i could get paid twice for that."

Or...if I staged "burning down" three very large office buldings to the ground in record time, I can also get paid twice for that without anyone doing any serious investigation as to what really went on.

Back to the issue at hand. In my book, an MP3 is worth jacks***. A CD is compressed enough. An MP3 is the equivalent of cheap American beer. If you want to hear the real deal, try vinyl.

The harsh penalties are the product of an extremely corrupt judicial system which, for the sake of the populace, needs to be overhauled ASAP. No judge worth his salt would ever agree to such absurd punitive damages, unless of course he is on the "payroll". When the worst of the worst control the system, what do you expect? Certainly, objectivity and fairness is not top priority on that bill.

Without file sharing (which is purely promotion for the artist), the music industry would be dead and buried. The name of the game for these artists is exposure - something which radio is not capable of doing. The majors cannot effectively promote either, so they have to hang on to their dinosaur ways.

I had no issue with paying $10-15 for a 12" single in the 80's because:

1) I knew I was purchasing great music
2) I was buying vinyl, which sounds great and lasts forever. Just take a look at that plastic the size of Texas which is floating in the Pacific and should be around for another billion years...at least.

The solution for the consumer is simple: stop giving these sumbags your money. They are obviously using it to screw you over. And if you want free music, buy vinyl. I don't know where you live, but up here in Canada you can find some of the best music ever recorded on vinyl for a buck or two. Now that's what I call FREE MUSIC.

As for the labels, their solution is also simple: Go back to printing and distributing vinyl for the following reasons:

1) better sound quality
2) anyone can burn a CD, but how many people do you know that can press vinyl?
3) compared to the miniscule art area provided by a CD, vinyl provides you with a much larger area for cover art
4) everybody over the age of 40 who grew up with vinyl will be buying your product instantly
5) the kids will buy the vinyl just to try and figure out how to make music come out of it


The reason why the labels switched from vinyl to CD in the mid 80's was because of greed. Little did they know they were letting a little vindictive Digital Genie out of the bottle, who would later come back to bite them on the glass.

heres an account of my personal (*see legal disclaimer below) experience, and the conclusions ive come to about the entire concept of online file sharing:

When I ("I" being a fictional tool for deflecting any accusations against the validity of my point based the possible interpretation that because my experience isnt 1st hand i dont know what im talking about...... **end of legal disclaimer** ....ahem.. ..sorry just recovered from swine flu.)

okay, and again now form the beggining, 3 2 1 and...

When I downloaded my 1st album from one of the large enough to not actually mention torrent sites, i could immediately see that the process i was involved in not only has the potential to change how the music industry is structured, it could also cause its collapse. And the implications of such a disaster would be the end of the internet as we know it, considering the likely reaction of our establishment. But another possible consequence of such an institutional collapse does actually appeal to me, and infact has inspired me to do what i never thought it was worth doing: posting my 1st ats post - yay go me an actual content contributor, and no i dont care for your stars or your flags, only for your time to read the following:

Consider the thought of all the major record labels, and even the alternative mainstream which despite its alternative image still behaves in the same self interested way as of the larger corperations, all being brought to their knees by an online movement of.. "political file sharers" for want of a better term. Who all share the aim of completely revolutionalising how our entertainment is created and distributed.

One thing I often hear in defense of the industry is that the artists wouldnt be able to sustain themselves at the same time as creating such beautiful music without their record labels paying them a tiny percentage every time we buy their records. which is fair enough. you have to be able to at least put food on your table before you create an album like dark side of the moon. But in giving a record company such a stranglehold over the creative geniuses they employ, we've taken away true freedom of expression. I've heard/read/seen many interviews where musicians complain about the influence their record label imposes on the whole production process of an album or song. This is sooo wrong it makes me want to vomit in disgust. How can an institution inspired by profits and self interest try to impose itself on an art form inspired by emotional experience and suppodly driven by freedom of expression? well it has, and the consequences can be observed by the flick of a switch, with whole radio stations devoted to this comercial crap. Intentionally designed to appeal to and perhaps solidify the shallow perspective "they" want us to have on existence and day to day experience. And by defining the expression of such a shallow perception as "popular" theyve created the illusion it is actually popular, which has extremely potent implications in terms of culture and peoples sense of identity.. Basically our perception is how we interpret an experience, and seeing as music is an expression of experience or perception, its clear they want to impose those perceptions.. hence spice girls etc etcetctetctettetfkjfshkhsdfksdhf PUKE!!!!

But maybe theyre completely ignorant of what my above analysis describes, and this is just the product of our capitalist moral framework which is in itself extremely primitive,, morally. No matter, even if this wasnt some premeditated conspiracy of perception management, involving all the major record labels and government elites, i think ive still managed to highlight some important and perhaps previously unexplored implications of having such a powerful music industry, and could offer a fresh perspective and possible incentive to share files illegally for those who already have done and are being made to feel guilty about by fellow ats members.

ty 4 readin

reply to post by redseal


It isn't about the right to steal. It is about a penalty that fits the crime. You shouldn't face a 10 years in federal prison for jay walking, just like you shouldn't face a million dollar fine for downloading a song. I don't have a problem with punishing file sharers, just make it reasonable and the current system is so far from reasonable that it is absolutely ridiculous.

sorry after re reading my previous post i realised i had completely forgotten to expand upon what i spent the rest of the post justifying.

okay so lets say it happens. file sharing #s up the music industry and causes it to collapse. what then?

well, its easy. music made and recorded by musicians under their own control and time without the interference or corruption of big business. soemthing along the lines of each artist owning thier own recording equiptment etc. or say for example a group of similar minded musicians and artists collaborate and contribute towards the upkeep of a studio. gigs organised by band members not middleman bull# managerial turds. the lightshows designed by friends. anyway i beleive live performances in general would flourish under actual band organisation. those bands who cant handle the new responsabilities that come with being musicians simply dont stay round for long. if you cant handle not being pampered by groupies and band managers anymore then you wont be able to survive after TSHTF. Serious and genuinely inspired musicians will flourish along with their music and gigs, and crap music simply wont survive. how could it, and when i say crap i mean factory produced #. boy/girl bands etc. i respect all genres except pop, and people would soon realise the logic behind this, if the power was given back to the actual musicans.

in terms of music distribution.. well bands like radiohead seem to have embraced the mp3 format as well their fans trust in price valuation. for those who dont know radiohead released their last album "in rainbows" at an unfixed price for dowload directly from their website. priced between nothing and whatever their fans thought it was worth (i guess based on hearing their back catalogue), radiohead actually managed to make more money from their latest album than any other previously released in the standard way through CD's and major record labels.

so in conclusion i beleive it file sharing should actually become a political act to change the course of the music industy and hopefully bring its collapse, after which good music and good musicians should hopefully flourish.

thats just my two pence.

Punishment for crime (fines, imprisonment, ect.) Do not always need to simply match the crime for damages.

First off, you never want the punishment to "match" the damage, or someone could figure that if they get away with a crime even half the time, they are coming out ahead.

If you wish to use punishment as a deterrent to crime, in the hopes that some people who would commit the crime will not due to the risk of the punishment, then you have to figure in the chances of catching the criminal.

If a crime is very easy to get away with, you would want the penalty for that crime to be very harsh. The crime may be minor, but if it's easy to get away with, and the penalty very small, there is absolutely no reason for people to bother following that law.

Is there corruption in the punishment for crimes? of course, it's people who desided what is illegal and what the punishment should be. But in file sharing, you have a huge number of people willing to do it, and very little ability to control it, so at best, all they can do is bankrupt a couple people to try and scare the rest.

reply to post by Karlhungis


Yeah well people who share files and steal stuff online should get life!

I mean, who do t...

CRAP My utorrent just crashed...


Argh, now I'm only getting 24kb - ARGH it was over 500kb then.. Aww.. RIPPED OFF...

anyway, uhh..