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Post by generalstore on Apr 12, 2008 21:19:30 GMT -5
wolfmanjess said:
Well I guess I am going to delete this thread I wanted it to be about Metallica's Napster stance not their music or anything like that, and not only is it off topic it never really got on.
I don't understand the reasoning for the Metallica hate concerning the Napster controversy.
Imagine if you will:
You are a musician in a successful act. After months of song writing, and demoing in preparation for your next album you are driving down the freeway and you hear one of these unfinished demo songs playing on a popular rock radio station. WTF! Right?
You would be pissed. You would want to find out how it happened and prevent it from happening again.
That's what happened to Metallica and that's what they did.
As far as BD's point about Universities, why should they get a free pass? I can't say that I approve of the RIAA's current efforts to enact laws tying IP protection to financial aid, but I don't see any harm in getting institutions acting as an ISP to report students who were found to be stealing and distributing copyrighted works.
Justify it any way you want to, but downloading a work of art that has commercial value is theft. Don't be mad at the person you're stealing from if and when you get caught.
Well I guess I am going to delete this thread I wanted it to be about Metallica's Napster stance not their music or anything like that, and not only is it off topic it never really got on.
I don't understand the reasoning for the Metallica hate concerning the Napster controversy.
Imagine if you will:
You are a musician in a successful act. After months of song writing, and demoing in preparation for your next album you are driving down the freeway and you hear one of these unfinished demo songs playing on a popular rock radio station. WTF! Right?
You would be pissed. You would want to find out how it happened and prevent it from happening again.
That's what happened to Metallica and that's what they did.
As far as BD's point about Universities, why should they get a free pass? I can't say that I approve of the RIAA's current efforts to enact laws tying IP protection to financial aid, but I don't see any harm in getting institutions acting as an ISP to report students who were found to be stealing and distributing copyrighted works.
Justify it any way you want to, but downloading a work of art that has commercial value is theft. Don't be mad at the person you're stealing from if and when you get caught.
Well you are looking at a developing medium that was shut down before it had a chance to grow mainly by Metallica. It was a full 4 extra years before we could buy music track by track online, and then you still had to buy an Ipod. The fact of the matter is that songs were being traded because there was no legitimate way to share music online, no Pandora, No I-tunes only one or two services that were really crappy. Most artists have done better because of online file swapping, The kid who only knows a little bit about the artist is exposed to all of the material and then becomes a fan. Fans make artists money, they not only buy CDs they go to shows (Which is where a touring band can really make some cash), they tell their friends about the band and make them fans also. The truth is if I was younger and had only heard their new stuff I would think they were awful, but if I got online and heard Master of Puppets I would be a fan. So yeah this is my argument for file sharing.
Last Edit: Apr 12, 2008 21:28:42 GMT -5 by Deleted - Back to Top
Post by BonnarooDetective on Apr 12, 2008 21:39:52 GMT -5
generalstore said:
wolfmanjess said:
Well I guess I am going to delete this thread I wanted it to be about Metallica's Napster stance not their music or anything like that, and not only is it off topic it never really got on.
I don't understand the reasoning for the Metallica hate concerning the Napster controversy.
Imagine if you will:
You are a musician in a successful act. After months of song writing, and demoing in preparation for your next album you are driving down the freeway and you hear one of these unfinished demo songs playing on a popular rock radio station. WTF! Right?
You would be pissed. You would want to find out how it happened and prevent it from happening again.
That's what happened to Metallica and that's what they did.
As far as BD's point about Universities, why should they get a free pass? I can't say that I approve of the RIAA's current efforts to enact laws tying IP protection to financial aid, but I don't see any harm in getting institutions acting as an ISP to report students who were found to be stealing and distributing copyrighted works.
Justify it any way you want to, but downloading a work of art that has commercial value is theft. Don't be mad at the person you're stealing from if and when you get caught.
Well, if we're going to further the argument . . . On the targeting of universities: I won't even touch the argument on whether or not the RIAA should even be fining people for downloading information on the internet. I take issue with the fact that they felt it necessary to target Universities. Imagine, if you will, that you are a college student, downloading music (like everyone else) off the interweb for free. Then the RIAA comes knocking and fines you to the tune of several thousand dollars. It's happened to a lot of kids at my school, and there is legal action pending. Everyone does it, but for some reason only some kids get hit with fines. The worst part is, these are college students. Most of them don't have the money for this. It's bad enough they will graduate tens of thousands in debt, why pick on them? Why didn't Metallica go after the 35 year old suburbanite?
On the Napster issue as whole . . . There are some artists who make music for other people to enjoy; and there are some artists who want to get rich by being rock stars. The Napster incident proves that Metallica falls in the latter category. They already had millions of dollars; was it really necessary to go after their fans for the sake of increasing album sales? Were I successful artist, I would certainly be intrigued as to how an unfinished demo made its way on to the radio. However, I don't think I would want to destroy what was responsible for it. I would like to think I'd be happy that so many people are that interested in hearing my music. Metallica is a band that took-off because a bunch of kids would bootleg their tapes and spread 'em around. Then when the phenomenon got big, and techonology got involved, they decided it wasn't cool anymore.
Post by generalstore on Apr 12, 2008 23:03:56 GMT -5
Concerning universities there appears to be two distinct issues being discussed here: the general practice of the RIAA suing schools for IP infringement and the specific response that Metallica had with 3 schools in the Napster case.
For the latter Metallica did not seek financial damages from specific students of the schools, they just wanted the schools to stop the service which was found to distribute their works. Metallica did not just target the schools, they also had 100's of thousands of infringing Napster accounts suspended that had no affiliation to a univeristy. Those 100's of thousands of accounts were only from 1 weekend of monitoring Napster, which is a completely different order of magnitude than swapping demo tapes at the clubs of San Francisco in the 80's.
The former issue regarding the practice of the RIAA suing individuals, including many students, may not be popular but it is within their rights under the law to do so. The RIAA, MPAA, ASCAP, et al. sue people without regard to their social status, age group, or any other demographic. Universities just tend to have a lot of infringers because of the reasons BD listed, but plenty of 30 y/o suburbanites get sued all of the time. Including myself (I was busted for distributing an episode of The Wire, but I'm guilty, no complaints from me & it certainly did not change my opinion of HBO or The Wire itself). But as far as the everyone else is doing it so it must be okay reasoning, I'd expect a philosophy major to know better than to use an argumentum ad antiquitatem fallacy in a logical argument
My personal stance on file sharing is the same as enjoying corn if you can justify doing it in whatever moral system you believe in then go for it. But you have to be aware of the environment in which you live in. If you are breaking a law, then you have to weigh the rewards vs risks involved in your decision. If you get caught you have to pay for the consequences of your action. If you don't like the way the laws are currently setup, then by all means act to have them changed. But don't dodge your responsibility to the current law.
I would love to see the laws concerning IP and no no word prohibition changed, as I believe they are both antiquated and do more harm than good. But I'm not going to deny that downloading a song or enjoying a bowl of corn is a violation of the current laws. Therefore I'm not going to hold a grudge against the party that holds me accountable for violating those laws. Which is what the original topic that WMJ posted concerns.
Post by BonnarooDetective on Apr 12, 2008 23:20:21 GMT -5
^ That was a well put retort - thank you for a civil debate. I see that our most basic point of discrepancy is in your second to last sentence, "I'm not going to hold a grudge against the party that holds me accountable for violating those laws." I, on the other hand, will.
On the antiquitatem note . . . I didn't mean for my statement, "Metallica is a band that took-off because a bunch of kids would bootleg their tapes and spread 'em around. Then when the phenomenon got big, and technology got involved, they decided it wasn't cool anymore" to be connected to the logical part of my argument; but merely an anecdote to point out how the band has changed. While the magnitude of the trading may be vastly greater, the principle is still the same.
Post by Sköldpadda on Apr 12, 2008 23:29:20 GMT -5
^ What exactly were those kids downloading? I know a lot of people who've downloaded a lot of files, but I've never heard of anyone getting fined thousands of dollars.
Post by BonnarooDetective on Apr 12, 2008 23:39:16 GMT -5
Just music. 20 Students from Ithaca were hit up by the RIAA last year alone. Not only were there fines, but the college also found it necessary to refer them as well.
Post by generalstore on Apr 12, 2008 23:51:16 GMT -5
oopsikillednana said:
Were they downloading that music illegally?
oopsikillednana said:
^ What exactly were those kids downloading? I know a lot of people who've downloaded a lot of files, but I've never heard of anyone getting fined thousands of dollars.
The RIAA will offer you a settlement opportunity when they associate your IP address with a file sharer of a work that they represent. If you pay the settlement offer, then you will not be sued. So far I believe only 1 person has turned down the settlement offer and gone through the complete judicial process. That person got hit with a 6 figure fine from a jury instead of the 4 figure one initially offered. There are some other cases pending now where the offender has turned down the settlement offer, but those cases have yet to conclude.
BD, I agree that is really our only difference in opinion and I certainly respect yours & WMJ's.
However I felt the antiquitatem fallacy to be associated with the everyone else downloads files so it must not be wrong to do so line of reasoning. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
Well you don't get fined for downloading music legally.
True
Also Metallica filed a RICO suit that made everyone scared and put off legal downloading for many years. Doing themselves, other artists, and the record companies a disservice in the long run
Post by BonnarooDetective on Apr 13, 2008 0:00:32 GMT -5
generalstore said:
However I felt the antiquitatem fallacy to be associated with the everyone else downloads files so it must not be wrong to do so line of reasoning. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
Gotcha. In regards to that statement, I guess I was just pointing out the fact that (although what they did may or may not be right or wrong) those who were fined seemed to be chosen randomly - like a cop pulling you over for speeding when the highway is full of people going 90 mph. They could have fined the vast majority of the campus, but only hit certain kids. Perhaps those kids weren't chosen indiscriminately. Perhaps they were the largest offenders, or they just happened to download the wrong stuff. But personally, I would have been frustrated with the fact that I got busted and a bunch of others got off the hook.
Post by generalstore on Apr 13, 2008 0:13:50 GMT -5
trustme said:
or they just happened to download the wrong stuff
That's pretty much how it happens. The groups currently use third party organizations to do the monitoring. They are usually contracted out to follow certain works. The biggest third party groups are Web Sheriff and Media Sentry. In fact one of the biggest suits in the P2P world relates to Media Sentry not being licensed to perform private investigations in the states where they operate.
If they didn't know they were doing anything wrong, then that really does suck, and they got the royal screw. But, if they knew they were doing something illegal, that's the risk they took. I do things that are illegal all the time, and so far I've been fairly good at not getting caught, but if I do get caught, I expect to be in trouble. That's just the way life works.
I'm all for people downloading music, and if you can get away with it, I think that's awesome, because I would really love all the major record companies to go bankrupt, but you can't get mad about being fined if you're doing something you know you shouldn't be doing.
Appendix: And if they really didn't know, then that's f'ed. Could they not fight that in court?
Post by oysterheadhead on Apr 13, 2008 1:16:53 GMT -5
i'm with you on the Napster logo T-shirt. Lars can BITE ME! i used to LOVE Metallica years ago. now i will only see them because they are part of the entire package.
what was really wrong with Lars' attack on Napster? it was soooo wrong because Metallica was a band that NEVER WOULD HAVE MADE IT if not for the devoted fans who TRADED TAPES and spread the word about them during their first years. Metallica didn't become successful thru music videos or album sales. they were on their 4th album before MTV ever played a part in their success. without those dedicated fans TRADING TAPES and going to shows in the early years, metallica would have never gotten to that 4th album and therefore never achieved multi-millionaire status. after those millions were in the bank, Lars and James turned their backs on the grassroots efforts of fans who could barely afford those $15 CD's that paid for their swimming pools. file-sharing is the modern equivalent to cassette tape trading. that is why Lars was so wrong!