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Come On Crux, Put Up or...
You've made a bold assertion that comp trading for non-commercial purposes among friends is illegal. I've gone way out of my way, during my work hours, to present an argument using the RIAA's own documents to support my case.
All you've done is make an assertion that it is illegal, and made implicit threats that people who send selelctions of songs from their own collections to others are at risk of a law suit. Just because the RIAA says so, doesn't make it so. Have they won any cases against one-off comp traders? On what grounds is exchanging of comps illegal? That New York Times article doesn't cite anyone being charged or prosecuted, and in the article he describes comp pyramid trading schemes where hundreds of CDs are sent out to hundreds of people at a time.
There's no evidence that I know of that making a recording of music which you have purchased for someone else is illegal. I contend that in Canada it is legal.
(I am not a lawyer and am not offering legal advice. This is only my opinion.)
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When I logged on to my Brother In Law's pc this morning I was floored by all the requests for this prog comp. Two pages already!! Guess not exactly what I was thinking. Hey Crux, what's up wit choo? See your point but the way the matter was explained to me, the comps, created and distributed among friends is a grey area at best. And this is by a copyright attorney so it's not just idle internet musing.
I've waited for a response to Troy's suggestion that your bud should be grateful for the exposure, that does in fact lead to sales of his CD's that would have never happened otherwise. I don't think that this is an empty argument, simply compare the national avg of CDs per capita to the number on this board. This board is about spreading the word about great music and spends the dough backing it up. If a track is used in the creation of a comp to create buzz among friends, and friends is an important word here, I'd think someone might be happy for the free publicity. You say he'd pop a cork. Doesn't really seem like a wise choice to me but it's his choice to make. I'm wondering how many people you've turned off to Arena at this point? I can think of one but in fairness it's probably not something I'd like anyway.
jc
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Crux
so Troy, I'm trying to distill down what you're saying, and this is what I figured out:
1. You don't think what you're doing is illegal
2. Even if it is illegal, no one can catch you and prove you did it.
That's a very nuanced set of principles you seem to have.
Well, if that's what you got, then that's what you got. There's a lot more that you chose to miss.
Do us a favor and get Clive Nolan to come and read my post and lets see what HE has to say for himself. How else are people gonna even know his band EXISTS? The radio? Please.
Again, you choose to NOT discuss any of the comments made in my Nov 24-4:51PM post. Nothing to say about my logic? No substantiated argument? Ahhhh well. Your loss.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Slosh
Go f<a>uck yourself, troll. Nuanced enough for you?
Classic. Thanks Sloshy.
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Who is Clive Nolan? Never heard of the guy. Is he a musician?
I share this question with probably 95% of the people on this board. But if I get a comp, then I'll get to hear his music. If I like that ONE song I hear, I'll buy a CD. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother.
You think Clive would 'pop a cork' now?
I think Clive would 'pop a cork' if he knew you were speaking for him in a public forum.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Crux
I know Clive Nolan and I know he would absolutely pop a cork to find out an Arena track is on this compilation and being passed around. I'm afraid no one here is really looking at the bigger picture, and that is what happens after you hand out that initial copy, when they tell two friends, who tell two friends and now suddenly there are hundreds of illegal copies and the musician has never been compensated for their material that they spent hard time and money to write, record and release. Keep that in mind next time you think it's fine to hand it around.
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I think Clive Nolan busks the tables at a dive in Philly? Seem to recall he had a little band or something his boss let play on Wednesday nights.
Whoever he is he should be thanking people like the folks here for promoting his music free of charge so he can quit selling CD's out of the back of his mom's mini-van.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by N. Abstentia
Who is Clive Nolan? Never heard of the guy. Is he a musician?
I share this question with probably 95% of the people on this board. But if I get a comp, then I'll get to hear his music. If I like that ONE song I hear, I'll buy a CD. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother.
Clive Nolan was once the keyboard player for Pendragon and is one of the founding members of Arena. The other being Mick Pointer, the former drummer of Marillion. Arena are relatively unknown in the US despite releasing 8 albums with their first, Songs From The Lions Cage, in 1995.
And if it weren't for comps I received from folks here, I never would've known who Arena was. Now I own 5 full length albums and the follow-up ep's to Contagion.
Arena is just one example. I can think of dozens more where a song on a comp has introduced me to a new band which then led to a CD purchase.
Darren
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Nolan was the keyboardist from Pendragon??? Oh man, I think I might have actually shaken this guy's hand!!!
That brings up another point, I find it even funnier when musicians with less than stellar criminal records and respect for existing drug laws etc start citing the copyright laws as gospel.
Convenient morality?
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Okay, so my other reply was inappropriate for this forum. So be it. Apparently others had the same reaction.
I, me personally, know that I've generated hundreds (and perhaps thousands) of dollars of album sales via my compilations. The type of music I prefer typically translates to about twenty songs per comp. Let's say at a median price of $13.50 per album I'm already getting close to $200 for one comp. Not to mention the many thousands of dollars I've spent on my audio systems, the thousands of dollars I've spent on my computer, the cost of blank media, jewel boxes, padded mailers, postage, printing supplies, and most importantly, my time and effort. And for what? A sense of satifaction in knowing that in some small measure I spread a brief bit of bliss to a few people I'll likely never meet (some of which are literally half a world away) , and a chance that others may do the same for me one day. And the same can be said of every person here that makes compilations for others to enjoy. And BTW, the regulars here really aren't comp traders per se. In the four years or so that I've been coming here I've never once seen anyone turn away someone because they couldn't reciprocate.
My question for you, Crux, is what have you done to aid your favorite little-known artists? My guess is not much, if anything.
If you don't question and challenge laws, well, you get what you deserve.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Slosh
Go f<a>uck yourself, troll. Nuanced enough for you?
Slosh: You are my God. It needed to be said.
I, too, owe you a beer.
What a tool of a troll.
Cheers,
Bill
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Re
Quote:
Originally Posted by Slosh
Okay, so my other reply was inappropriate for this forum. So be it. Apparently others had the same reaction....
And BTW, the regulars here really aren't comp traders per se....
...My question for you, Crux, is what have you done to aid your favorite little-known artists? My guess is not much, if anything.
Well said Sloshy. You pretty much covered it all for 99% of the people here. The fact that this board is mostly people who do purchase MUCH MORE music than your average consumer ought to make Crux pay closer attention.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Crux
Quote:
Originally Posted by Troy
Even if it IS illegal, there's no PROOF that music actually changed hands. It's all just talk.
What your saying is just ignorant and delusional. There is an amazing degree of self-justification going on with most of these reponses, it's really stunning to me
He's just jivin with ya (or mocking ya)... lighten up. Jeez.
Crux, you simply don't understand the dynamic here. Trading comps is NO DIFFERENT than listening to the radio. In fact it offers an even better return ($) for an artist because there's a much better time/cost/benefit ratio with such sampler CDs compared to radio. I've never listened to internet radio, nor do I intend to. I don't have the time, and they simply don't cater to my tastes. On the other hand I buy a LOT more CDs than the average person, and I buy many after hearing artists on comps... personal mix comps, and comps you see in all the mags. BTW, why on earth do you think SO MANY artists (try to) put their wares in such music-mag Comps? It's to get their wares heard!! That's all they (artists really) want... a free hearing by the public. And that's all a comp does. It's pretty simple.
So I totally agree with Troy here.. comp-trading is... in effect... FREE ADVERTISING. Piracy is piracy, but when Free advertising becomes piracy, we're getting into an Orwellian twisting of reality. You wanna guess how much it's cost me in time, effort and money for the comps I've sent out... with absolutely nothing asked or expected in return? Hell, I outta be suing some of those artists for all that "advertising" work! BTW, my last comp was nearly ALL LP cuts... it's material simply NOT available anywhere, and most of it NEVER will be.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Crux
The folks trading music on P2P systems are not making money and they are being pursued and fined in droves by the RIAA.
That's clearly piracy (of a sort), and illegal. Sampling a cut on the radio... or on a web page... or on a comp, is NOT the same thing. If you don't understand that point, you're dumber than a rock.
As Barry kinda alludes to in the lawyerish mumbo-jumbo (heh heh).... is it OK for me to make a cassette tape of some various music I paid for, and let someone else (who hasn't paid for it) listen to it? Or are they "ethically" in the wrong in your warped view? Listening to cuts on Comps is no different. Let's have some stinkin common sense here. Stealing is stealing. Listening to new music... is listening to new music. Listening to new music... results in BUYING more new music. Buying more music... is good for the artist. It's really not that complicated.
I'll also add one basic economic truth that's (partially) at the root of this whole stinkin "problem". (it's been debated here before). It's a basic misunderstanding (by big corporations and their minion lawyers) of the underlying aspect of the true "worth" of a good... of it's being "priced" too much higher than it's "cost". Commerce (in the music industry) has not yet changed in response to the changes in technology. To paraphrase economist Tom Sowell: Asking (lawyers) where wages and prices come from is like asking six-year-olds where babies come from. Quite simply, most people will not continually overpay for a "good" they don't need (unlike essentials like food).
Personal computers for example, even though they are much better than just 10 years ago, are cheaper in price. If a PC was "artificially priced" at say $20K, how many people would bother to keep buying them? Answer: Only a slowly dwinding number (of elites). Crux, this board is such an elite. And you've got everything... completely ass-backwards.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Slosh
Go f<a>uck yourself, troll. Nuanced enough for you?
I'm with ya Sloshy. This Crux guy smells funny, if you get my drift.
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May I have one?
>"OK, progheads. Who wants a copy?"<
I have heard a few of those groups from Demetrio's comps, and I own <b>Glass Hammer</b> <i>Shadowlands</i> and I like it pretty well. (GH and IQ remind me a lot of Camel)
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One point about the legality-copying theme in this thread:
A few people, including the original complainer, are blending together two separate issues, and it would help to keep them separate:
First, is it legal or illegal to do what DPM is doing? There may be a clear answer to that or it may be a gray area.
Second, is it wrong to do what DPM is doing?
You could say there's a third question as well: Are any of us likely to ever get in trouble for doing what DPM is doing?
Let's not mix these up by arguing against a statement that this is illegal by saying that it shouldn't be so. Whether it should be illegal and whether it is are totally different questions, and arguing that way truly is wishful thinking.
Also, arguing it's illegal is not an argument against someone saying why they don't think it's wrong. Lots of things that aren't ethically wrong are illegal, and lots of things that aren't illegal are ethically wrong.
Someone could admit it may be illegal, in response to the first question. Then say he believes it's not ethically wrong, in response to the second question. And, if he thinks the answer to the third question is, that the law almost surely wouldn't be enforced against someone like him, then it sounds like this person should have no problems with distributing comps once in a while, to a few friends. Right? I bet that's the position that a lot of us take.
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I think you're right on here, Darius. I think we should all accept that this is in fact illegal. Crux should accept that trading comp CDs is not the only illegal activity that some people don't get upset about.
I've spent a fair amount of time on the Asylum's Outside board pointing out to people that when they post copyrighted articles verbatim, rather than posting an excerpt with a link, that they are engaging in a potential violation of copyright infringement. I think most of us understand & accept that this applies to comp trading as well. I started doing this because in a discussion of file-sharing elsewhere on that site, one of the more obstinate jerkoffs put up a nt post with a subject line that suggested that because I didn't buy the RIAA argument against file-sharing lock, stock, and barrel, that I must be a file-sharer. Something about ripping software. I'd never had ripping software on my computer. However, this other guy regularly posted copyrighted articles from newspapers. That was okay, I guess.
Much as every police officer on the road does not pull over every vehicle exceeding the speed limit, I think it helps to understand that the RIAA has been going after people who are offering 1,000 or more songs for download through file-sharing services. Not comp traders, or people who have illegally used file-sharing software to download a few songs, either. And they haven't gone after people who only download but don't allow others to download from their computers. If you don't have a great number of copyrighted MP3s in a shared folder, they wouldn't be targeting you, to the best of my knowledge.
Not all their lawsuits are going to fly. There are privacy issues at stake, and IPs such as Verizon did go to court to see to it that the RIAA's subpoenas under the DMCA would be refused. I don't remember what the outcome was, specifically. But I do remember that the RIAA sued an elderly woman wrongfully. Her IP address had been spoofed & whoever it was the RIAA actually downloaded from had a bunch of new-ish top 40 stuff, gangsta rap, stuff like that. The elderly woman had a Mac & couldn't have been file-sharing anyway. Yet she was dragged into court.
If a musician is going to look at this site & see that copyrighted materials are being illegally traded & decides he wants to do something about it, go for it. Somehow I doubt it. I think most musicians understand that the majority of income derived from the vast majority of bands comes from live performance and merchandising, not label-paid royalties from record sales. Most musicians understand that if the latter-day equivalent of mix tapes are traded amongst potential fans, that new fans are potentially created. New fans that might not have otherwise been created. The more fans, the more likely it is that people will go to see the musician in question if & when they happen to perform live in the potential fan's area. And perhaps purchase their merchandise. Or even purchase their albums. Wait, wasn't that why this was illegal? Because people were trading one copyrighted song that should have been purchased and not given away?
Well, yes, it is technically illegal. So go ahead & finance a lawsuit to target someone who's trading comps. This is a joke, right? I think I saw a post that said something about a search warrant? I mean, that's over the top. Tell you what, come & get me. I'm on the Lower East Side & I've got a few comps that people have sent me illegally.
The reality is that the RIAA is targeting pre-teens, teenagers, and college age-adolescents, for the most part. That's where most of the file-sharing is being done. If someone wants to bleat that a bunch of audiophiles trading comps is illegal, go & try to do something about it. I picture a judge laughing at an RIAA lawyer. Wait, the RIAA would never have one of their lawyers working on such nonsense. Maybe somebody else would. Maybe not. Either way, I don't think anyone on this board is in any danger. I do think it's wise to perhaps not be so blatant about offering comps for trade, as a more discreet approach might ward off some of this nonsense, but there's certainly nothing illegal about posting a tracklist & saying hit me w/a PM offline if this looks interesting, or something like that.
This community has been trading comps for years. In the late 1970s & early 1980s the RIAA told us that home taping was killing music. Today someone who knows a musician thinks that person would object to one song being used on a comp. That may be true, but if it is, that musician is misguided in my opinion & doesn't understand that the people who hear the illegally shared recording may become potential fans. If they don't hear that illegally shared recording then the chances are slighter this will happen. Is the big picture really that difficult to see here?
Rationalizing illegal activity may not be the greatest thing, but let's keep in mind--perhaps most importantly--that prior to the AHRA only 12 years ago, making ANY copy of a copyrighted recording--even if it was only for use by the person who paid for the recording--was "illegal." Any time any person made a cassette tape of a record for any purpose, they were breaking the law. They were not prosecuted. And I'd be quite shocked if anyone were prosecuted over comp trading. It's simply too vague & doesn't lead to enough of the type of activity that the RIAA is in fact interested in prosecuting. Filing lawsuits costs money. When comp traders are prosecuted then I think it'll be enlightening to shareholders of the corporations that own labels what's being done with their money. In the meantime, if you want to focus on illegal activity, go after people who spit on the subway or smoke a joint in their residences.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mad rhetorik
I'm with ya Sloshy. This Crux guy smells funny, if you get my drift.
In my opinion, although Crux is clearly not Mr. Personality, and he would've gotten the greater benefit of the doubt if he had first made some good-natured posts on musical topics before posting on this point, I don't think he's a troll and I think this issue is one he has strong opinions on, and one that's worth considering seriously whether or not one agrees with his views.
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I could've started a new thread for this, but I just SO like the idea that I'm continuing to post in an old thread about prog. Well, it was supposed to be about prog. What the heck made me open this thread anyway? I guess it was because it's not often that threads about prog grow an extra two pages.
Anyway, there's been a study released by the Pew Center about the views that musicians hold on file-sharing. Excerpts:
...musical artists typically sit out the rhetorical crossfire over copyright protection. This silent majority is the central focus of a new survey on Internet file-sharing, which discovered a significant sentiment: Most artists don't view unauthorized swapping of music and movies as a threat to their livelihood, even if many think it should be illegal.
While the study, released yesterday by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, found that about half of the artists it surveyed think unauthorized file-sharing should be illegal, it also concluded that "the vast majority do not see online file-sharing as a big threat to creative industries. Across the board, artists and musicians are more likely to say that the internet has made it possible for them to make more money from their art than they are to say it has made it harder to protect their work from piracy or unlawful use," according to the study, which also found that "two-thirds of artists say peer-to-peer file sharing poses a minor threat or no threat at all to them."
"The study by U.S. researchers ... suggests musicians do not agree with the tactics adopted by the music industry against file-sharing. While most considered file-sharing as illegal, many disagreed with the lawsuits launched against downloaders.
Here's the link to the story:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2004Dec6.html
And another one from the NY Times at
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/06/arts/06down.html?th
Also
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4067031.stm
and
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,65927,00.html
and if you really dig reading what I presume is essentially a very similar report on the survey, you can go to
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=6997352
also. If you'd like to see the survey itself, it's at
http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_...ans_Report.pdf
I guess the guy from "Stadium" or whatever the heck that band's name is was in the minority on this.
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