James Cameron must be feeling the brunt of this terrible trend, Avatar only grossed $2.6 billion – is there no justice? It almost seems like making a film as much about the experience as the story attracts people to go see it.

But what do I know, I presume without piracy Avatar would be at the $10 billion mark by now – damn pirates haha.

I won’t support an industry that uses a substantial part of the revenue from those sales to buy ever increasing copyright terms and shut down the free exchange of culture, not just for 70 years AFTER the death of the author (hell, even that’s WAY too long!), but with corporate ownership of copyright and DRM even forever. Sorry, but that’s how I feel about it. They’ve gone too far and perverted Copyright. They won’t see money from me again.

I can not speak for others but I work at a decent sized retail music/video/book store. I worked as a music manager up until 2 yrs ago when I gave up my position to work in the stock room.

I chose to stop because no matter how hard I tried to get new music in the store, my order attempts we bombed down by corporate purchasers. I have a great love of music in all its incarnations. I believe if you can not listen to something why should I go and spend the 15.00 bucks to buy it. The record labels do not like it when you write and ask the labels for promo copies. Early release or just sample mixes. I tried to work with local labels for promos and was able to receive them, but getting sony, bmg, EMI to send them was like pulling teeth, they apparently do not like coverage of their music unless under their terms. I got to the point of bringing a small laptop in store and streaming music through the muse system , needless to say that did not go well for me.

I pondered and posed to both corporate lawyers for the big 4 and to the store I worked with , how were we going to make sales, increase revenue and introduce new music to the general public. These questions remained unanswered to this day, and as such I have refused to work in the area I love best music.

I can say that a bonus to my fighting for my music is I was finally allowed to open brand new CD’s and play them in store but only on the condition they were repackaged and sold brand new even if the dogbone “security strip” was broken.

Since that was in place as store policy I have refused to purchase anything new, I now only purchase used music cd’s , used dvd’s
to me its smarter
buy retail pay 15-17 bucks
retail with emp discount 9-12 bucks
Used music 6-8 bucks
with emp discount 2 bucks on average

I can only say if you are interested and making a stand for your choice and making more music available write to your local stores, mass quantity walmart or your local independent and ask for more worth buying.

File complaints to gohastingscom
cc john marmaduke

This is the sad world we live people. Where the corporate elite run things by corrupting government, courts, and the very things that are suppose to make us a good society.

What cloud cuckoo land do you live in?

The music industry was caught price-fixing and engaging in unethical practices years ago.

With legal online solutions, artists get screwed over.

With online distribution, prices remained the same as they did when the media was in a physical form even though packaging and distribution costs were a fraction of that.

The MAFIAA cartels are greedy, extortive pricks. Regardless of piracy, they will remain the way they are… outrageously greedy… at least until they die out.

—-

I’m in much stronger agreement with “Truth” (#40)… I USED TO like purchasing media and still did even after Napster was taken over, etc…

but after the disgraceful case against Joel Tenebaum, where an industry tried to destroy a man’s life over what is effectively ONE CDs worth of content… Screw that!! NEVER EVER AGAIN.

The industry and every “artist” under MAFIAA auspices can go rot in hell or starve to death for all I care.