Lily Allen Changes Tune, Now Wants To Throttle Pirates
Written by enigmax on September 25, 2009After Lily Allen sparked friction between not only thousands of people on the Internet, but also her colleagues in the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC), yesterday they met up to try and forge a united front. Now Allen has done a U-turn, stating that disconnecting pirates is too draconian and instead supports FAC calls to slow connections to a crawl.
There can hardly be a reader who hasn’t read about the raging debate sparked by Lily Allen and her now-defunct anti-piracy blog/campaign. It has been quite the hot topic this week.
Up until yesterday, Lily was one of the most prominent supporters of a proposed 3 strikes regime to deal with alleged file-sharers – crucially one which would ultimately lead to disconnection from the Internet for those accused. However, this put her at odds with the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC) who felt that disconnections are too draconian.
Yesterday, despite saying that she would not attend due to a feared media scrum, Allen attended a meeting in London of around 100 musicians including representatives from FAC in order to find some common ground to move forward.
The artists took a vote and instead of backing up Allen’s disconnection calls, went for a more palatable option – maintaining a basic level of Internet access for alleged pirates but throttling their bandwidth so that file-sharing would become impractical.
“Our meeting voted to support a three-strike sanction on those who persistently download illegal files, to consist of a warning letter, a stronger warning letter, and a final sanction of the restriction of the infringers’ bandwith to a level which would render file-sharing of media files impractical while leaving basic e-mail and web access functional,” said the artists.
Lily Allen closed down her anti-piracy blog yesterday after just a few days in operation, claiming that the abuse she suffered there was too great to continue. Nevertheless, despite the fact she has backed away, the artists said they wished to express support for her anti-piracy campaign.
“We are trying to find a proportionate response to a real problem that is damaging our industry. I hope it will convince the record labels that this is a way of sending a message to file-sharers,” said Billy Bragg of FAC.
With Lily’s crowd, the Featured Artists Coalition and also UK Music likely to support throttling instead of disconnections, there appears to be a unified voice forming from the artists.
However, while we predict that Internet users will fail to respond to threats (even reduced ones such as throttling), there will be even stronger objections to the stance taken by the artists yesterday from the Big Four labels.
Having ruled out going after individual file-sharers in court, they have put all of their eggs in a single basket which relies on ISPs taking disconnection action against alleged pirates. It is hugely unlikely that they will support these watered-down proposals but we won’t have to wait long to find out. According to The Times, the labels will meet this morning and are expected to draft a letter to Lord Mandelson shortly.
Previously: Two More Pirate Bay Appeal Judges Accused of Bias
Next: Pirate Party Canada Starts a BitTorrent Tracker
235 Responses
lol as if we didnt see this coming!!
This bitch just does’nt know when to quit.We don’t want to hear you’re corporate crap or you’re corporate music.Like goatboy used to say “Suck satan’s dick bitch” & shut the fuk up.Talk about castle wall’s!
“I wanna be famous, but I don’t want any fans” – lily allen 09
someone Throttle lily allen please
I think it should be on a three strike basis
Strike one: warning
Strike two: warning
Strike three: hes a lost cause. lets send warning letters to other people
Silly Lily – thats not how you walk away from music
She could not even get that right.
When will she shut up
Bored Now
My god this woman is thick! she just does not get it. I’m sure she’s still scratching her head over the weird fact that the free world doesn’t revolve around entirely around her & her self serving wishes.I’m sure its incredibly frustrating for her. Btw, Lily, don’t you worry, I’ve never ever pirated your music & never will, wanna know why? because I have taste. K, thanks bye!
lol @ #5
@5 lmao
bandwidth throttling will end access to many more legitimate services than there are illegitimate e.g. BBC iPlayer, Spotify, iTunes, online gaming, etc. and dont forget that the vast majority of filesharing is perfectly legal without copyright implications
there is no mention of how long the punishment will last, is it forever?
disallowing a general tool for a specific abuse is problematic on all levels. what is considered “normal use” is constantly changing and the european parliament recognised this when they voted against the 3 strikes proposal
technology created the monopolies that make a select few musicians wealthy beyond everyone’s wildest dreams. now technology has made copy-protection effectively impractical we should just acknowledge reality and let this gold-mine close instead of trying to keep it open with abusive laws which restrict personal freedoms
http://www.h33t.com credits for the above ideas to the comments on a few other blogs that i thought were novel
Wtf is she up to. Send her to a mental institution. :P
Bet shes on her PMS
They should make an example of her and limit her Internet connection for copyright infringement. That would be the icing on the cake.
who da fux is lily allen?
just like a women, wont STFU, get back in the kitchen.
throttle this bitch by sticking a 10″er down her throat.ahe will love it and forget all about the net
What about the last strike.
What are evidences which can prove who is the infringer in such a situation ?
An IP address would only lead people to a subscriber not necessary the infringer (what about a child, a neighbour, an hacker cracking wireless access …)
Is it normal to request such a sanction (bandwidth throttling) which may affect innocent people : spouse, children who are not responsible of that infringement ?
The comments here are missing the point. Last night at the FAC meeting Lily was cheered upon entry, and In the British media today Lily Allen is being lauded as the catalyst who finally gathered artists into a singular vision for the protection and payment of their work. This is no small achievement and all, it appears, compelled by a woman regarded as little more than a smart-cookie pop tart. Good for her.
Three strikes and your network is slowed could become a reasonable global standard for all kinds of improper online behavior. So instead of slagging Allen, consider the sea change in the UK today, Mandelson has his mandate and now it’s on to getting the ISP’s onboard. This is only the beginning, a cat and mouse tech race that the internet, our privacy and our freedom will lose. Thanks, Pirates. Hope your stolen goods are worth it.
@Reasoned Mind
You’re still a douchebag.
and sorry, this little plan will only affect those “pirates” stupid enough not to cover their tracks, which is great, less hit and runners for us.
“atalyst who finally gathered artists into a singular vision for the protection and payment of their work.”
Lol, wouldn’t she have needed to do something, ANYTHING, for that to be true? All she did was say hey, i’m a dirty ass pirate, but do what I say not what I do, then went from supporting 1 idea, that was not her own, jumped ship and supported another idea, that again wasn’t her own.
Congrats Reasoned Mind, you’ve completely cemented the fact that you are an industry shill. congrats and kudos to you
Wouldn’t ISPs lose money from throttling? If I pay a lot of money for high-speed access & then it’s reduced to dial-up speed, then I might as well cancel with my ISP and get dialup instead. I don’t see this panning out very well.
Why is it anyone’s business to do ANYTHING to “pirates”?
First of all, if you’re a pirate (you sell copyrighted material that does not belong to you), then you are already committing a crime and probably headed to jail. What does internet access matter to you at that point?
Second of all, if you’re not a pirate and you are just a “file sharer”, then unless you are convicted of a crime, whose business is it to interfere with your internet connection whther it be throttling or disconnecting it?
Why not throttle connections of people that have a different opinion or religion of yours? Or people who promote causes that you find deplorable? I mean, they’re not committing a crime either, right?
Move to Spain and use my unrestricted bandwidth :D f*ck all these greedy b*stards. jaja
If she’s really believes in what’s she’s saying, she should be the first person to have her connection throttled after being exposed as a pirate, a fact lost on her deluded fanboys.
How can ISP’s throttling your bandwidth possibly work?
Say your paying for 20Mb Broadband and then they throttle you down so that file-sharing is impracticle, thats got to be down to like 1Mb or less!
No way is anyone who’s paying for say 20Mb Broadband going to continue to pay for it if they are only getting 1Mb, even if it is only temporary.
Let’s face it, people who download Movies, Music etc, wouldnt buy most of the stuff they download anyway, even if file-sharing was some how stopped.
LoL
I hope they get all they want and annoy more people and find out that people want buy anything from SOB’s.
Law or no law I don’t see these people getting anymore money from anybody, what I do see is people starting to use services that cater to them and services that forbide strong copyright in their premisses.
If you wanna make a statement tell all your friends to find artists that license their music under the CC Commons, use jamendo and stop using spotify.
Phishy, I don’t work in the digital or entertainment industries and I don’t care if you call me names here. My point still exists, and it’s a valid one.
The process of responding to piracy has been long and it should be, because our privacy is what pirates are sacrificing here. Move to VPN’s and Darknets? Expect government and licensing schemes to follow you there. Harddrive swaps? You can reasonably anticipate government regulation and control will move there, too. Remember Phishy, none of this is government action, but REACTION to illegal activity. Stop the activity and the reaction stops. None of this was even dreamt of before Napster so you certainly can’t blame this on government or industry “control” of the internet. All industry wants to do is reasonably control only their product, as always, in all of business history. Nothing out of the ordinary there, either.
And it appears that one brave little British girl stood up for what she believed in, took enormous heat and pulled her entire industry together into a singular voice. Publishing, games, movies are likely next. And that’s a lot more than anything you and I are achieving here. Especially you. lol
Is this the normal two-steps-forward-one-step-back strategy?
Propose something horrible and change it just slightly in order to try to make it look reasonable.
Throttling might stop people from pirating movies (although it would be terrible for net neutrality and costs for ISPs to go down that path), but there is not much difference between viewing a couple of web pages and downloading an mp3 song in terms of size. You cannot stop one without seriously hurting the other.
Reasoned Mind you make me laugh
Are you Lily ….?
You sound like it
Who’s Lily Allen?
What I dont understand is why Lily Allen is so Anti-Piracy.
Who would want to download any of her so-called ‘Music’ its just utter SH*T!
How you can call that music is beyond me….
Dont bother asking Reasoned Mind questions.
1. He never responds to valid arguments because he either cant answer them or thinks he is above you since you don’t speak in his manner.
2. He technically acts like everyone else, he makes claims and puts them across as facts with no references, evidence or even theory. He loves to just say ‘this is going to happen..’ with nothing to back it up.
3. He never has anything to say when TF uncovers horrible truths about the industry, or he pathetically tries to justify it with bogus points that don’t really have anything to do with the subject.. but seems to convince himself that it does.
4. He loves to point out the fact that ‘pirates’ are but a small minority of the population yet he still thinks that his comments are significant. If file sharing was such a small thing.. then why would he be here.
5. He contradicts himself quiet often in the long run and fails to acknowledge it when someone points it out.
6. His comments have no real point or meaning when you get down to it.. he loves to make his little side point and run away, then act like he is better then everyone else.
Do yourself a favor and don’t engage him even though you think you can have an intelligent argument. Your wasting your time.
I didnt think they could get any more pathetic..
but hey whatever.. if they think that will work.. my encrypted traffic says otherwise.. haha.
@Reasoned Mind
You make it sound as though the repercussions happen at a personal level, but that is not true. If some persons illegaly share music or movies that creates a reaction that hurts all people, whether they are innocent or not. So you see, refraining from any illegal activity on my side does nothing to stop the government’s bad reactions.
If some people speed on the high-ways it doesn’t mean we introduce measures that hurts the civil rights of everyone.
“All industry wants to do is reasonably control only their product”
There are authors born in the 1850’s whose works are still protected today. How is that reasonable? No, the industry is all but reasonable. What they want is money and control.
“And it appears that one brave little British girl stood up for what she believed in, took enormous heat”
No, she didn’t. She closed down her entire blog in order to hide her mistakes. How is that standing up for anything? And although there were some idiotic comments to her first post the absolute majority of the comments to her later posts were surprisingly civil.
Who’s Reasoned Mind?
I think I might have read 1 of his post once, but ever since then I just skip his posts and move on to the next one.
You are such a ignorant, what was echelon(2000) and carnivore(2000)?
Why do you think darknets sprung up?
You got owned again.
TF always entertaines me. So the comments. Well done.
“This is only the beginning, a cat and mouse tech race that the internet, our privacy and our freedom will lose. Thanks, Pirates. Hope your stolen goods are worth it.”
You’re trying to blame sharers for the unreasonable actions of the record companies? You really are a complete moonbat at times RM!
So if you personally have ever driven your car anywhere above the speed limit I can blame you directly for the speed cameras all around my locale? Yeeeaaaah, riiiiiight.
It’s not the fault of sharer’s like Lily Allen that the record companies want to change the law to suit their business models and the government want to change the law to monitor every individual member of the public, so see filesharing as a suitable scapegoat to allow them to get away with it.
The PR campaigns really are in overdrive today. All the old media are reporting Lily Allen’s blog closing because of the ‘abuse’ that never existed and have casually forgotten about her own piracy. The focus has quickly been shifted to the meeting of the FAC, whilst forgetting Ms Allen’s blog posts and tweets to say she wouldn’t attend. She just can’t stop hersefl from U-turning on every single public statement can she? She should be a bloody politician!
I’m surprised FAC welcomed her back. Kinda makes them look like a bunch of fools.
Or was that one of those super embarrassing moments…”H%ly Sh*t! Dude! she showed up!”…”What we do?” The [APPLAUSE] sign lights up and all start to clap….
WoW! When does Lily Allen stop being an attentionwhore and uberfailure?
It’s getting ridiculous…
so does this mean that if the disconnect policy was enforced- because Lily was involved with more than one count of copyright infringement, the ISPs can disconnect her?
I certainly hope so. After all- “justice” is a double-edged sword ;-) just because you are famous or rich (or “now know better”), does not exempt you from the rules :-D
“throttling their bandwidth so that file-sharing would become impractical”
Would anyone notice? Torrents crawl at glacial speeds already, and most of the major upload services already throttle everything in sight.
They are just trying to save her career.
The stupid twat threw it down the pan and now theyre getting desperate in backtracking.
Shame, I hope the attention seeking tramp was gone for good.
Actually, it is irrelevant what they decide with that law anyway. Why? Well, because it will be extremely difficult to actually implement it.
Let’s look at how it might work.
The ISPs find a method, using which they prove that you are downloading “illegal” material. Chances are, it will be a very technically superficial method. I mean – how WOULD you do it? Track what people visit what sites? So I am using a private tracker. How would you prove I am not downloading packages of GPL software and albums of Creative Commons music?
It all comes down to this implementation, really. And without tracking each and every computer from inside out it is hardly possible to implement any serious method.
Moreover, even if some sort of an inside out control is implemented over the years, in parallel methods to bypass them will be created.
Computer is an open system – it means that it is physically impossible to create a barrier that cannot be bypassed.
At least she’s quitting music?
errmm, I do actually like one song that she has done, that Alfie thing, but it’s about her brother who persistantly smokes weed, now, talk about hypocrisy, has she never done dope…..
oh and before I forget, silly me almosr forgot. ohw ro tahw era uoy :-)
@25 (real Reasoned Mind)
You’re a she-male.
@30 (fake Reasoned Mind)
Well said.
no way did Lilly stand up for what she believed in. having shown her own absolute lack of knowledge on the subject, she just echoed the thoughts of the big music corporations and i bet she didn’t do that for free! like so many so-called artists before her, whilst trying to make a name for themselves, they were glad of supposed ‘illegal distribution’ in whatever form, just to get more people to listen to their music. once those that ‘made it’ had done so, their attitude completely turns round. hypocrits, the lot of them!
as for the comment above ‘All industry wants to do is reasonably control only their product’. anyone that believes that must be a complete moron. what is happening here is only the beginning. if successful, the internet will become totally controlled, taking away any and all privacy rights of the individual and what is atm a worldwide, free service. trouble is, those that think differently atm will be the first to moan when it is too late and they find that they are also affected because something else is under a corporate umbrella
#25 RM: “one of this is government action, but REACTION to illegal activity. Stop the activity and the reaction stops.”
Better change the law, and it will cease being illegal.
You always do so as if laws are immutable and sacro-sankt. They are NOT.
In communist states behind the Iron Curtain, it was against the law to read certain books. Not only did people ignore that law (samizdat flourished there just like “piracy” flourishes here), eventually their systems broke down and those reading-forbidding laws disappeared.
That’s what the file sharing community is hoping to see: that the laws forbidding non-commercial copying of files be repelled.
Anonymouse, it’s ALREADY under a “corporate umbrella.” Internet access is funded, constructed, serviced and PROVIDED by corporations YOU PAY everyday, and UNDER government regulation in every country in the world.
The fact that some of you actually believe that illegal behavior on the internet is some sort of right, or that piracy will facilitate some revolution is the most entertaining thing about this entire issue.
And they’ll raise the costs to underwrite the surveillance. As long as you keep paying your internet access bill, they’ll have the money to lobby government, monitor your activity and slow your connection.
You know what? I really wish Lily would shut the fuck up.
i propose that Lily Allen is now known as Lily Anal.
also the Featured Artists Coalition
now known as
Featured Anal coefficient
in other news the news perspers and the icemen as well as washing line installers all have decided to jion Lilly anal and her Luddites.
They propose to take on the white good manufactures for using a idea they had first.
the iceman proposes freezing water is stealing.
the news pauper man replies that electronic publishing is stealing.
and the washing line installer propese that tumble dryers is stealing food of his table.
whilst lilly anal and her preverted friends fca Quango still think they have the right to make laws.
maybe they should look up what a democracy is or move to a dictatorship state.
stupid buggers get a life hittlers children.
well done guys were wining slowly not long now.
@42
That is a point that has been brought up several times in this whole debate, and it will be very difficult and costly for ISPs to implement (hence most of them being against the three strike law).
As well as the money they lose from monitoring every single packet from/to every single user, they will also lose money from people cancelling their connections. People will not pay for a 20Mb connection when they are being limited to 1Mb or under…
Although, i can see that if this DOES happen, that at least some ISPs will have a very weak and useless method in place just so they are not breaking the law, but that will cost them practically nothing in comparison to the cost of a full-on monitoring system…
ps, RM, fuck off will you? Or atleast answer specific point in other people’s posts ratehr than just going for the “you’re wrong” approach…
OK, lets see.
I pay £37 p.m. for 20Mb access to the internet from my Internet Service Provider, VirginMedia.
I then eventually get throttled to 1Mb because I used the warning letters as toilet roll and rightfully ignored them.
So, now I’m paying £37p.m. for a 1Mb connection.
Hmm. If I swap my Internet Service Provider, to say, BT, that means I’ll have to get an phone line installed at a cost of £11.25p.m. plus £15.65p.m for a similar broadband package, totalling £26p.m.
This leaves me with £11p.m. for an offshore, encrypted VPN service.
Now please, throttle your customers and see what happens.
Until the day I can try music/movies/software etc without having to please the pockets of the corporate fatcat monopoly’s first, well, cat and mouse time.
why isnt she being sued for the music she pirated on her site than?
if they throttle all of your internet to a point you dont wanna download like 32-70 mbs… that is basically cutting you off completely.
I seriously cannot believe what Lily Allen is doing. I often liken the piracy “issue” to the drug dealing issue in the world.
Its not going to stop, no matter how many people you shut down or arrest, it still happens.
Only with the internet its probalby 50x more difficult.
Good luck!
it doesn’t detract from the point that whilst artists are ‘undiscovered’, they will do whatever it takes, using whatever methods available, to become recognised. once (to a greater or lesser degree) they become famous, they condemn the very methods that made them famous in the first place. bit of an attitude change there, if ever i saw one!
You are such and easy target. They don’t have money to keep schools open and other projects what makes you think they have unlimited cash to do all that orwellian stuff?
It is much more probable and realistic that the weight of the cost to do it all will break down the system forcing them to accept levels of now illegal behavior. Not the other way around, the people don’t have costs to maintaining “illegal” filesharing alive and in fact they have many incentives to do so, you are babling about a very motivated crowd that have everything to gain and nothing to loose, what else could governments do? they already tried suing it didn’t work, they will try legislation and it will fail too because people don’t have a reason to stop, if they do stop sharing they stand to loose more then they gain so no I very much doubt that your moronic words will come true but lets not quibble about it, I see ya in 10 years and when people are still doing exactly what they are doing now and bragging about everywhere you will understand how really those things work LoL
Whatever the rights or wrongs of sharing may be, this entire issue has one real focus: the monitoring of, and the control of access to, information.
That covers all sorts of ground – Including in this case the criminalisation of behaviour that has, up until now, been the province of civil actions.
If they decide to go down that route with this matter then God knows what they’ll do in the future.
At the moment we have the IWF deciding on whether some sites are ‘allowed’. I’m not in any way defending the sites which they block, but it’s the thin end of the wedge. Look at the way Australia is going. Look at China. Look at Iran. Do you want to end up with your freedoms restricted as they are in those countries?
I thought not.
So, if don’t want to lose your liberties and rights to privacy then write to your government representatives. Sure, it may not accomplish much but it’s the only thing that might make any difference.
We all know that governments and politicians are swayed by the influence of Big Business and Big Money, but they are (or seem to be) generally intent on keeping their jobs and positions of power. If there was a hint that they might lose those things by taking action that is opposed by a large number of people then they might just think twice about it.
The world has changed. Since the emergence of the public Internet nearly 20 years ago the entire landscape of business and commerce has changed. The policy of government should not be to attempt to prop up failing business models. It should be to present a way forward that is accepted by the majority of ‘ordinary’ people.
This (http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/wealth_of_networks/Main_Page) should be required reading for anyone involved with this debate. Yes it’s quite old now, but the points it makes are perhaps even more salient now than they ever were. When you write to your reprsentatives make sure you include a link to that or, even better, include a printed copy.
Direct involvement with those who make the laws is the only (slim) chance we have of defending our rights to the free exchange of information.
You can either sit back and watch it happen, or you can get involved.
It’s up to you.
Sooooo, tree strikes and you have no means to buy legal digital content… might as well warez it.
Anop2p, VPN, usenet, filehost, irc, streaming sites anyone? This is a fight they will not win with new laws.
Who exactly is Lord Mandelson. Lord is such a faggy title, you silly Brits. Do your judges still wear wigs? I could never take a guy wearing a silly wig seriously.
Fuck you. This is my 14Mbit connection, leave it alone.
How did America win over the USSR?
They out expended them, just like pirates will out expend any government dumb enough to try and force such flawed business model onto any society. It cost nothing to share but it cost millions in R&D to even start to keep up with new trends and it will cost billions to try and stay ahead. Only dumb people would think this is sustainable and there is a chance of stopping those new trends in society.
One artist to another, girl: GIVE UP!
You are making a fool of yourself, you won’t change a thing and if you open your eyes, you will see that many of us actually support P2P file sharing.
BitTorrent is one of the greatest promotion tools ever invented, use it. Your attempts to destroy it are futile and actually hurt small artists like myself more than piracy ever would.
Oh, and your music is god-awful to boot.
I have always despised the nasty phony fake little bitch Lily Allen, but i hate her even more now. Scum bucket cow.
@61
I couldnt agree with you more, her so-called ‘Music’ is absolute SH*T!
It pisses me off that all these artists have the nevrve to even think they have a RIGHT to affect our bandwidth!.. they are NOT the law just a bunch of ppl that make “art”.
Who all of a sudden made them judge and jury of the internet?????????
Stupid bitch when is she & everybody else going to realise there is a silent war against mainstream music artists & there fans
For one second, consider making music without it making you millions of pounds/dollars every second
Instead of seeing pirates who “steal” see them as the opposite – we share music because we love music
The other day I worked out ALL my music would have cost me nearly £1 MILLION If I bought it all from iTunes (some of the cheapest music in the UK)
I can’t afford 1 million! Can you?
____________________
If your worried about throttling, get a cheap seed box :D
@49 The icemen propose freezing water is stealing? and the washing line installe propses that tumbe dryers is stealing food from his table?
What?
When I Filled up my 500gb I just went to a hotel with my GF. It took about two days to get all the stuff I needed from Newsgroups.
All files worked perfectly!
I now have about 100 PS2 games that work great!
It’s great!
I paid for the hotel room in cash and without ID so there is no way I could get caught.
I spent a lovely weekend smoking izm, blowin’ cane, and banging my lovely Mexican girl friend while DL all I wanted.
I don’t torrent anymore ’cause I don’t want to expose my self.
Anyone else have parties like this?
some people just don’t know when to shut the fuck up and keep a low profile.
e.g. Lily Allen, Reasoned Mind
http://hacknmod.com/hack/stream-your-entire-music-library-to-any-computer/
Lets stream the music for the world LoL
The funny thing is that all of Lily Allen’s arguments etc, trying to make headlines and get more support is likely to get more people to start ‘File-Sharing’ themselves.
People read it in a newspaper, type ‘file sharing’ into google and away they go downloading all there favorite movies, music etc
Way to go, youve just informed the people unaware of bittorent/p2p, that they can get stuff like movies, music, software etc FOR FREE!
Congratulations on making ‘File-Sharing’ even bigger then it ever was.
Stupid B*tch
SINCE WHEN TORRENTFREAK IS A GOSSIP COLUMN?!
Stop bitching about Lilly, you wankers.
(Otherwise, good work reporting on p2p and web user rights. :)
Man what a bitch, I cant believe someone with a spupid childish mind can get their opinion heard over others. Who cares what this bitch wants or what FAC thinks.
I make music but wheres my say on this issue, without Bit torrent I wont be able to share my music for free and if you tube went i would have no exposure at all.
Screw these idiots, they are just trying to control the amount of music you get to listen to so your more likely to buy their crap.
I havent bought a CD or DVD in about 5 years now and i never will again either..
flip flops more than a politician
still… who the f is this person?
Three strikes eh? How about this then……
Strike 1: Lily Allen in face with rounders bat.
Strike 2: Lily Allen in the knees with cricket bat.
Strike 3: Lily Allen over the head with a brick.
The real pisser here is that the ugly, untalented bitch can’t even sing. Who buys her shit? Who wants to download her crap? Why doesn’t she just do the world a favour and die.
Why would anyone waste there bandwidth downloading her SHIT ‘Music’?
Sorry Lilly, aint desperate enough to Throttle with ya… Does she even know what the word Throttle means? We know she prob can’t spell it right!
Should be dubbed “Two strikes and then you fork up for a monthly sub to a Darknet.”
She probably didn’t want to get disconnected herself when she gets caught ‘red-handed’ the next (third) time.
Just as much a loudmouth arsehole as her father, Keith Allen.
Silly bint
If you buy a DVD, CD, Software etc, then its yours, the case the disc came in, the leaflet thing you get, the disc itself and ofcourse the stuff on the disc.
You own it.
So you can do what you want with it, whether you rip/burn it and give it to friends/family, or if you rip/upload it.
You spent your money on it so ITS YOURS and you can do what you want with it.
The bit I don’t get is a bunch of well-to-do folks from one industry turning up to a meeting, at which they decide what to tell another industry to do.
Somehow this creates a mandate for a change in the law? Eh?
One industry has spent the last couple of decades ripping its customers off, and very often it’s artists. It’s ignored all real opportunities to embrace the new technology and become out of touch with its consumers and now the entire country is supposed to subsidise its stupidity in increased ISP costs?
The UK music industry is growing every year; unfortunatly for them the plastic disk selling industry failed to move with the times and is now increasingly irrelevant.
Why should we care?
Let’s face it folks
First of all, today any ISP’s who will be kissing the Mafiaa’s ass would be legally bound to serve up it’s existing customers with a new Terms of Service agreement. That’s step one: Start looking for another ISP.
Step two, unless a law is actually passed that demands ISP’s to throttle customers, only those like Ericom with no balls will actually do it. Third any other ISP will likely be happy to snap up the customers from the competition.
Even if in a parallel universe, a law was passed globally, allowing the Mafiaa to phone up any ISP on the planet and demand them to throttle, disconnect or incinerate a user they would have to find them first.
Summary there are only two ways to win this war.
1) Short term, wear cammo! Learn to use a proxy and otherwise hide your identity online. Remember: buy a prepaid mastercard when paying for the service.
2) Long term, call to arms! As somebody once said, the only way to fight this is to take power away from those idiot smileyfaced politicians who are allowing this to happen. Join your local pirate party today and seriously consider donating to them. Just put 10 measly bucks a month or whatever you can afford. Running a political party has its costs: paperclips, IT, events, flyers, t-shirts and lotsa coffee!
We need to help these brave folks get off the ground and into the trees to knock out the current simians inhabitants.
If you believe in something, why not make it the Pirate Parties!
So I read all of the comments (ReasonedMind: You’re making a fool of yourself!) and would like to add that this woman needs a real education as to how the internet really works.
You know, if you just stop writing about Ms. Allen, she will return to her well-deserved obscurity…
@27 Joe Public
LOL I think you figured out who the troll is!
Reasoned Mind = Lily Allen.
Ahh it all suddenly seems so clear!
“If you buy a DVD, CD, Software etc, then its yours, the case the disc came in, the leaflet thing you get, the disc itself and ofcourse the stuff on the disc.
You own it.
So you can do what you want with it, whether you rip/burn it and give it to friends/family, or if you rip/upload it”
Unfortunately not.
You own the media and packaging, yes. But you only have a licence to the content, and only for personal use.
“All rights of the producer and of the works reproduced reserved. Unauthorised copying, hiring, lending, public performance and broadcasting of this record prohibited”
Like it or not, you agree to that buy purchasing the item.
Sad, but true.
There have been cases in the past where making a copy for ‘personal use’ such as taping or storing on a computer are allowed, even making a backup in some cases, but that’s it. You aren’t allowed to give copies away.
Personally, I find it interesting that the licence says you can’t copy or distribute the material, but it says nothing at all about receiving such a copy.
And isn’t that one of the things ‘They’ are trying to change?
RM: “As long as you keep paying your internet access bill, they’ll have the money to lobby government, monitor your activity and slow your connection.”
As much as I disagree with you generally, on this particular point, you’re quite right. Sadly.
Just like centralized trackers are BitTorrent Achilles heel, the ISPs are today’s Internet’s choke points for the powers that be.
In a not so long past, we used to connect computers in a decentralized way, using UUCP or BBS systems. No ISPs needed back then, just the plain old telephone system (POTS).
Should Big Media owned governments tighten the screws further on ISPs, we’ll have to revert back to the good ole telephone system, and transfer files in a C2C (computer to computer) mode, if need be with modems etc.
BUT, it won’t stop us file sharing. As long as there is a communication channel, it WILL carry stuff you’d rather see it not carry. ;)
Lily who..?
10char10char
And I’ll take my clothes off and it will be shameless….
Cuz everyone knows that’s how you get famous
:-)
Hey @49
Whatever it is you were trying to say, for the love of all things holy. SPELLCHECK YOUR POSTING!
When going through so much 3rd grader english “da meaning comes not out and ur b stoopid!” Comprende esse?
Lilly should really just take a break from the scene for a while and go figure things out while at some sweetish spa somewhere.
@84
Most of us simply do not give a fuck about that.
Despite the best rational arguments from the pro file sharing community and 10 years since Napster, nothing seems to have changed their tune. Why bother arguing? It is clearly yet another war waged against the general public and their freedoms. Against life, love and liberty.
“The sensible thing to do is to try to see how we can monetise all this file-sharing activity, which is evidence of a lot of interest in music.”
– Blur drummer Dave Rowntree
Ah the contempt…
While you’re at it, monetise everything– our water, our sunlight, our air– everything. With bottled water, people’s labour, their bodies, their life-force, their land and resources, genetic patents, and corporate farms, etc., you’re doing quite well.
Reality: Everything in life is free.
Myth: Nothing in life is free.
Myths pollute reality, pollute you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRNMZEDOBrM&feature=related
Cute. But that’s not how the internet works. “Have the users bandwidth limited…” what candy cane, lolly pop, ass fucking three ring circus does this woman exist in?
Y’know how there will always be jewel thieves who do it for the sheer joy of outwitting the security systems? And for the cred it brings them amongst other jewel thieves?
There will always be tax evaders, too, because a misguided resolute few will always insist they don’t have to pay taxes. Same goes for the speeder who insists that paying for the car, the gas and the road taxes gives him the right to any speed he chooses. We all know about these folks, right? And society views these as the misfits, don’t we? By and large I think we do.
Well, that’s where I think filesharing is going. As all of digital industry gathers its resentment at being ripped off as music is finally doing this week, and government susses out throttling and disconnection (or whatever), I’m beginning to think the vast majority of the pirating public will accept that the party is over leaving only the piracy diehards to the VPN’s the encryption, the darknets and so on.
Within a few years we’ll see the same old 95% following the rules again and the remaining anarchist 5% struggling to infringe because the laws don’t reflect their renegade beliefs. Same as always.
Industry doesn’t have to stamp out piracy, it just has to make it so dangerous and so difficult that the overwhelming majority will shrug and either go back to paying for copyrighted content or just do without it entirely, stick to CC stuff and so on, which is absolutely their fair choice. But eventually as the years pass, the masses will go back to paying for content. I think it is inevitable.
The industries will easily survive while maintaining their market domination and every now and then a posterboy or girl will be caught and publicly crucified so the network can be useful for sales and distribution again as it was before Napster. Government is not going to give this up, and the average Joe isn’t going to fight it.
That’s what I think.
What annoys me is the way all these “artists” get together and decide that they are going to throttle our internet. its not just Lily Allen all these so called artists think that the entire internet revolves around there particular industry and that they even have the right to decide how people are going to be punished. They have no right no power and no authority and its time the realised that and stopped lording over everyone else as if they are the superior beings. it makes me sick!
People should be able to do whatever they want online without interference from these fatheads so long as children or fraud are not involved.
@ Reasoned Mind
“our privacy and our freedom will lose. Thanks, Pirates. Hope your stolen goods are worth it.”
You dumb shortsighted moron, blaming people who download for something the music industry is trying to do.
Your dumb!
What is with these artists thinking that they are entitled to compensation for copies of recordings of their art?
Its really simple, if you dont like making your art, dont fucking make it. Dont cry at me that I didnt pay you for your art. boohoo.
As for ISPs slowing connections down, people have three options: cancel their subscription and resub under a new name, find a new ISP, or flip out and start cutting underground wires.
@ 94 Bobe-On said: “While you’re at it, monetize everything– our water……”
Good place to start. In the beginning nature did the work to make it rain and gravity did the work in collection and storage. Today we build desalination plants, pumping stations and pipe it into a lot of places.
Each of about 8 million Londoners use 161 liters of water every single day, requiring a very expensive infrastructure and the services of thousands of civil service workers.
Water is already “monetized” Bobo-On and your argument isn’t with the music industry.
Its with reality.
Now about that sunlight you ordered……
I still don’t know who the hell Lilly Allen is.
Government is not going to give this up, and the average Joe isn’t going to fight it.
i know for sure joe public will fight it because it effects 8 million users broadband.
8 million brits file share and do so every day how do i know this? quite simple they pay monthly for high speed broadband..
if you didn’t fileshare you wouldn’t buy broadband internet or if you did you’d get the very lowest package available..
when this gets put forward everyone is going to challenge it because its going to directly effect them.
normally people don’t get behind things because it does not effect them directly this will and does.
do you think if 8 million filesharers gets their expensive monthly broadband messed with even more than it already is they are going to continue paying 37 quid for a 20mbit connection when your now only getting the ability to email and wait 20 mins for a web page to load??
i think you under-estimate the general joe public in england.
they are the filesharers being throttled not someone else they hear about.
what makes me laugh is how do these idiots think by making their fans hate them for what they’ve done is going to make people to want to give them money when they’ve destroyed their online habbits for the past 20 years?
sound like she has a screw loose!
It’s not about the music
It’s not about the films
It’s not even about the games!
It’s about the censorship of the net in methodical increments, file sharers are merely a good excuse/diversionary tactic.
This is not just about your torrents.
Please stop thinking of governments and big corporation as separate entity’s, be assured they are not.
The net scares the bejesus out of very powerful people.
good luck
god speed
@1 @2 @3 @4 @5 @6 @7 @8 @9 @10
Hi.
@95 Sep 25, 2009 at 19:06 by Reasoned Mind:
Well if it all goes like the “educational Campaign” in the U.S. were thousands were sued and the RIAA associates saw their revenues plumb more then 40% in a year we all know who already won this contest LoL
The only ones getting marginalized are the ones that support those ridiculous instances.
By the way people didn’t stop buying anything, they buy a lot or else the U.K. music industry wouldn’t be reporting growth.
Or maybe they are the next ENRON to hit the world?
You are so passé.
It would require an enormous amount of manpower to distinguish between those who do or do not illegally share such files.
As it stands, a filename is an assumption of the file’s content, but realistically, it holds no legal significance as it isn’t a certainty of the file’s actual content.
Illegally shared files would have to be recognised through other means; its digital signature reported by its property owner – intellectual or otherwise – or it be received, verified, and ‘blacklisted’ by the ISP itself.
There’s no automated system for this, and the complications and dedication required to create said system would be counterproductive to the optimal operation of any Internet Service, of any Provider.
~It’s difficult enough already. And most organisations who haven’t taken advantage of the situation in some way, have resorted to scare tactics or given up for the most part. It’s a worthless cause at this point in time.
Equally, as it stands, persons downloading such files from legitimate establishments (Rapidshare, for instance) which hold no responsibility for the content uploaded by its users (but do moderate, and will remove any such material if reported to do so) are not liable, and to some extent, neither is the establishment, so long as it continues to counteract any such illegal activity.
The only people held liable are those who upload/share the sources.
I see no reason why that should change; to punish everyone just because of some ungrateful, spiteful ‘musicians’.
As for P2P, Torrent, and similar applications, it gets even more complicated. O_o
If no change in law is proposed, then the ISPs hold no legal obligation to abide by any of this FAC bullshit, and it would be idiotic to do so until such a time arises. :/
And i can assure you, the process that such a law requires is a very long one. Countless operations, corporations, and circumstances need to be considered, ridiculously examined in a meticulous fashion. ;)
There is no black and white where the internet is concerned. And Lily Allen obviously has no basic understanding of the fundamental design in technology and its equivalent data.
She’s extremely naive.
They (FAC) probably think a click of the fingers is all it’d take to ‘fix’ this. Fools. There is a lot more at stake here than their petty music. It will take time. All of it… And even then…
She is friggin crazy!!! The music companies aren’t really losing money like they say they are. There will always be some way of getting around her little idea. MP3’s and the like have been around since 1997. Does she really think that this would solve the whole problem. About 1 in 3 of us are pirates and still buy music. Good luck lady. Enjoy your 5 minutes!!
I wonder what Lily’s mental image is of “pirates”. I wondered the same thing about Metallica, especially since back then the world wasn’t nearly as friendly toward or knowledgeable about such things. (“It’s a bunch of basement-dwelling reject hackers who are trying to stick it to the Man, right?”)
Or is it just trying to optimize inputs: “every single illegal download is a money I lose! stop teh tiefs! *whine and pout*”
I think though in Lily’s case this is very much a case of a child ranting about things they do not understand, and being embarrassed and frightened at the extent of her naivete and completely wrong reading of the temperature in the room. Lurk for a while a learn a little.
I think we should bill artists for allowing them to use our paid bandwidth for their product distribtion.
It is common knowledge in the patent industry if you don’t want something stolen, don’t put it out there. Once it is released, it’s open season.
Seems to me that’s an option they can exercise too.
@ Mr [---] Mind
“leaving only the piracy diehards to the VPN’s the encryption, the darknets and so on.”
I’m a diehard eh?
And you think – “the same old 95% following the rules again and the remaining anarchist 5% struggling to infringe”?
So that would make me an “diehard anarchist” hypothetically. My Mum too. A FOOKIN DIEHARD ANARCHIST!
That’s because I’d make sure she’d have access to an VPN/newsgroup/Darknet/Bring her the latest “Blockbuster” down on DVD in exchange for dinner/modem dialing into my seedbox/etc
I really find your optimism that all these “thieves” will soon be eating humble-pie quite amusing.
She is a lame attention junkie nothing more, she clearly knows nothing about file sharing or copyright laws, but likes to jump on something thats going to make her look good in the eyes of other artists lol shes a joke would be a shame if her site got hacked and turned into a xdcc server hahaha
“108 Sep 25, 2009 at 20:30 by Pensive
I think though in Lily’s case this is very much a case of a child ranting about things they do not understand, and being embarrassed and frightened at the extent of her naivete and completely wrong reading of the temperature in the room. Lurk for a while a learn a little.”
I completely agree.
@Reasoned Shill
“Phishy, I don’t work in the digital or entertainment industries”
LOL! Really?
I can’t even think of a more baldfaced lie than that. You’re the most transparent entertainment industry plant I’ve ever witnessed. At this point, it’s actually funny to watch you attempt to deny it.
“Remember Phishy, none of this is government action, but REACTION to illegal activity. Stop the activity and the reaction stops.”
Yawn. Yet more blame-the-victim rhetoric.
How does it feel to be using the same sick rationale that is frequently used to to justify rape, spousal abuse, and the Holocaust, among other things?
“If the Jews hadn’t settled here, this would have never happened!”
“If she wasn’t dressed so provocatively, this would have never happaned!”
“If she didn’t talk back to me, this would have never happened!”
So the Wehrmacht, the rapist, and the wifebeater are all blameless, because they weren’t acting… Why, they were only reacting! Without an object for their abuse, the abuse would have never taken place. Ipso facto, it’s all the victims’ fault.
Hmm… That gives me an idea. Why don’t I lobby the government to make jaywalking punishable by execution? So if a cop walks up to you one day while you’re jaywalking and shoots you in the head without saying a word, don’t blame me. Don’t blame the government. Don’t blame the police department or the poor police officer, either.
Blame yourself. Because if you had just stopped jaywalking, it would have never happened. And don’t you dare call the law unreasonable, either. You’re the reason the law had to be made!
“And it appears that one brave little British girl stood up for what she believed in”
Lily Allen stood up for what she believed in? Okay, I guess that’s true. Lily Allen believes that everybody should be forced to respect copyright… Except for her. She’s perfectly free to ignore it at her leisure.
So she stood up for her beliefs by preaching against copyright infringement while committing it left and right.
Yes, she truly is a hero. Let us all bow our heads.
“Y’know how there will always be jewel thieves who do it for the sheer joy of outwitting the security systems?”
Except that jewel thievery is theft according to:
A. The law.
B. The definition of the word theft.
C. The very concept of theft.
Whereas filesharing is not theft in any way, shape, or form according to:
A. The law.
B. The definition of the word theft.
C. The very concept of theft
If you want to even begin pretending that you don’t work for the entertainment industry, then you’re going to have to let go of the absurd fallacy that sharing is stealing and allow yourself to acknowledge the simple reality that sharing is very much not theft in this universe.
An alternate one, perhaps, but not this one.
“That’s what I think.”
No. That’s what you’re paid to troll Torrentfreak with.
@106 by Milau
And then there’s the whole Common Carrier status thing to consider.
I don’t see the ISPs giving up that legal position too quickly.
@101 by GrX
Indeed. Isn’t that the entire reason for a fast connection in the first place? Nobody needs 10mbit just for a few emails and web pages. I don’t see the ISPs being too pleased if sharing went away and everybody decided that cheap 1 or 2mbit was enough.
#113 Anon…….Thinking I’m “paid to troll TorrentFreak” (or anyone else might be paid for that matter) is as dumb as it gets. (But wouldn’t that be lovely, huh?)
It’s obvious i’m as well read as any of you, but it must be hard to imagine that your “principles” and the love of the debate are what bring you here but that couldn’t possibly be the same for me.
The digital industries you rip off disrespect every one of you and think these sites are rubbish. They put their time and their money into lobbying, tracking, lawyers and prosecution, not trolling. (Well, maybe buying judges too, I dunno, but I digress.)
Has there ever been a confirmed report and acknowledgment of a truly paid troll on a piracy website? I doubt that very much. For one thing, the industries are far too professional for this crap. And for another, this doesn’t turn a profit.
So what interest would they have? Can you give me one example of “turning” a pirate through trolling?
I didn’t think so.
I’m here to learn about your mindset, try to comprehend your sense of entitlement to everything digital for free and to seek understanding about how you can make a free copy of a for-sale only product, depriving the creator of the monetary value of their work, and not think it’s “stealing.”
(While expecting your paycheck for YOUR work right on time, naturally.)
Mostly I’m just here because you are deluded and ultimately foolish misfits, hellbent on destroying the internet if you can’t keep getting your free merchandise, while you demand free merchandise be seen as “free speech”.
Free SPEECH!! lol
And your frustration makes me laugh, of course.
When will they get this into there head that it is not downloading what is hurting sales it is games.
The kids of today save money for games not music or films the gaming sector now makes more money than movies and music combined games are eating into there pockets not piracy
@ Reasoned Mind
“If sharing is difficult and dangerous, the masses will go back to paying for content.”
I’m sure content execs everywhere are repeating that mantra daily, but it is wrong on so many levels:
- sharing digital info is the whole purpose of the internet, so no measure will make any difference unless you can also ‘uninvent the intertubes’
- ‘the masses’ (what a ghastly term – nice reflection of the way business thinks about its customers) *are* paying more for content than ever before, just less of the plastic disc variety
Also, lay off the moral issues, Reasoned Mind. Since when has big business given a toss about morality? It’s always been just about the money.
The situation is this: big content is in the process of coming to terms with the digital age.
How will it play out? Try the Kübler-Ross model, also known as the five stages of grief.
1. Denial: “This is of no consequence to us”
2. Anger: “Who is to blame” -> We’re there now
3. Bargaining: “Let’s make a deal” (bandwith taxes, etc.)
4. Depression: “I’m going to die” (big take-overs, some household names disappear)
5. Acceptance: “I can’t fight it, I’ll work with it” (new business model)
I live in america and they will never do this the isp’s because they want money so fuc”k of lily alien dont come to america
dear black pirate,
you would know that the FCC is forming a law that prevents ISPs for idling any traffic no matter what it is to (so that sites that offer the same service as ISPs, like cable and comcast, do not get throttled) if TF cared about real news and not pop stars and public trackers that are bad for p2p
lily allen is sooooo fuck in dah head
why dnt you juz say i wnt more money……… FUCKING BITCH!
YES she was trying to do gud but she was not think about dah consequences of her acts….. she did not fink about her fans or should i say EX-fans…… everyone dat i kno uses illegal downloading…..
ANYWAYZ
artists should not bother about illegal downloading because ILLEGAL DOWNLOADING is the biggest reason why they are ARTIST in dah first place we young people would not be able to afford to buy or listen to all of the music we like nor artist.
Furthermore pirated made the music industry even big, in other words just be FUCKING THANKFUL that we love your music instead of asking for more and illegal downloading is not the only way artist can make money……..
FUCK YOU LILY ALLEN YOU GREED MOTHERFUCKER BITCH JUZ SHUT UR FUCKING MOUTH I ACTUALLY LIKED UR STUPID MUSIC…
ITS GUD U END UR CAREER….
OH ONE MORE THING HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE THE BIGGEST LOSER
DICK FACE BITCH
@5 Briliant :D
Allen is such a joke!
@118 she tried she tried to tour the usa lol and failed she couldn’t sell any tickets so the stadium she aquired for the night was a echo arena
now ask yourself this question
1.) her music was already on p2p networks for millions to experience and discover her.
she had everything in place free adverting millions of people access to her music anytime of the day or night all over the world
and still after all this 99% of the usa still don’t have a clue who this bitch is lol talk about failure.
now her main reason she’s against filesharing is because up coming artists can’t be discovered which is backwards since the best way for any artist to be discovered world wide is to share your work on a network with millions on millions of users all interested in the same thing.
but some how these artists think if filesharing stops and no body anywhere else in the world can find their music by some great fate everyone is going to become telepathic and suddenly instantly know that this artist exists lol
then they complain that their work is not appreciated since no-body is supporting their work when in fact not a single person even know’s who they are since filesharing is no longer around to discover them..
i really don’t see how these people are so dumb to the point of not realizing this.
back to the bitch lets just say she’s a failure on a massive level after all that filesharing and she got no sales in the usa at all i cannot see what she’s complaining about people don’t even know her lol so how would people even of downloaded her music since they don’t know of her?
the new story should be the public now wants to throttle allen with bricks stones, rubber ducks and other blunt instruments lol
she’s finished and so is anyone of them artists who’s supporting her nonesense
the people i feel sorry for is artists out there who’s going to be screwed over as they cannot continue to push their own creations out on p2p networks so people can discover them..
There is no need to be uncivilized folks. Personally I enjoy reading comments by Reasoned Mind. That doesn’t mean I agree with most of what he says. Reading a well written viewpoint which opposes my own is always entertaining. As far as opinions go, what will be will be. Expending a great deal of energy and emotion on blog comments won’t change that fact. Given how deranged we humans are, we’re probably all headed for World War III, ultimately making the whole topic of piracy a moot one in the grand scheme of things lol.
A lot of folks keep forgetting that the whole issue of copyright infringement is complex and not as simple as “us vs them”. All I can really predict with any certainty is what I would do if I found myself throttled. For starters I would get rid of my high speed connection and subscribe to a far less expensive dial up plan. I would cancel my subscriptions to World of Warcraft, Xbox 360 Live, VoiP, IPTV and all the other online services I can’t think of at the moment. If I were banned from the internet, then a great deal of my online shopping would vanish too, which amounts to a lot (convenient and where the best prices are).
It will be interesting to see how long it will take not only the ISP’s, but all those other businesses out there who make some, if not all, of their profits thanks to the internet to stand up and have their say. Only the ISP’s have been vocal thus far. The entertainment industry is just one tiny cog in the very large wheel of economy and there are a lot of other industries who will collectively take offense to having their bottom lines screwed with just to protect the bottom line of another, one that most view to be insignificant to GDP/GDI and whose claimed losses are questionable at best right now. Then there is the role of the government to consider and how much of the taxpayers money they are willing to invest into a war that can best be described as whack-a-mole. At one point in history alcohol use was considered immoral and we all know how well prohibition went. The tides of fortune are always changing and I just can’t see the entertainment industry ever winning their war on copyright infringement, not without major compromises and new business models at least. If the last decade is any kind of indication, it will certainly be interesting to see where we stand in another decade, that’s for sure.
“cry me a river’ i don’t see how disconnecting or throttling going force people into buying their crappy music make music people want hear or go out of business no law will fix that.
i meant in general sorry i am drunk. nonething against anyone.
the next wave of consoles will not have cd’s dvd’s or blueray you will have to download them and i can bet you now that music and movie sales will go down even further and then they may see that it is games killing them and not piracy.
they will be even more games out what will suck kids pocket money like world of warcraft and everquest and so on and now you have mobile gaming what if proving to be a big hit and taking more money from the big corps.
all in all piracy is a small part in the money been lost by these people and if you ask me the sooner they see this and change the way they sell music the better of they will be.
If they offer people what they have be asking for then most of this would not happen……for example
why do i have to buy a double cd for 15.00 for one song on each cd
why am i not able to buy what i want when i want?
i dont want to go to the cinema why dont you offer it online
this nation is fast becoming like virgin media’s tv on demand we now want things when we want them and we want to buy what we want and not be told or pushed into buying crap we dont want.
Lily was the wrong person to speak out. too many skeletons in her closet. From her own blogs…
Here she first discovers her music on Limewire and gives everyone her blessing to download it. (Hmmm… seems to me you would need to have Limewire installed to find it there.)
http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=36707169&blogId=103287336
And here she gets into a rather lengthy thing about government intrusion by forcing everyone to have a national I.D. card and the ability it will have to trace your every move… kinda like what she’s been pushing for, having government force ISP’s to track your every online move. The hypocrisy never ends with this girl.
http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=36707169&blogId=97788169
As for her being “young” when she did the mixtapes, I believe she said 5 years ago?… not quite. The first one she announced on 01/19/06.
http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=36707169&blogId=79088703
The second on 03/17/06.
http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=36707169&blogId=99040517
upto now when i’ve spoken about whats going to happen i’ve normally been on the button so lets give it another shot.
Virginmedia soon will take the form of a legal music download service for its customers until that plan gets rolled out in full force no isp without their own download service will be against any internet disconnect or throttling plan that is not their own.
the isp’s know people use their broadband to download anything and everything that users cannot physically get anywhere else.
problem is now since the isp’s will eventually roll out these download services their defense now to customers “we have our own legal download service” so if you choose not to use it for un-authorised content then we will take action..
of course they will it’s then in their best interests in taking action so here’s what happens next.
isp’s wont’ cut you off from the internet they will cut you off from using p2p forcing you to pay to use their downloading services or nothing so yes it is in their best interests to eventually stop p2p freely happening to push people to their download packages.
problem we have now is their download packages comes with their rules their content and most of all their formats not the ones we want.
their download services is “music” only tv shows, applications, movies will never become legalized just music.
once the government gets it’s teeth into 3 strikes it wont stop there it never just stops there with this government they will tear and rip and rip the hole wider and wider apart to bend it too their wishes.
due to the way our gov does things there is no way we can ever get in touch with them to object or give them our point of view but the likes of these popular artists have no problems, which is un-fair we never get to put our views in, they listen to artists and nothing more since their the ones with the money.
people think this isn’t a big deal since there not in this country but it’s a knock on effect 50% of the scene members who make content available are on uk isp’s so at some point them shows or music or movies that only them groups cover you won’t get as their internet will be restricted from sharing media files.
this is a serious problem that these people are creating with their big mouths, we all know the government wants to impose plans of 3 strikes now, so now they have a reason with major artists complaining.
lets feel sorry for shareware creators the most since you have to download their works to trial them legally, and there’s trillions of programs out there in the wild.
this is all getting out of hand and at the cost of us all still paying a monthly high price for a broadband service we can’t do jack with.
i never heard of her before or her music but atleast she is for something more reasonable. first commant i made not about her sorry. more about music business in general.
DUMB BITCH! Who is she anyway? A fucking whore?
@ 120, 5 Stages, you continue to approach this from the fundamental “you can’t stop us” point of view, as backwards as it gets.
You say “sharing digital info is the whole purpose of the Internet” but that’s a surprisingly myopic viewpoint. In fact, and upon reflection I’d imagine you’d agree, The Internet is much larger with much greater promise than just that, it also presents the greatest opportunity for sales and distribution of digital product ever. Just the ease, speed and ecological improvements in the years ahead are likely to be profound. Viewed another way, no government and no group of people anywhere can allow a free culture to become the norm on the Internet for reasons far greater and more important than your “sharing.”
First, the most obvious, are the broadband taxes you mention. If pirates are actually foolish enough to drive this until the industries manage to become institutionalized through levy’s with guaranteed cash-flow (and likely guaranteed cost of living raises, too) all piling on top of your Internet access bill every month, it will prove out the greatest slam dunk of industry over customer in business history.
Just imagine when every digital industry steps up to demand their “fair” share now that everything digital is “free.” Every month you and everyone else will be buying games you never play, movies you never watch, music you never listen to and books you’ll never read. And the grandparents who just want to hear from the grandkid with a picture now and then have to pay enormous fees just to get online because you couldn’t respect products in the digital world the way you do in the material one.
Much of the worlds middle class won’t even be able to afford access under that “solution”, because their bill will be “purchasing” product in every possible category, every single month. For that reason alone, this “solution’ should never happen. But it gets a lot worse.
Second, now we are permanently stuck with the RIAA and the MPAA and every other damn AA out there. They don’t even have to risk or invest anymore, just their EXISTENCE is enough for commercial success.. Now they are just one huge guaranteed collection agency every month. Music and movies, games and books and newspapers, digital product that hasn’t even been invented yet and a lot that has but hasn’t been released precisely BECAUSE of piracy. You think you are the future? Piracy has set the Internet back 20 years. Do you have any idea how much digital product is stalled and waiting so it doesn’t lose it’s value to piracy? Do you EVER think about the likely consequences of digital theft? I’ve always thought broadband levy’s for every single digital industry was their endgame anyway. And the day pirates are forced to pay each and every one of them just to get online is the day they laugh all the way to the bank. On your backs. Permanently.
I’ll say it again. Pirates are the most personally selfish and shortsighted group on the network today. If industry “works with it” as you suggest managing to ram a bill for a couple hundred quid or bucks up your ass every single month so you can access product you don’t need, it’s hard to imagine a situation you’d deserve more.
@Reasoned Mind
That’s it. I am way sick of your shit.
Look at you! You can post inflammatory messages on an obviously pro-p2p blog! That doesn’t take any particular skill- any 12-year-old forum troll can pull that off. So I’m not really sure why you see yourself in such a light, because you’re, for all intents and purposes, equal to the 12-year-old forum troll. I want you to remember this as you read the rest of this- it will come in very handy for you.
You consistently fuck up any chance you had at being rational or convincing. How? You use the most horrible, bumbling, ridiculous logic and make the same kinds of points. You have your personal beliefs about filesharing, and the industries, and the like- which is fine- but then you go on the Internet and preach to others about what you think is right. You call names. You use propaganda terms. You put yourself on this enormous, egotistical pedestal and try to pretend you’re better than everyone else. Well, news flash, buddy, remember the 12-year-old thing. And you know what’s funny? You NEVER post on any articles, like this, that actually go against your little interests. Oh, sure, you’re quick to attack filesharing and call it evil and nasty whenever some industry whore comes out from their drug-induced haze long enough to regurgitate the industry’s propaganda, but the moment something that is good for sharing actually happens, you slink back into the shadows, waiting until you have an excuse to come back out and spew your crap all over again. Take a look at the comment threads in which you post; I am most certainly not the only one who is sick and tired of your inane blathering.
Let’s look at what trolling is for a moment. Trolling is intentionally posting messages on a forum in order to either: 1) redirect the conversation to something off-topic, or 2) provoke users into getting angry or starting a flamewar. This is precisely what you do. More often than not your comments end up straying from the article’s topics into your general “filesharing is evil, the industries are sacrosanct, long live the RIAA” bullshit. Offtopic requirement satisfied. As for the other? Again, look at any thread in which you’ve posted. There will be a ton of people flaming you and arguing with you. Like it or not, what you say pisses people off. It doesn’t matter whether you intend to piss people off, because you continue to post here despite knowing that you will piss people off. That pretty much satisfies the definition of a troll. I mean, for Pete’s sake, you’re on a pro-p2p blog and you’re posting anti-p2p comments. Who else but a troll would do this?
Seriously, why do you post here? Why do you take time out of your day to read the articles, make a reply, read any responses, respond to them, etc etc? It’s pointless! You aren’t accomplishing a damned thing here. You have not turned people away from filesharing- if anything you’ve probably attracted more people to the cause than you’ve repelled, simply because those people now are aware that it’s either share files or be associated with people like you. Sure, you’ve posted before about how filesharing needs a better public image and such, but… wait, you attack p2p. You don’t offer it advice, or defend it. You think it’s evil and nasty and wrong. So it makes zero sense for you to post something like that and actually mean it. Why are you hiding behind statements you don’t believe, Reasoned Mind? Oh- because it might help you gain a legitimacy here that you do not deserve. Right. I’d forgotten for a moment that there actually are people who play outside the boundaries of reason, and that you are one of them.
Your points need demolishing almost as much as you do. I’m going to paraphrase a couple of your common statements.
“It’s only fair to pay for what you take. That’s been the norm for years and whether the product is digital doesn’t change this.”
Here you demonstrate your unbelievable resistance to getting with the times. Do you understand the concept of change, Reasoned Mind? Do you understand the idea that peoples’ attitudes about things can and do change over time? Intellectual property, that around which you base every single one of your arguments, is growing weaker because fewer people are beginning to respect it. What do you and your industries do? Fight! You fight against the people who are your very customers. You fight against the entire world’s public. You say “we are entitled to our absurd profits and we don’t care what freedoms we have to take away to get them.” You’re insane if you think that a private commercial organization can really mess with everyone else on Earth in this way. Anyway, your argument above is one hundred percent invalid. Things change. Deal with it.
“Without compensation for their works, artists will have no incentive to create.”
Also bullshit. Tell that to every artist who releases their music under copyleft licenses- Jamendo alone has nearly 25,000 albums on its servers. Tell that to anyone who’s ever written free software- ever heard of GNU/Linux or the GPL? None of them are getting paid for each copy of their creation, and yet they created anyway. They voluntarily released their work under a copyleft license rather than hoard it for profit. And I’ve found some damned good copyleft music, and I exclusively run GNU/Linux on my computers. Gee, doesn’t sound like there’s no incentive to create if people don’t make mountains of cash for their entire life off of just one thing.
In addition, this argument is trash because it assumes that people don’t or won’t pay. You grossly misunderstand people. The other day I was in the library and some random person wanted help with scanning his resume and emailing it to the state. I was the most computer literate person there, so I helped him get it done. I did it expecting nothing whatsoever in return, which is why I was surprised that he handed me a few bucks afterward. You see, Reasoned Mind, you never did respond explicitely to a point I made a while back, namely that it’s irrational to suggest that if people can always get things for free, they will. To disprove this you only need look at today. There is filesharing. Yup. Check. People are getting things for free. Yup. Check. People are still paying- wait, what? Seriously? The industries are still pulling in billions of dollars per year from customers who continue to buy CDs, DVDs, software discs, books, and the like? Even though you could just go online and get it free! Wow! I think we can conclude that if filesharing were made legal, there may be something of a drop in sales, but certainly not the annihilation that you and other antipirates predict. (For the record, I support legalization of filesharing and nothing beyond that. If people want to continue to pay the stupid record labels and such, that’s not my perogative.)
So what have we gotten from this, Reasoned Mind? Well, to wrap up, I’m going to reiterate something I said earlier, because it really needs hammering into your thick skull. “You have your personal beliefs about filesharing… you go on the Internet and preach to others about what you think is right.” This is critically important if you’re to realize just how much of an idiot you make yourself into when you post here. Your personal beliefs are exactly that: your personal beliefs. In general, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with possessing personal beliefs that differ from the norm of the community around you. What is wrong is pushing those beliefs down the throats of others, expecting people to believe as you do just because you say so and attempt to back up your saying-so with irrational, faulty faux-logic. Either keep your beliefs to yourself, and stop attacking the community at large on a pro-p2p website, or just get the hell off TorrentFreak in general.
And as though we need any more evidence that you’re just lying and/or misleading and/or trolling… look at your nickname.
Reasoned Mind.
If you were truly reasoned, you would not need to flaunt it.
Everyone who’s pissed at Reasoned Mind, drop a little reply on TorrentFreak saying so. I want to see who else is tired of him.
When the music industry starts paying for my connection then they can have a say how its used and not before! Who do they think they are? I think we should have a meeting to discuss what type of instrument lily and her friends can use and when. I’m holding out for a banjo between 4am and 5am. Ridiculous? They started this little game! :D
Next they’ll be having a say on who you can talk to on the phone and what groceries you have to buy from the local mall.
@18 Reasoned Mind
I’m getting sick of your anti-freedom propaganda.
I would love to throttle you, in which case I mean tying you up, placing you in the middle of the road, getting in my car and slamming my foot on the throttle. Then again, I don’t think you’d be worth the wear and tear on my shocks.
From FAC’s site. Their position wobbles from this;
“We remain steadfast in our belief that making threats against individual music fans is not an effective way to resolve any problems associated with file-sharing.” Sept 21
To this;
“…sanctions to consist of a warning letter, a stronger warning letter and a final sanction of the restriction of the infringer’s bandwidth…” Sept 24
In THREE days.
Impressive…Hypocrite wankers the lot of em.
Michael, I’ve always been about retaining the freedom to buy when we want or pass if we wish to, but respecting product online as we do in real life. Otherwise, read 131 if you want an insight into the “freedom” pirates are going to compel.
@Reasoned Shill
“#113 Anon…….Thinking I’m “paid to troll TorrentFreak” (or anyone else might be paid for that matter) is as dumb as it gets.”
Oh yes! Because there’s no such thing as hired plants or viral marketers, and even if there were, the entertainment industry would never ever stoop that low, by golly!
Your level of denial keeps getting more and more amusing, as well as desperate. Do you actually believe that you’re still fooling anyone?
If you do, then I honestly feel sorry for you.
“It’s obvious i’m as well read as any of you, but it must be hard to imagine that your “principles” and the love of the debate are what bring you here but that couldn’t possibly be the same for me.”
Debate? Most of your comments are hit-and-run. On the extremely rare occassions you actually stick around long enough to have a “discussion” with anyone, you simply tell them they’re wrong, ignore their points, and then tell them they’re wrong again. That isn’t debating. That’s more akin to sticking your fingers in your ears and yelling “LALALALA! I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”.
For example, I just pointed out why your “blame the filesharers” rhetoric is not only fallacious, but its twisted logic is frequently used in defence of real-world atrocity. I also demonstrated why it does not serve to justify overbearing laws.
But instead of accepting that your rhetoric is flawed and choosing a new angle, you just decided to ignore it entirely and instead write a long comment insisting that “WHAT!? I’M NOT PAID BY THE INDUSTRY TO TROLL TORRENTFREAK! HAH HAH HAH! HOW PREPOSTEROUS! THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY SURE DOESN’T PAY PEOPLE TO DISSEMINATE ITS TALKING POINTS! WOW, HOW STUPID ARE YOU? I’M NOT BEING PAID TO SAY THIS! *sweatdrop*”.
And later, despite having it debunked, you’re going to trot out the same rhetoric once again. Like always.
“I’m here to learn about your mindset, try to comprehend your sense of entitlement to everything digital for free and to seek understanding about how you can make a free copy of a for-sale only product, depriving the creator of the monetary value of their work, and not think it’s “stealing.””
Learn? You?
You’re incapable of learning. See? You’re still pushing the tired old fallacy that filesharing is stealing. That could be excused if you didn’t know any better, but you’ve had it explained to you literally hundreds of times how filesharing is factually, logically, empirically, and even lawfully not theft.
Watch this: Theft can only occur when a possession is taken away from the victim. You cannot claim to have had something stolen from you when you still have the thing in question. Filesharing is the process of replicating items(not unlike the Replicators in Star Trek) and giving them away. The replication process does not take the original possession away from anyone. The owner still has, and can fully enjoy the use of, whatever item is being replicated . Therefore, they cannot possibly claim that it’s been or is beeing stolen from them.
But just like every other time, you’re going to ignore this explanation and remain willfully uneducated. You’re going to keep insisting that filesharing is stealing, even though it isn’t.
You aren’t here to learn. You’re here to mindlessly repeat the same entertainment industry talkingpoints over. And over. And over. And over again. No matter how many times they’re shot down, torn up, and stomped on.
God himself could descend from the Heavens and tell you, “My poor confused child. Whether you believe filesharing is right or wrong, one thing is for certain. It is not stealing. “, and you’d be back here the next day saying “Filesharing is theft and you’re all bad stinky bad people!”.
“And your frustration makes me laugh, of course.”
My frustration? I chew up paid trolls for fun.
You seem to be the frustrated(and now, somewhat panicky) one.
to Reasoned Mind
i got to agree with most of the points you made their i dont think we’ve got into it yet so i’ll give some points back which works in with what your saying
We are the most selfish because we buy things with our money then share that content we’ve paid for totally free of charge paying not only for the original but spending the time to convert it to a friendly format for all users to enjoy, then using their own paid for broadband connection to share that free of charge with millions of others.
hardly selfish.
Why doesn’t the industry address the problem by creating a cure and the cure being to offer the content in the formats we want with the prices set the same thought out the world the same.
Why doesn’t every isp that sells us broadband give us a service to use with the broadband they are supplying us with? else what are we supposed to do with highspeed internet if not download?
most of the things i’ve seen you say is about differences in pysical and digital well stealing pysical content is wrong every man women and child knows that but you cannot steal digital it’s impossible since the original never gets touched it just gets duplicated,
their is no commercial works to steal i.e. art cover, lablels, dual case there’s nothing attached to digital media.
how many times have you seen a new service come out on the net so you go to investigate it only to be prompted sorry this is for usa only visitors everyone else in the world that is outside of the usa can go whistle???
exactly how is this attitude ever going to make people go and buy the same content that others are now legally getting for free but over a bit of water.
next you have the knock on effect media come out with hundreds of types of DRM built into them then they shut over 30 services down which left customers screwed over.
who in their right mind is ever going to use these pay services again when they’ve heard such bad stories in the past?
so they remove DRM but the damage is already done people remember the past so en-frustrated with what happened last time around actually pirate digital to smite them and stick it too them.
Last personally i am selfish i’m over 30 now and i couldn’t care less what damage i’m doing for the future generation or the internet as long as i get what i want now the way i want it i’m happy.
the internet is the only way people can enjoy theirselves media wise completely free appart from the isp bill a month, without free entertainment in this rescission were deep into there would be no sales period people can’t afford to eat let alone buy over priced media
and i’m paying 37 quid a month for a connection i can’t do anything with? pfft.. forget that i’m going to rape it stupid and get my total money’s worth out of it each and every single month and why shouldn’t i??? isn’t that what im paying for each and every month?
actually capping bandwidth is a good idea! Maybe that will lead to smaller sites that don’t suck up to hundreds of KiBs because some web-dev thought: “AHH damn it! who ever surfs the web with 3KiB/s must be insane! So to put around 700k of worthless colorful jpgs isn’t a problem today?! right?!”.
well as to 3 striking.
I’m not a thief.
I don’t live in the Middle Ages where these kind of measures where popular.
Please stop entertaining me! I don’t like it and if I still don’t like you after your third try your career has to stop immediately!
Well isn’t that self centerd enough?
@all: Have a nice weekend
I USED TO LIKE HER MUSIC BUT THE SILLY BITCH DOES SHE NOT KNOW THIS IS THE DIGITAL AGE I SAY LIFE ON THE PIRATES
I loved the FAC when I was young, but back then the FAC was a scene group (Federation Against Copyright)…
Reasoned Mind
Have you ever recorded somthing from the television?
Have you ever saved that recording to watch at a later time?
sorry reasonedmind you need to go back to preschool and learn about sharing.
@ Reasoned Mind
Myopic viewpoint, who’s talking? I was talking literally: what the internet does is move digital information from ‘out there’ to your computer and back.
As for bandwith taxes, did you not notice this was only step three, a phase the industry will go through on its way into the digital age?
Reading the rest of the post, I suddenly get it. You’re actually scared we’ll damage the intertubes. We should all play nice and behave, otherwise the grown-ups will take our toy away from us.
Lighten up, man. As much as they would like, big content doesn’t own the internet.
Oh no, not another Lily Allen article! Please go back to reporting about The Pirate Bay. :)
“Lighten up, man. As much as they would like, big content doesn’t own the internet.”
True. And hopefully never will.
But they own the product you ransack, the same product they’ve scouted and found and sorted, developed and marketed, invested and promoted and advertised at their own investment cost just as surely, completely and legally as any material firm in the material world. They own their product and until you purchase a license properly, you have no legal access. That much remains clear to the majority of the public, the artists themselves, the governments who monitor us all.
As we move more and more to digital, “grief”, digital BECOMES material in every important sense. There is no other sensible, workable path. If you see it, I’d like to hear it. But working in digital will never mean “free” unless the worker wills it. And woe be to anyone— you pirates are the least of it— who doesn’t grasp that simple concept that has been part of human culture for more than a millennia.
You can change value-for-value by taking-for-nothing for a brief moment in time while tech and privacy law shields your wrong doing. But you won’t change human nature and the artists and their industries will be paid. We can all count on that.
So all that is left is whether digital piracy “gets it” soon and returns to value-for-value before the industries gather an inescapable and totally legal economic oppression in the form of levy’s and advertising that longer-term-thinking sees as inevitable on our current path. It’s piracy that is driving this “solution”, grief. Pay the digital product fees or don’t access the internet.
And by then? God help us all. By then maybe I”LL even pick up a torch and a pitchfork.
@ Reasoned Mind
You, RIAA, MPAA, and whatnot, have ideas comparable to that of a Ferengi, which is to make as much profit from something at the expense of others and claiming ownership of things that is not rightfully theirs and selling it, like abandoned spaceships and other space debris. Like how pro-copyright groups and big corporations try to talk us into buying crappy music and movies for a high price, and record companies owning the copyright, instead of the artists, and not allowing them to distribute their own work the way they want to. Also I notice Reasoned Mind very rarely has any typos, uses good grammar and sentence structure, and very professional like comments. Which leaves me to believe he/she is an expert on copyright and most likely works for some sort of pro-copyright organization.
A word of advice Reasoned Mind….
GET YOUR UGLY FERENGI ASS OFF MY PLANET AND GO BACK TO WHERE YOU CAME FROM!!
I am not an expert on copyright nor do I work for a pro-copyright organization. I read, I think, I say what I believe. And I think spelling and grammar should count for something, that’s all.
A word of advice for michael8124, it’s best we find a way to share this planet we call home.
And now……. you can go back to your abandoned spaceships and other space debris.
@147 Reasoned “Ferengi” Mind
“I am not an expert on copyright nor do I work for a pro-copyright organization. I read, I think, I say what I believe. And I think spelling and grammar should count for something, that’s all.”
I’m still not convinced. And I wasn’t criticizing your good grammar and spelling, i was merely trying to say it seems fishy to me and too professional.
“A word of advice for michael8124, it’s best we find a way to share this planet we call home.”
Sorry ya big eared freak. Planet’s full. GTFO!
“And now……. you can go back to your abandoned spaceships and other space debris.”
Did you even read my comment? I was comparing Ferengis taking what isn’t theirs and selling it, to record companies owning the copyright to music and profiting from it instead of the artists.
They went to all the trouble of getting industry heads, artists etc together. This was the perfect opportunity to discuss different distribution models that benefit both parties and gain an insight into what their reasons are, for and against and make some positive headway. Instead they choose to make a push that will further alienate the fans and consumers.
There must be a way both sides can coexist?
@Reasoned Shill
“But they own the product you ransack … It’s piracy that is driving this “solution”, grief.”
“Ransack” is a synonym for theft, and your bit about piracy driving the “solution” is simply more of your blame-the-victim rhetoric.
I pointed out that you would continue to repeat those talkingpoints unabated despite the fact that they have been disproven thoroughly, frequently, and to you specifically. But this soon? Really?
Do you realize you’ve just confirmed every single word about you in comment #136, as well as every single word about you in comment #31, “Don’t listen to Reasoned Mind.”?
The only thing you do here at Torrentfreak is mindlessly disseminate the entertainment industry’s talkingpoints about how MEAN and EVIL filesharing is. All of which are demonstrably false, have been demonstrated to be false, and now serve to do little more than drive home how very dishonest and out of touch the industry is.
Now, allow me to just sit back and wait to be wowed by your debate skills. Because you love to debate, right? I think your thought-provoking rebuttal will go something like this:
“IGNORE IGNORE IGNORE!…*Repeat industry talkingpoints*… IGNORE IGNORE IGNORE!”
I can’t wait.
People here can’t seem to bring any civilized arguements to the table. All they can do is call people names. This is hardly surprising considering how impossible it is to defend the moral absurdity of taking things without paying for them.
Yeah, sure millions upon millions of people have no interest in games or movies. You just keep on telling yourself that.
Books written in the 1850s are hardly the issue.
You, pirates, and whatnot have ideas comparable to a con man. Take as much from others as you can without giving anything back to them. Simply put, you’re only thinking about yourself. In fact, piracy is a lot more like a ferengi. They just want as much as they can and don’t want to be inconvenienced by any sort of self sacrifice on their part. Remember how they are greedy and want everything for themselves? Remind you of anyone? Im sorry if paying money to people is such an inconvience, but are you going to tell me that everything ever pirated was “crappy”? Please, not the whole “it’s bad so we r okay 2 pirate it” bs again. The industry doesn’t want “as much profit” as possible, only what’s on the price tag. Just because the want you to pay for things, that suddenly means that they want ALL your money? Or are you unhappy that you can’t simply buy everything?
Uh, im sorry, I think you got this backwards. Those movies and music do belong to them, NOT you.
Unfortunately, pilfered material is more than just “digital information” it is someone else’s work, which they have the legal rights to. You would know this if you knew what intellectual property.
This is the problem with the internet. Products which used to be physical (and thus paying for them was considered normal) have now been homogenized with the internet’s “digital” medium which causes people to view them in a false, new light.
When a movie becomes digital, people think that that it’s been stripped of all it’s legal ownership and people no longer feel obligated to respect the owner anymore.
Nope. The selfishness and self entitlement of piracy will change things that we have been enjoying for decades. Movie’s will have new, stricter license, for example. With the lawless, rebellious refusal of the internet to conform to current laws, stricted ones will have to be enacted. You (pirates) are scared of a world in which you actually have to work for you money and pay for things, as opposed to getting everything the easy way. Pirates think the whole world revolves around them, but they are ruining things for the majority. They are like the few kids in a class who arrogantly refuse to stop throwing things around.
Uhm, actually I think you do. Sharing has never entailed copying things. It has always involved some form of self sacrifice. Furthermore, sharing has never been about other people’s things. You can’t share what is not yours.
Uhm, yeah, it is selfish. You are handing out someone’s work to millions of people at their own expense. You are giving nothing to them. You are only thinking about yourself. That is selfishness in the purest sense of the word. What do bandwidth costs have to do with anything? It’s not like your ISPs pay the content providers, though at this rate with pirates stubbornly refusing to conform to any sort of rules, they might have to.
What about those millions of people? They aren’t paying a cent.
Sure, download, but illegal downloading is an abuse of the service. That’s like saying “what else could a high speed car be made for, if not outrunning the cops?”
Anonym0us, the dramatic, sensationalistic, and drawn out nature of your post makes YOU look like the desperate one. Reasoned Mind is just giving you the cold hard truth about what “sharing” is.
I find it amusing how you claim that rm is the frustrated one yet you have these all caps outbursts.
That’s physical theft. With digital theft, the concept of depletion need not apply.
Let’s look at the definitin of theft :
the act of taking something from someone unlawfully; “the thieving is awful at Kennedy International”
You are taking something from someone. They’re rightful right to profit from their work and it is illegal. Haven’t you ever seen the warnings that precede DVD movies?
What’s even funnier is how you consistently dodge people’s posts by claiming that they were paid by what every industry would agree with their views.
Hardly surprising point of view, since pirates only care about the accumulation and acquisition of stuff. Has it ever occurred to you that some people believe in things, not just because it affects them? Is the concept of caring about more than just yourself really so strange?
Now, are you gonna try and explain (once and for all maybe?) how taking something without paying for it is okay.. or at the very least morally sound? Perhaps you could also explain why people think that “internet freedom” means being allowed to do anything their heart desires without any thought as to the people they are affecting or the legalities?
Talk about denial. How are you the victim? You’re not the one who is losing millons of dollars thanks to a bunch of people who think that the intenet makes it okay to do anything they want.
Nothing has been the slightest bit dispoven. All you have succeeded in doing is sensationalizing this as “j00r payed by tehj 4riaaa!!11″.
Okay, if they are “demonstrably false” then pleae enlighten me. Why is it okay to take something without paying for it? What if you were the one who depended on payment to earn money off of their living? How would YOU feel if you got ripped off and then the people doing it told you it was their god given right?
Your own post reveals your lack of confidence in your responce. As I said, their is no way to defend freeloading.
@ neo styles
You don’t think the industry is selfish? What about them suing people for hundreds of thousands of dollars for sharing a few songs and then bragging about it afterwords? Also the fact that it is much cheaper today to produce CD’s and DVD’s compared to when they first came out and we are still paying the same price for them. And when we buy something we don’t actually own it. If we were to make a personal backup copy for our own use it would be deemed “illegal”, and by industry reasoning, loaning a music CD or movie DVD to a friend, even though a copy is never made, is considered “copyright infringement” cause they want everybody to pay for everything they watch or listen to. Their idea is “if you want to enjoy it, you gotta pay for it”, meaning we can’t share with friends or family. You’re worse than Reasoned Mind. What’s next? You gonna start calling file sharers “racists” or other such derogatory names, cause they don’t like the ideas of copyright forced down our throats, like the white house does to protesters who protest against big government and the proposed government run health care plan? ‘Cause that’s all people like you do. Call us names and make hugely false accusations. Bottom line: you’re trying to run a guilt trip on us so we will give into your demands and do what YOU say, by talking about how much the artists are “starving” and “going broke” because of us.
As I said to Reasoned Mind,
Planet’s full. GTFO!
Fandom deserves to be ridiculed but the reporting on Torrent Freak is great. One of my favorite sites and I am nearing 50. I hope “piracy” lives long after I am dead. Thanks!
@ Neo: “Why is it okay to take something without paying for it?”
Let’s try some role reversal.
Why is it ok (or indeed ‘better’) for people to pay for something and not end up getting it?
There is a crime that fits that definition too, it’s called Fraud.
Jamie Thomas is Guilty! Lily Allen is nottttt!
Ben that is a good point but you need to qualify it with a real life example
Who made the FAC the authority on what artist’s approve or disapprove of…..I say boycott every artist associated with FAC. Hit them in the pocketbook, that’s all those twats care about
neo nice points but still i stand by my wisdom why are we all buying high speed broadband on a monthly basis if not to fileshare, what else would we do with it?
also why would they be providing us high speed bandwidth if they didn’t want us to use it for downloading?
so yes if they provide us with 20mbit broadband to download then rightly so they should provide us content to use with that connection else what are we meant to do with it?
the car theory you presented doesn’t hold up in this case cars that speed cannot be held in account to broadband
a car is made to get to 1 place to the other following rules that man put in place i.e. speeding zones yes a car can do over 120 but the rules apply different zones different speeds, this is for a reason because them zones could be dangerous if they wasn’t any danger there would be no limits thats for our own saftey not their manufacters.
so again isp’s give me 20mbit they take 37 quid a month from me what are they providing for me to use this broadband on? nothing.
how do i know the content i’m downloading is copyrighted or not? how do i know the authors themselves have not put that content onto filesharing networks or torrents themselves and seeding themselves to get their product out there to the masses?
i assume if the label on the content isn’t listed as a scene.release.blah.blah then how am to know this isn’t authorised content?
what about the millions of shareware i’m effectively downloading the full thing all i need then is a key, or serial so would they see my downloading copyrighted content in that aspect as copyright theft?
the point being there is no way at all for the industry, isps, government to sort the content out into what they know is un-authorized i wont use the word illegal as there is nothing illegal what so ever about downloading anything it’s re-uploading distributing which is the infringement not downloading.
people seem to forget this.
but how they going to tell with hash file? k incl an extra file re-upload hash changes md5, crc sha1 the lot, so that theory is wasted , so we go on filename alone, again something could be miss labled can’t go on filenames alone that would be crazy, so what else we got? you downloaded and re-uploaded x x x from such a protocol or network it was copyrighted, well since 99.9.9.9% of everything on the net is copyrighted it’s getting very hard to tippy toe around lately.
hence why isp’s should have a mandatory free service for you to use with your connection else your going to be slammed with copyright infringement soon at every way you turn the way its going.
my browser has cached a copy of this website how do i know images, text, logo’s colors patterns arn’t copyrighted here?
as for us being selfish even though we take our time to first pay for something then convert it to something people can use then share it not only are we freely supporting the artists by making sure on a daily basis more users discover them but we do all this free of charge, using our time and our own bandwidth and this is selfish?
cannot beleive all this nonsense over pysical noise.. that is all music is is noise nothing more nothing less, soon there will be copyrights on talking, i mean talking is no different to singing it’s the same content coming out.
She’s an idiot, acting very much like a chicken with its head cut off. She should just stop.
Hah. Reasoned Shill is getting his ass handed to him too hard, so here comes neostyles to gallantly ride in save him.
Awww… Isn’t that just precious, everybody?
“People here can’t seem to bring any civilized arguements to the table. All they can do is call people names.”
When you ignore the civilized arguments, yes, I suppose it does look as though all people can do is call names. If that bothers you, then I suggest you stop ignoring them.
Or is that idea too radical for you?
“Yeah, sure millions upon millions of people have no interest in games or movies. You just keep on telling yourself that.”
Oh dear. You seem to have ignored an important part of the comment you were replying to. There part where it said
“most”. As in, filesharers wouldn’t suddenly run out and buy most of the stuff they download if filesharing suddenly ceased to exist tomorrow.
So are you telling me that if you had an endless schmorgasboard of free entertainment, you would only download things that you’d buy if the schmorgasboard was unavailable?
Impressive. And also, I suspect, total BS on your part. I think you have, at more then one point in your life, sampled something that you never would have tried if hadn’t been free. I think you’ve experienced the urge to try things before you buy them, too, and felt dissapointed after buying a product that didn’t live up to your expectations and wished for your money back.
So you have such a basis to call it inaccurate. Yes.
“Books written in the 1850s are hardly the issue.”
Books written in the 1850’s are a perfect demonstration of the absurdity of modern copyright laws.
“You, pirates, and whatnot have ideas comparable to a con man”
Con man? Sharing makes you a con man? Thanks for your opinion from the lunatic fringe. In reality, whether or not you believe in Christianity, fileshares have ideas comparable to Jesus Christ.
Or are you forgetting his little escapades in the Bible where he turned water into wine, multiplied fish and bread, and generally tried to teach people that sharing was an all around decent thing to do? Of course, if you were there at the time, I’m sure you would’ve been decrying the fate of all those poor winemakers, fishermen, and bakers he was putting out of business and how he was killing the industry. Then demand that he be thrown in jail.
Maybe you’re saying that Jesus Christ was a con man, too? Hmm… What religion would you belong to, then?
“Uhm, actually I think you do. Sharing has never entailed copying things. It has always involved some form of self sacrifice.”
Wrong, wrong, and wrong. Wrong times infinity. An experience can be shared, an award can be shared, credit can be shared, a car can be shared. Your absurd idea that it isn’t sharing unless it involves dividing a whole and depriving yourself of the pieces of it which you give away, is just that. An absurd idea. You’re merely trying to redefine the word “sharing” to make it fit your broken logic.
“Movie’s will have new, stricter license, for example.”
And what will that accomplish? I thought you just admitted that people ignore licensing with impunity?
“With the lawless, rebellious refusal of the internet to conform to current laws, stricted ones will have to be enacted.”
Ah, I see that you’re still carefully ignoring the fact that filesharing is legal in a number of countries. So, lawless? Lawless to whom? The Internet conforms perfectly well with Spain’s copyright laws. Germany’s and Canada’s, too, as I understand it. Although the industry dinosaurs will try to tell you differently.
And, oh no! Stricter laws! So? Copyright laws in certain parts of the world are already extremely strict, but that isn’t stopping people. Don’t you agree? So like stricter movie liscenses, what would that accomplish besides a big steaming pile of nothing much?
If we’re already lawless rebels… Nice job romanticizing it, by the way… Then what the hell do we care?
“That is selfishness in the purest sense of the word. “
And there it is. The insane, upside down, backwards concept that sharing is selfish. Sharing. A selfish act. In what world is selfishness the impetus of sharing?
I regret to inform you, it isn’t this one.
In the bizarro world you come from, the entertainment industry, which demands that you go to jail for downloading an MP3 and thus hypothetically stiffing them money, is the embodiment of selflessness. Right?
“Anonym0us, the dramatic, sensationalistic, and drawn out nature of your post makes YOU look like the desperate one.”
Hahahah, yes. Keep telling yourself that. I hope it helps you sleep tonight.
By the way, do you find it ironic that your dramatic, sensationalist, drawn out comment is accusing me of making a dramatic, sensationalist, drawn out comment?
“Reasoned Mind is just giving you the cold hard truth about what “sharing” is.”
No, he’s repeating cold hard lies that have been shot down many, many times. But nice try.
“I find it amusing how you claim that rm is the frustrated one yet you have these all caps outbursts.”
You mean those all-caps outburts I use to satirize his hysterical, the-sky-is-falling-and-you’re-all-going-to-hell attitude? And his panicky insistance that he isn’t a plant for the entertainment industry? You really don’t pay any attention at all to other people’s comments, do you? I bet you won’t pay attention to this one, either.
“That’s physical theft. With digital theft,”
Oh, how cromulent!
“Digital theft” is a made up term. Recently made up, at that. It’s also used erroneously when applied to filesharing, because digital theft implies that the source file get removed. Just because you stick the word “digital” before it, doesn’t mean that you can stop paying attention to the whole “theft” part and its requirements. If you want to try and argue, as lacking as your arguments are, please at least stop using imaginary buzzwords.
“Let’s look at the definitin of theft :
the act of taking something from someone unlawfully;”
Yes. Taking. Under filesharing, the item being replicated is not taken from its owner. But like Reasoned Mind, you’re going to ignore that oh-so extraneous fact, I’m sure.
“What’s even funnier is how you consistently dodge people’s posts by claiming that they were paid by what every industry would agree with their views.”
Yup, that seals it. You really don’t pay any attention to other peoples’ comments. I accused Reasoned Shill of working for the entertainment industry, which was accurate since he patently does, and then addressed his tired old arguments in detail. I went over them with a finetoothed comb and debunked them in extruciating minutia. You would have seen this, had you not been carefully ignoring it.
“Hardly surprising point of view, since pirates only care about the accumulation and acquisition of stuff.”
Yes, that’s why pirates build seedboxes. You really hit the nail on the head, there.
“Now, are you gonna try and explain (once and for all maybe?) how taking something without paying for it is okay.. or at the very least morally sound? “
You must really hate the legend of Robin Hood. But that’s just an aside.
If you want to blanketly claim that taking something without paying for it is wrong or morally unsound, then splitting your Big Mac with somebody is wrong. Because they didn’t pay McDonald’s for their own Big Mac. Sharing your Chips Ahoy with somebody is wrong too, because they didn’t pay a cent to Nabisco for it. Or whoever makes them now.
We need to enact a law that says you can’t share food, because the food industry is deeply suffering. It’s in peril. We also need to outlaw carpools, because that makes the auto industry lose car sales. You saw what happened to GM!
Think of the poor oil companies, too. And the little people. Their families. We all have to be exploited to the maximum possible degree or the Earth will fall off its axis and fly into the Sun, damnit!
On Sep 25, 2009 at 19:28, Reasoned Mind 104 wrote:
“@ 94 Bobe-On said: ‘While you’re at it, monetize everything– our water……’”
“Good place to start. In the beginning nature did the work to make it rain and gravity did the work in collection and storage.”
It still does.
“Today we build desalination plants, pumping stations and pipe it into a lot of places.”
And we do it with free energy.
But there’s a limit to the scale industry can go. Mother Nature has already knocked on some of our doors.
‘Knock knock, Neo.’
(The Matrix)
“Water is already ‘monetized’”
> Environmental Monetization
> The process of development, or
> exploitation of the resources of
> any area of land, or water, often
> accruing to the benefit of a
> limited number of people, and the
> damage to the exploited
> environment… [kinda sounds like
> file sharing issues, ay? :]…
> This leads to using up resources
> faster than they can be replaced.
> …the World Wildlife Fund
> estimated that the human species
> is using up natural resources at
> a rate 1/3 faster than they can
> be replaced.’
– Wikipedia
“Bobo-On and your argument isn’t with the music industry.
Its with reality.”
Everything is a subset of reality. A grasp of reality is a clue.
Money, itself, is a kind of myth, an illusion– a bit like your frames of reference perhaps. It is ostensibly fiat, debt, fractional, and privately controlled.
When money gets closer to representing the reality some think it represents, then maybe we can unplug more from our prisons, prisons for our minds.
Oh, look!
neo styles, who has mysteriously been gone for days while Reasoned Mind consistently posts, suddenly appears to back up Reasoned Mind.
Admit it, you’re the same person. Freakin’ troll.
Reasoned Mind: You should reply to #137 (4nd) – he fucking destroyed you.
The first person who should be throttled: Reasoned Mind
Splendid work from both neo & RM
Deny everything. Admit nothing. make counter accusations.
I imagine they earned a bonus this month.
These guys should learn Korean and go troll their sites. Kim Jong Il will pay well for their particular talents.
@ 99 Sep 25, 2009 at 19:06 by Reasoned Mind
’stick to CC stuff and so on, which is absolutely their fair choice’
That’s why you’re an idiot. It is the media corporations war on the CC and public domain that has removed legitimate alternatives and fostered infringement. I’ve said before that you need to do your research, but obviously you’r just too stupid.
@ 120 Sep 25, 2009 at 21:35 by Reasoned Mind
You’ve already previously busted yourself as being employed to troll. Or have you forgotten?
The name of this site is Torrentfreak. NOT copyrightinfigementfreak. So why don’t you go where people do as you complain, instead of harassing people who are legally using torrents. If people actually infringed as much as you claim they do everyone would already have a copy of everything and there would be no one left to infringe. So stop spreading your lies and STFU (Stop Trolling for Undulation).
Reasoned Mind, just to clarify something to you as you implied that the media industry do not do such things as “trolling”, look back through the archives here for the mention of the stolen media defender software “trapper-keeper”, one of its features was to make spam posts on websites, why do you think this feature existed if it was not for the purposes of “trolling”, I suppose your ignorance extends to the emails that where also stolen showing how the staff at media defender regularly visited p2p sites/forum to “wind” folks up, if you truly know nothing of such things then do some research before continually spouting off rhetoric based on misleading and erroneous “facts”
@ 157 Sep 26, 2009 at 03:30 by .neo.styles|nvDX
You get called names because you spread lies. Whether under the name Reasoned Mind or Lily Allen. You ignore everything that anyone is saying to you and twist it into yet more lies. People sharing via P2P has nothing whatsoever to do with copyright, yet you accuse all people who use torrents to be engaging in illegal filesharing. And that’s better than namecalling? Throttling is also not about (adhering to) law as there will be no legal thresh-hold to determine if a law has been violated before a warning letter is sent. So what are you arguing? That breaking the law is justified for the RIAA? In case your still wondering, being an idiot and a liar is why people call you names.
@ Reasoned Mind, .neo.styles|nvDX, Lily Allen
And I suppose that you arguing against Reznor, The Reptillians, The Grateful Dead, and Nine Inch Nails chosen method of distribution is helping put food on their table. You’ve blatantly called their fans thieves even though they are legally downloading and sharing. Why? Are you afraid that their fan base will grow to proportions that it will threaten the corporate music industry? Is that why you feel a need to stop them from doing with what they own and created as they see fit? Wouldn’t that be desruction of property under your arguments?
The Entertainment Industry is so hyped up about stopping file sharing and ‘illegal downloads’ that maybe they should rethink how much they pay there ‘Actors’.
Acording to Forbes Will Smith got paid $80MILLION last year….for doing what?
Did he cure cancer?
Did he make world peace?
No he just pranced around playing ‘Pretend’.
And they think we pirates are ripping them off……
Its Fucking Stupid
Dear 4nd,
I missed your very pointed and personal post, earlier @137. #170 indicated it to me. I hope you find this, my reply.
What is fashionable today gives way to the fashions of tomorrow and while personal style endures, it is all (and always) trumped by our collective human nature. One of my basic tenet’s in all of this is that our basic human nature never changes. You may disagree and I respect that. Time reveals a lot and I think time is on my side.
But civilized society is a kind of mob rule, 4nd, our democratic notions are simply based in majority. Sometimes the majority is right, sometimes its proven out to be wrong. But to dismiss it is a big mistake for it IS no matter what. It exists, and we all must deal with it. I respect your right to civilly disobey as long as you respect the majority’s right to punish you to the fullest extent the law allows, and to man-up when a jury of your own peers sees things very differently than you do. It’s not that complicated. That’s only fair and I’m here on simply principle, 4nd, and to learn about how pirates actually think. I think your something-for-me-but-nothing-for-you principles are as damaged as they are fascinating, and ultimately in conflict with our basic human nature. Your movement will fail if only for its conflict with reality.
Just as the “let-the-sunshine-in/share-and-share-alike” hippies of an earlier era briefly lived their ideals but migrated back to the capitalistic instincts of the baby boomers, so will this fashionable but unenduring “all shall be free” trend follow a similar path, like Communes, and Communism. That’s life, 4nd, the expansion of our ideals and the contraction back to our true natures. You say I’m not about change. I say the fact that I am here at all on my own time and dime puts me well ahead of those unaware or uninterested in this temporary movement. I’ve lost count of the number of letters I’ve written to my American legislators, (many that were answered) also British leaders like David Lammy and others, the filesharing meetings I’ve attended, the music organizations I ally with and their seminars I go to, and listen, always listen. It’s like a hobby to me. I have no direct personal gain or loss to piracy, although I think we lose as a society as a whole from piracy in general. I think “sharing” what doesn’t actually belong to you is misguided and sad. But I digress.
The point is, this site is one of many places where people can opine and where ideas can be traded and shared. Your petulant little rant of frustration and annoyance seeking to banish my beliefs is just an indication of your momentary close mindedness. For the record I don’t think you are closed minded. But anytime you whine “stop, take him away, I can’t bear another kilobyte, who’s with me?” you simply reveal your own (momentary) limitations as a man.
This debate will go on and the tides will ebb as flow as they always do, and if you are in it for the destination rather than the journey you might expect to become frustrated. There IS NO destination, 4nd. And if you have ill will in you, as you do @137, you’ll become short tempered through the journey, too.
But it’s all real, 4nd, this is reality and some of us are better suited to embrace it and deal with it and comment on it, and dare I say? Profit from it. Yes, profit.
I give a lot away to philanthropy, 4nd, I write big checks every year, but basically I’m a capitalist because seeking profit and taking care of our own is also part of human nature, and I have no shame in my ideals. But I’d say this about this particular thread: by gathering over three dozen of England’s most influential and impressive musicians to a collective statement last week that moves our debate ahead of the stalemate that existed, little Lily Allen pawned every single one of you righteously. I don’t care for her music much, but I greatly admire her spunk. You lost last week, 4nd. It happens.
So if you have problems with law, or the democratic system, or with the trends, or with Lily, or with me, or with any part of the reality of this life we share, 4nd, I suggest you take it up with the people who raised you as a child, likely your parents. Because little mouthy slags like the one at #137 don’t advance our dialog at all, they simply reveal how poorly your parents prepared you for the realities we all contend with everyday. Make your points and live your life as you see fit, do good work but make room for other points of view, even here on TorrentFrreak. For if you lose your patience and simply call for the banishment of those you disagree with, in that regard, 4nd, you become part of the problem and no longer a solution. You’ve simply pawned yourself.
You’re all rationalizing the simple fact that people steal music because they can, with little chance of getting caught. The fact is if I could steal your work without paying you for it easily, then I would face the same moral question and you would face the same result.
Still, Lilly Allen is a twit.
its really not ok. i really hope she dies
Seriously?!? I actually used to have respect for Billy Bragg. Any moron who can do a Google search can figure out how to get around throttling, as almost everybody does here in Canada. So what exactly is it that they are trying to accomplish? Wow..talk about reaching for new lows. These people should be developing a new business model, not developing new ways to punish their potential fans. That’s just stupid.
Hey guys, I just thought about something. Let’s formulate, say over time, a canned response (copy/paste) for the likes of the industry and RM/.neo.?
Like a FAQ. Frequently answered questions, tripped by certain posts.
It’s pretty apparent that it has become a bit of a mindless game for some, so I think an appropriate answer to something like that is something equally rote. :)
To get the ball rolling…
FAQ:
Q1. File-sharing is theft.
A1.
Q2. File-sharing is piracy.
A2.
We can continue this in other threads.
Someone should throttle Lily Allen ! ;)
Sorry to read that you are quitting RM, I was just getting interested in the debate.
I’ve been looking at some of the responses on the net to the statement we hammered out among ourselves last Thursday night and I feel that this article has the best analysis of any I’ve read as it points out that, although those who download illicit media files will be angry with the statement, the major labels will be more pissed off by our stance.
They have been trying to railroad us into accepting disconnection of individual accounts and we at the FAC have been fighting against this.
Now I feel sure that the majority of posters on this site would have wanted us to come out of our meeting in favour of illicit file-sharing for all, but that was simply not possible in a room of over 60 artists. While there was an acceptance of the FAC argument that disconnection/suspension was disproportionate, there was a majority in favour of some kind of sanction. We took a vote and throttling was the majority view.
FAC doesn’t claim to be leading this debate, nor do we seek to control it. We have come together to make sure that the voice of artists is heard in the debate about the new digital music industry. After all, if they do come for your hard-drives, it will be done in our name.
Our role on Thursday night was as conveners of the meeting. It was the stated view of the meeting that the statement should not be seen as merely an FAC statement – hence it begins ‘we the undersigned’. Why is it up on our website? Because we want to facilitate a debate about what it says and how we as recording artists should respond to illicit file-sharing, which we at FAC have said all along is a serious problem for our industry.
By taking a stand that is in opposition to the big labels, we hope to act as a break on their efforts to bend the fledgling digital music industry to their will by making it work for them in the same way that the analog industry worked.
The real issue for us is not illicit downloading but the creation of new business models that allow artists to make a living from recordings of their work, preferably under their direct control and using a mixture of free downloads and paid-for services, such as blanket licences.
In order to achieve such a change, we will need some input from your community – may be even support.
Now I realise that by putting my head above the parapet tonight, I may get nothing but abuse, but if you can resist the temptation to call me names and dis my music, it would be really helpful in my arguments with fellow artists if you could tell me if you can imagine any circumstances in which artists could make money from recorded music in the digital age?
No one has ever liked you anyway Billy.
i like billy bragg :)
and im waiting for the great leap forward in the music industry
on the other hand, a few more years of content creation and maybe there will be enough content for any persons lifetime that it doesn’t matter if the whole thing falls apart :P
@Reasoned Mind
I’ve never really read any posts on torrent freak before, but I find your posts fascinating. I mean it’s obvious you’re trolling, but I’m confused as to why it’s directed towards “piracy”. I mean to publicly praise Lily Allen takes a level of dedication not seen in your average forum whore, not to mention your obviously laboured & numerous posts seem to suggest vested interest.
I mean you cannot actually respect Lily? She did nothing except continue to whore herself to the media this week, she didn’t unite anything, she merely saw an opportunity for some media exposure, her opinions were even shown to have been plagiarised. Furthermore in case you’re unaware, all the meeting succeeded in doing was reducing Mandelsons plans from “cutting off” to simply throttling. This was exactly what the FAC had proposed and directly in contrast to her opinion at the start of the week. If you respect these types of ideals then Sir, I’m afraid to say it makes your opinion null and void, as it directly shows you have an agenda (for whatever personal reason). Or if somehow the respect is real, then you’re obviously an idiot, and I pity you.
Either way the actual debate is as irrelevant, as Lily Allen’s music. Either the government can acquire the technology and the ISP support to police the net or they cannot. However history would show that we “the pirates” are generally one step ahead on this. No holier than thou, condescending fool on the internet is going to have any impact over that, and neither is some glorified whore, masquerading as a music artist.
@Billy Bragg:
Where are you from? Are you for real?
“…that was simply not possible in a room of over 60 artists. While there was an acceptance of the FAC argument that disconnection/suspension was disproportionate, there was a majority in favour of some kind of sanction. We took a vote and throttling was the majority view.”
A relative handful get together and decide that they want to somehow control/unplug millions, perhaps soon billions, of Terran’s global digital communications/freedoms? And yet they condemn the so-called “vitriol” for Allen?
You MUST be from The Matrix Inverted.
“…if you could tell me if you can imagine any circumstances in which artists could make money from recorded music in the digital age?”
And a free consultation request on how to make money off us to boot?
“…We the undersigned wish to express our support for Lily Allen in her campaign… and to condemn the vitriol that has been directed at her in recent days.
Our meeting also voted overwhelmingly to support a three-strike sanction on those who persistently download illegal files…
Signed: [various industry 'artists']…”
– Featured Artists Coalition
How is FAC pronounced? Is it as in ‘FAC off’?
—-
“The Matrix is a system… That system is our enemy. But when you’re inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system, and that makes them our enemy… most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.”
@ Inverseed
Please spare me with your negative antics. Lilly is now whore to the music industry. She has millions of fans and is the Music Industries outlet to the fans. God bless her.
@Reasoned Mind
The most fascinating thing I find about internet trolls is their incessant need make “the reply”. It’s like a drug addicts next fix, I find it truly amazing what forms addictive behaviour takes in people with such psychological traits.
I’m not going to get into a debate with you about Lily Allen, except that to say, if she is the figurehead for anti-file sharing then it shows just how disconnected the “music industry” really is.
Truthfully I hope they succeed in their mission for 14 year old girls to once again purchase big label commercial fodder. They may then leave the rest of us to support the artists, promotion & distribution methods that produce original & relevant music in a way which suits independent labels, artists and here’s the kicker the consumer!
I have to say I’m a little disappointed folks. I sat up til 1.30am last night reading this thread and, having posted a contribution, went off to bed thinking that when I came back this afternoon there would be – among the usual hate mail – a few people willing engage in a debate with an artist who wants to take on the power that the music industry wields over artist and downloader alike.
However, the only real response I’ve had is from Bobe-On, who tries to avoid debate by questioning if I exist and accuses me of being from the Matrix. It would be funny if it wasn’t kinda sad that Bobe-On is unable to deal with anyone who might diagree with him without hiding behind the plot of a so-so sci-fi movie from the last century.
Where am I from, Bo? Barking in east London. Do I exist? Well I’m doing a free gig in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco next weekend, why don’t you come along and find out?
The worse part of your post wasn’t the Matrix inspired paranoia, it was your outrage that I should ask for ‘a free consultation’. Am I the only person on here who finds it a little ironic that you demand the right to download free music, yet when asked for an opinion on a blog comment thread, you expect to be paid for it?
I realise that I came to this thread rather late and that some of you are in other time zones, but is nobody willing to engage in a debate about how we might take on the music industry together?
Maybe the moderators can help: is there anywhere on torrentfreak that we can discuss these issues without the usual name calling and disrespect from both sides??
Bragg,
I try to raise the level of discourse here regularly, but it’s like debating international diplomacy with a bunch of drunken frat boys.
Many of the RM posts here are not my own, my apologies for 186, I’m spoofed here routinely because I dare to offer an opposing view that facilitates intelligent discussion towards a solution both sides can live with.
Regrettably, government has had to get involved because that won’t happen while the face of piracy remains beet red, breathing hard and drooling, while high-fiving each other over their latest pilfered download.
on-topic:
i have mixed feelings about the whole lily allen anti-filesharing episode. it is looking more and more like a cleverly arranged publicity stunt by people who know the media and how it works
i suspect FAC of organising it because they are the out and out winners by presenting to the government a “united front”. throttling bandwidth is inoperable and it is a huge departure from the proposed disconnection. it is a total win for FAC
@ Reasoned Mind
filesharing is the democratisation of digital distribution. it is your call for restrictive practises that is undemocratic
@ Billy Bragg
for 1 year at uni i woke every morning to my next door neighbour in the halls of residence blasting your music at volume 11. whilst it wasnt to my taste and at first was annoying as hell, i did listen to the lyrics and despite not having a socialist bone in my body i must say ultimately your message is good and true
Billy, for your own peace of mind please ignore the anti-p2p shills who post against you in this blog. from my direct knowledge of operating a torrent site you are supported by filesharers and your voice is on message with ours. nothing you have said contradicts the tenets of filesharing as it is understood in the context of the current economic and technical environment. i am delighted to see you proactive in this debate because i know your pedigree, i know where you are coming from, and i understand your method
it should be no surprise to you Billy that many of the players in the filesharing world are highly educated and developed technologists and economists. if you are looking for hard-nosed business models that i have personally delivered (not simply torrent sites) which thrive in the new technological environment then you know where to find me. i will share my knowledge and skills for free because that is what we filesharers are all about: freedom of opportunity, freedom of access, freedom of data
i dont charge money for my ideas because tomorrow i will have a new idea because that is my creativity. people pay to be part of that environment, to enjoy the benefits of a caring sharing world, the universe i create and share. if i have 10 million people digesting my brand of bullshit then i am simply happy because they all talk my language and what is more they give back more than i could ever afford to buy. i am enriched by the interaction. so i could never sell my creativity because that would be to deny someone somewhere access to my world and the big cost risk is that person might have exactly what i was looking for and i have removed them from my universe through some false restrictive practise
to be very specific: the issue for music artists is to overcome the technological barriers to the market
previously, the technology was owned by the media cartel monopoly, rightly so because it was their technology and methods. but music existed before EMI and Edison. actually the music that existed was Mozart and Beethoven and Bach and local folk acts. the old recording industry dumbed it all down and at the same time killed the local folk ensembles. if you went today to Sony and said you had a band needing distribution they would tell you fuk off because they manufacture their own. Mozart was a popularist, he wrote for the theatre, Mozart wrote for the people. Beethoven was patronised by the wealthy who valued his art. Bach was supported by the church and the folk artists were supported by the people
at NO TIME IN HISTORY has music creativity been supported by the government. today the difference between the government and the media cartel is a very thin line because global monopoly rich on artificial scarcity, massively inflated prices and exploitation of creative minds, has the money and power that buys politicians simply because the industry is so large it cannot be ignored. in the USA the legal system is such that corporation = political executive and the lawyers are the high priests of the money temple. we all understand that such a structure is poison to creativity. a recording contract revenue, ignoring the artists direct income from tours and merchandising and sponsorship, is 90% for the administration = the men in gray suits. income from the tours and merchandising and sponsorship remain for the artists who use the bittorrent distribution system
to help artists overcome the technological barriers to entry to the emerging market, FAC is in an unparalleled position of opportunity to lead from the front and make the best of the momentum that has been gathered from this debate. make an alliance with a fiesharing site operation and let them do the technical arrangements for hosting the content files, creating the torrents, getting the content into the market and building the brand equity. the people themselves will distribute the content they like and provide the marketing and dissemination of awareness that is central to the core value proposition for the artists. the filesharing site can easily provide a portal for the artists with paypal donation and purchase functions for fans to support and access the artists artifacts. the portal informs the fan base and visiting public of opportunities to see the artists live and provides a direct contact with the artists for exchange of news and views. the artist using such a system has lost nothing except finance for their project from not having a recording contract. but what does the loss of finance amount to when so few artists ever gain a recording contract? absolutely nothing when understood in the greater scheme
a php coder can put together a professional portal for an artist integrated into a big torrent site in less than 1 day of work. once the core code is written it takes marginal effort, only minutes, to add another artist. artists can add themselves and their own content. the cost model is infinitely economic compared to the current industry, when and only when, it is understoond that access to the market has suddenly become deregulated and open to all artists. there is precisely the problem for the current industry which does not want unregulated open access to the music sphere
most importantly, dont miss this suggestion! FAC can look at addressing the banks to fund new artists in the same way that the banks through government intervention have been forced to finance students through higher education. tell that to Mandy. tell Mandy he can without cost to government, without cost to the tax payer, he can directly encourage the production of music and the film industry and all the other content types by regulating banks to support our creative industry with commercial funding. the cost of a record contract to the emerging artists was always 90% to the industry 10% to the artists. the new model means the artists dont need to borrow 100% of the industry costs, they can borrow what they really need, cash for instruments and studios and tour funds. they dont need to pay the men in the gray suits to organise it for them. significantly, the profit is only for the artists
the circle is nicely closed with funding in place, free distribution over bittorrent secured, partnership with torrents site operators providing the portal and platform, the artists are in control and they dont need to pay the man
the issue on the other side of the coin is that torrent sites and their admins are an endangered species. we are being systematically hunted down and eliminated. we take extraordinary risks in our private lives because we believe in what we are doing in the face of an all powerful enemy. the anti-p2p own the whole shebang, news, politicians, propaganda, the mind of the public, everything. FAC by bringing the artists to the new technological order can assist in the socialisation of filesharing to the higher echelons of government. talk sense to them who would volunteer to destroy us because we are a destructive technology that is destroying the evil of restrictive practises and their unholy cash cow
bittorrent was born out of the necessity created by an unjust monopoly that served the few and repressed the majority of artists and consumers. we did not create this to hurt anyone. we created filesharing because it was the only way forward. it is the right thing to do given the terrible condition of the media monopoly. in this world of haves and have nots, filesharing has enabled people all over the world to access content that otherwise was totally beyond their means. filesharing is caring that is greater than a corporation bottom line profit because if i could tomorrow pay 1 Trillion USD to remove a barrier between people in the world then it is a cheap price to pay for bringing people together
… freedom of access, freedom of opportunity, freedom of data …
if today the majority of content shared has an associated copyright issue, we know that tomorrow it will not be the case. the issue is how long will it take before digital distribution is fully democratised and the people are liberated from the tyranny of exploitation and suppression of their art. the means is in our hands. to the recording industry i say this: do not be afraid because what you fear has already happened. the jeopardy remains can we survive long enough without central government intervention to prove our model works. the answer is “yes we can”
the key take-away for artists is customer relationship management, deep market segmentation, and control of your own. give your creative product for free and charge the customer who can pay for a relationship that the artists personally manage. segment the market by giving access to the artists’ product to those who cant pay wont pay try before they buy and benefit from the equity of increased brand awareness and market presence. reap the revenue rewards for yourself by cutting out the middleman
http://www.h33t.com who has much more to say
h33t,
Thank you for your thoughtful responses to my posts.
I agree that P2P has huge potential to promote artists who wish to make music on their own terms, outside of the clutches of a music industry wedded to the analog business models.But one of the biggest problems we face is the insistence of record labels that they own the rights to our recordings. In exchange for short term financing of albums and tours, we are forced to trade the rights to our recordings for life of copyright, which is currently 50 years. Advances from record companies are very hard to resist when you’re looking to give up your shitty day job and live your dream of being a musician, so most artists take the money and don’t think about the implications.
Advances are like a mortgage from a bank, you have to pay them back. The big difference is that, when you pay back your mortgage, you own your house. When we pay back our advances, the label continues to own our records. Why do people sign up to such bad deals? Because, in the old analog days, if you wanted to find 1000 fans, you needed to put your records into every shop in the country. Now that is no longer necessary, we need to be looking at other viable business models.
A big part of that shift will be educating young artists not to sign such life of copyright deals. We will only be able to convince them of the benefits of retaining their independence if we can set up the kind of service that you describe in your post. FAC are already talking about such a network.
btw Lily’s campaign was her idea. However, it has really helped us get our agenda out there, so I can see how you might think we planned it – however, we’re not that smart.
h33t, where are you on the idea that we should be looking to monetise P2P activity? Just to clarify what I mean by that term, monetisation implies that the artist is not paid directly by the user, but by a third party who uses the activity to advertise, as happens on commercial radio, for example: the music is free at point of use, but artists still get paid from advertising revenue.
@ 192 Sep 27, 2009 at 17:11 Billy Bragg:
I don’t know who you are– even if you are the FAC Bragg. Anyone can create a moniker of their choosing.
So it was a fair question and The Matrix, a fair metaphoric reference. I also suggest that it may only be a so-so film if you see it superficially– perhaps like how one might listen to one of your own tunes.
“However, the only real response I’ve had is from Bobe-On, who tries to avoid debate…”
The debates all over the internet. I’m blue in the face. It’s been 10 years since Napster. I’d suggest that you and your tiny FAC would do well to do your online research on the matter.
“It would be funny if it wasn’t kinda sad that Bobe-On is unable to deal with anyone who might diagree with him without hiding behind the plot of a so-so sci-fi movie from the last century.”
Try me. Apparently the Matrix refers, among other philosophies, to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave– an even older work.
Many would caution the wisdom of denouncing or rejecting art or history.
“Where am I from, Bo? Barking in east London. Do I exist? Well I’m doing a free gig in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco next weekend, why don’t you come along and find out?”
I am unaware of your music, but I might consider downloading it to see if it’s to my liking enough for me to catch your concert. I did catch your lyrics on forming/joining a union though. ;D
“The worse part… was your outrage that I should ask for ‘a free consultation’. Am I the only person on here who finds it a little ironic that you demand the right to download free music, yet when asked for an opinion on a blog comment thread, you expect to be paid for it?”
I offered the irony first, though; which involves the often-repeated notion of the industry alienating its own consumers. Shit, Bragg, instead of barking in the park and defending Allen, how about some research on the issue?
For the record, I wouldn’t give you advice even if you paid me for it, in part because I believe in and respect people’s online freedoms, such that your FAC doesn’t seem to. And you’re wading into this issue at least 10 years late. If you include other ways to download, even longer.
Read my other posts on here.
“I realise that I came to this thread rather late…”
That’s a start. ;)
“…and that some of you are in other time zones…”
And other reality zones too.
“…but is nobody willing to engage in a debate about how we might take on the music industry together?”
Your FAC wrote:
“We the undersigned wish to express our support for Lily Allen in her campaign to alert… to the threat that illegal downloading presents to our industry…”
Your industry?
We already know about Allen’s apparent hypocrisy, but there seem to be other FAC members who are singing different tunes out of each side of their mouths.
“…is there anywhere on torrentfreak that we can discuss these issues without the usual name calling and disrespect from both sides?”
While I generally dislike “disrespect” and “ad hominems”, I also understand that they can be open to subjective interpretation and that they come with the exercise of certain freedoms.
But how about on your own FAC forum or website?
Allen’s already deleted hers.
So much for transparency, or to getting different sides of an argument. ;)
Speaking of respect and freedom, From the your own FAC’s charter:
“So we will campaign for laws, regulations, business practices and policies that protect artists’ rights.
We will stand up for all artists by engaging with government, music and technology companies, and collection societies. We will argue for fair play and will expose unfair practices.”
Sounds like file-sharing’s in for more of the same disrespect from the industry and their so-called “artists”.
@Reasoned Mind. 193:
“I try to raise the level of discourse here regularly, but it’s like debating international diplomacy with a bunch of drunken frat boys.”
HAHAHA I laughed out loud at this. You say you try to raise the level of discourse here, then you compare us to a bunch of drunken frat boys. Flaming really helps discussion. Mmmhmmm.
“Many of the RM posts here are not my own, my apologies for 186, I’m spoofed here routinely because I dare to offer an opposing view that facilitates intelligent discussion towards a solution both sides can live with.”
Blatantly untrue. You are spoofed mostly for entertainment purposes, I would assume. Also, you do not offer an opposing view that facilitates intelligent discussion. In most of your posts you just flat-out ignore valid points others make, and respond with baseless, fallacious babble. You do not work toward a solution, you don’t recognize valid points, I’m guessing you’ve never really changed your opinion or reconsidered your arguments at all. Both sides can live with? Yeah right. Have you even read any of your posts?
“Regrettably, government has had to get involved because that won’t happen while the face of piracy remains beet red, breathing hard and drooling, while high-fiving each other over their latest pilfered download.”
You never fail to reinforce my argument. You ignore other points, then try to make fun of us. This time you say the face of piracy remains beet-red, breathing hard and drooling. Hardly working toward a solution, or offering any intelligent conversation.
Ignore ignore ignore *Bullshit* *Lies* *Attempt at insult* Ignore ignore….
is basically the gist of all of your posts ever.
Moderators, do your jobs and ban Reasoned Mind’s IP, please.
Please be advised we will not tolerate off topic posts, spam, trolls or personal attacks. Please help us to help you by NOT responding to such posts. ALL posts which fall into this category will be removed, including those responding to such posts.
Remove my posts as well – do what you say you will.
Hey h33t, do you actually believe in all that?
As we move to more digital product, digital IS material. More will move to digital format in time. There is no grey area as you suggest. Either digital product is to be regarded as material, and respected and purchased as such, or the growing entitlement to “free” by those “who cant pay wont pay try before they buy” will be well within their perceived rights for similar market standards throughout. No industry invests for 60 years, then just shrugs and walks away from millions who “who cant pay wont pay try before they buy”. And no government will allow entire industries to fail to infringement nor relinquish the tax revenue it would have created. The winning suggestion is the one that replaces the revenue stream with something the artists can live on. Piracy took the revenue stream, remember? It’s your responsibility to find an adequate replacement. It’s not as if the product is outdated like the buggy whip, and “Brand awareness” plus a pound or so buys a liter of milk. You still take the milk. You just no longer leave the pound.
Your suggestion that artists will “benefit from the equity of increased brand awareness and market presence” makes sense only when that awareness becomes capital as valued and widely accepted as the money it is replacing. It’s one thing to migrate an industry to digital. It’s something else entirely to view this as some sort of opportunity for global rebellion and the abolition of money in favor of brand awareness.
The most honest argument you make is also your weakest one. “income from the tours and merchandising and sponsorship remain for the artists who use the bittorrent distribution system”
“Remain.”
That statement is another way of saying “yeah, well, our piracy does kinda f*ck any chance you might have had to actually selling your products anymore (in any format) But hey, if you can find the enormous start up costs to design, plan, stock equipment and hire labour for a tour??…..and really, GOOD LUCK with all that!! really!….then you can tour! I’m sure you’ll find the money somewhere! Or maybe a band with spouses and children can live on t-shirts for awhile! Why not become apparel merchants and work in garments?? Or sponsorship. yes. Let’s see if sponsorship will generate the funds artists once had to live their lives so they can focus on creation. By using the word “remain”, h33t, you say it all. “It’s what we are leaving you for now” (until we can pirate your t-shirts, too) is a the honest description of your disaster.
So the irony is our culture is likely to be suffocated and drowning in advertising, the great fear for our future since World War 2 but ironically it’s not the corporations forcing it on us as we expected. Pirates won’t pay. Piracy forces advertising on society as a whole to make up the revenue everyone knows is essential to a thriving creative involvement and no one can figure an alt revenue stream. And all this is just fine by you, I know. There’s no free lunch h33t. Just because you can take someone else’s food and give it away doesn’t mean someone else didn’t have to grow it, harvest it, prepare it and deliver it in the first place. When pirates embrace reality, THEY will “live on t-shirts” to show how it get’s done.
When you have a workable substitute so “free” can deliver to our artists as “paid” once did, you’ll be a hero to both sides of the debate. But for as long as you point to what “remains” and make it the “greedy musicians” fault that this is all they have left to work with, you haven’t evolved h33t, you’ve simply stolen the avenue to the musicians payment that is now missing to benefit yourself. Don’t be surprised when the artists, the industries and the government work together against you to return their wages to them.
Idiot child, I’ll make sure I grab even more of hers in the future!
193 Sep 27, 2009 at 17:29 by Reasoned Mind wrote:
“Bragg, I try to raise the level of discourse here regularly, but it’s like debating international diplomacy with a bunch of drunken frat boys.”
(rolls eyes)
Some of us are blue in the face, as opposed to drunk, thanks to the likes of you, Bragg, Allen, Elton, etc., and the industry desperately and drunkenly changing laws, lobbying govs as though only they matter, and taking swipes at any sacrificial downloading lambs that they can along the way for the chilling effect.
That’s a war.
If there’s any drunkenness among our troops, it’s probably a coping mechanism. ;)
Bragg:
How about a new tune about how the intent of money-for-art (or practically anything else) can sully its purity?
I’d hear you bark-in-the-park for that.
Bobe-On,
Your incredible pun on the name of my home town has made me see the error of my ways! I now commit myself to the destruction of the music industry through file-sharing.
That’s an example of irony, Bo. Thinking it’s okay to take other peoples work without paying then demanding payment for your own contribution, that’s hypocrisy.
RM, I’m not convinced that stealing is the right word for what goes on with illicit file-sharing.
Say you were a baker and one day your customers just stopped coming in and buying your wares. On investigation, you found that there was someone standing on the street corner, giving away cakes and bread for free. When you asked them why they were doing this, they just shrugged and said, ‘because I can’.
What would you expect the baker to do? Make better cakes? That won’t work because the guy on the corner will just copy them and give them away. Try chase the free vendor away? Or close up shop and sell t-shirts instead?
Billy you raise several issues which are fundamentally problematic in the consciousness of the artists but are easily overcome when the extended business model of bittorrent distribution is explained. the first part of my reply is gonna be rambling and general but please bear with it because there is a point to be made when the context as a whole is understood
it is no surprise to me that by default the majority of people struggle with the economics of content distribution and the general public are simply no more than distastefully gleeful that they get something for free. the for free issue is the bugbear of bittorrent giving anti-p2p free wins but again the issue can be easily evaporated when the model is seen in practise. i have two master degrees in economic related disciplines and it was only then that i gave up my cushy day job and took a punt on an emerging technology well before it was understood even by myself. it is a complex subject not immediately understood when all we have known is scarcity of music. monopoly never helped anyone but the few and that is why it is illegal. when i was a child i spent all my pocket money on a vinyl single and that was all i could afford. now the kids dont have to spend all their money on paper and plastic (e.g. CD) but they sure as hell are spending it somewhere because today, compared with my grandfather who maybe bought a newspaper, we are spending more on media content than ever before. the average household has satellite HD TV, an xbox360, a PS3, a Wii, 4x mobile telephones, countless laptops and computers, a broadband subscription, visits to the cinema, plus the newspaper! what happened to the money for the artists? well somebody let them down badly but it sure as hell wasnt us because we are spending hundreds and hundreds on our content. only it just isnt reaching the music artists … go figure why and who is doing it to the artists. yes, the musician’s best friend the recording industry is killing music
there are some more myths that need demolishing. first is that the recording industry is in trouble. Branson, the father of the modern recording contract, moved on and bought (amongst others an airline) the national cable backbone of the UK. the ’successful’ recording industry is today serving the digital backbone of the UK and i am sure there are parallels in other countries. there was a recent study in Australia that accounted the economic worth of filesharing, estimated at 65% of gross internet traffic, based upon the market demand for broadband and paying the salaries of a massive global industry
today we see the UK government proposing a 50 pence tax on broadband customers to further finance the roll-out of broadband services to all homes in the UK regardless of whether or not they want it or need it. they sure as hell have no idea of what it means when they do not already have a broadband connection but the government is committed to giving it to them regardless because of the benefits to the core digital industry. not forgetting that industry is financed by filesharers buying bandwidth. compound that with the fact the music industry had a record revenue year last year?
bittorrent is not yet mainstream and we have the situation of the great unknown both for consumers and artists alike. let’s look at historical precedent for clues on what is going to happen next. warez was the first ever content shared over the networks (that and porn) hosted by British Telecom engineers on bulletin boards hosted on government property that the government had no clue of. did warez suppress the software market? absolutely not and that is the second myth busted. correct me if i am wrong but the games industry is now bigger than the movie industry and opensource software is the business model of the future. significantly for the musician looking for a business model, games manfacturers already use the sharing model to publicise their product. you can download a RAZOR911 cracked game on bittorrent but if you want to play online and unlock 80% of the game then you must buy it. classic example of market segmentation and try before you buy. Microsoft can also not complain about the predominance of linux and opensource whereby you do not need to pay for any software because they have moved forward with their business model and sell dedicated consols that require a paid networked registration to participate in the full experience. interesting is that the PS3 despite being better hardware than the 360 cannot match the 360 for its dominance in terms of number of networked users and revenue. again a classic example of price market segmentation where he who can pay pays and he who cant or wont doesnt
the third myth is that existing copyright law can be extended to the internet. the internet bubble burst because we learned that data (aka information) has virtually zero economic value when widely disseminated. sure if you know something that can be protected and applied then you can profit from it. but we learned that the internet is nothing more than one big copy machine. servers copy to servers to repeaters to amplifiers to routers to browsers to computers everything digital is based on copying an infinite amount of times throughout the entire network. the ISPs got protection from prosecution simply because it was recognised that the system was one big copy machine. the consumer however is not so lucky as to have the automatic protection from government because … well you can think that one out yourself. point is the internet is systemically not going to work with any type of copyright legislation. it ios for the owner to proactively use technology to protect their content if they choose and DRM exists and works for Microsoft and games companies who value their product highly enough to pay the cost of managing a DRM system. for the recording industry they realise the economic value of their content on the internet is zero and they do not try to protect it with DRM. instead we get this erroneous attempt at legislation which we all know will be toothless. not only toothless but downright dishonest because the content is zero valued and they wont protect it themselves. the movement to legislate is a misplaced run-away-train financed by a cash bloated industry with so little intelligence they prefer to pay lawyers to attack consumers rather than innovate
the fourth myth is advertising revenue in the radio or internet scenario. at an average of 0.06 USD for one thousand impressions it is only the very biggest of sites that profit from advertising revenue, i estimate a site has to be within the top 3,000 in global traffic rank to pay for itself and salaries for the support team. beauty is the majority of torrent sites are run by volunteer moderators and fanatic admins who work for free. make no mistake, outside of the big 5 torrent sites nobody is getting rich. that is not to say a torrent site is not a relatively big draw for traffic, but if advertising income on a site that gets 40,000 visits per day or 10,000,000 hits per month doesnt pay a torrent admin a living wage considering all the content available then you can quickly realise that only the top artists are gonna get anything interesting from advertising revenue. so imagine if Madonna got 10,000,000 hits on her site per month you think she is gonna be happy with the income? do the sums. there simply isnt the cash floating about in the internet advertising scenario to be meaningfully translated into income for an artist. we are struggling to buy servers from the income and an artist sure needs more hardware than a website
however, there is a form of advertising which does work for media content and that is the sponsorship model. the tv soap Friends is an example of an advertising wrapper that made its money from its ability to attract consumers. take the advertising out of an episode of Friends and the content has no value it is but a vessel for the advertising revenue. those deals were done direct with the sponsors and eliminated the middle-man of the ad agency. whilst an artist may not be big enough on the scale of Friends to negotiate direct with a sponsor there is a need for a aggregator agency who can negotiate directly with sponsors on behalf of a collection of artists. something that FAC could do. this model would see a coalition of artists paid directly by a sponsor overcoming the issue of the low income shotgun advertising we see today from the internet advertising brokers. an association of artists working for artists? who would have thought it possible …
myth five: the filesharing epidemic can be regulated. technology already exists to take p2p into the dark where it is invisible to all an ISP can employ against it. all it takes is for a badly conceived regulation to drive it underground. this will not only circumvent the authorities but it will make them irrelevant. as irrelevant as the artists who cling to the old analogue business model (as you nicely put it). i was at a convention in Amsterdam (which Ernesto also attended) and i warned that the attack on thepiratebay would cause a technological and social backlash against the incumbents they would live to regret. you cannot imagine what resources are now being poured into designing new web systems to thwart the anti-p2p. the cost is not so much to us filesharers because we still get what we want. the cost is to the artists who are not in the new system, the artists who remain clinging to the old analogue model and miss the opportunities in their lifetime
the final myth to be busted (for today at least) as you say yourself the recording industry is NOT working in the interest of the artists. Prince and George Michael made their famous stands against the recording industry contract and the way they were exploited as young emerging artists later to feel the weight of the bad contract. you have it right that finance for independent content production is a media wide issue that needs urgently addressing. whilst the media cartel mantain the monopoly on finance for artists then indeed there is a problem
ok we understand how market segmentation opens up new markets and how filesharing works to increase market equity by providing hyper-exposure and new consumers. we understand that finance for artists needs to be solved. what is missing is an understanding of relationship marketing and how that works for an artist. we have the example of nine inch nails. what did they make from giving that album away for free? i might be wrong but i think it was $5 million and they didnt think it was enough. well slap me with a Mandy if $5 million isnt good enough but the point i make is that they started out right with their customers then broke it with a stupid comment when all they should have said is “thank you very muchly” and gone on to do it again when they might have reaped the benefits of the increased market equity the free issue had created
customer relationship management is the model used by opensource software houses. it means you get the software for free and there is also a community based around free support by the community. however, there is also a premium edition that costs money and comes with paid support. the consumer pays for a direct relationship with the development team and benefits from the relationship for all the reasons i dont need to list because it is endless and ultimately superior to the free version. the free software is also licensed only for free noncommercial use, so if a big commercial enterprise wants it then they pay a license fee
let’s put this into the context of an emerging artist. he sets himself up with a portal page on a high traffic site like mininova or jamendo (or myspace) and he starts propagating his torrents to every site and forum he can find. sooner rather than later he is gonna have several thousand downloads and his work gets out there where it is accessible and heard by a global audience. of course his alternative is not to do this and instead go try for a record contract. or he can do both. if the artist is well received then he will not only get popular but probably he will also get an offer of finance. there are plenty of people out there looking for talent, ask Simon Cowell the problem is there aint enough talent! on the relationship management front the artist makes available artifacts that can be purchased (merchandise, burnt CDs of his work etc). the artist offers fans membership of a private forum in which he regularily blogs and interacts with his consumers and i dont know what artists do behind closed doors but all that nasty stuff that fans love and want. membership comes with perks e.g. free concert tickets and backstage passes and the list is endless but it all depends upon the artist performing one crucial element which is engaging the customer. this model does NOT exclude a recording contract, it does not exclude commercial release or sponsorship or touring it does not exclude a big movie or tv show making a deal for the music. the sharing model enhances everything that has gone before with additional revenue streams
what is more, the artist is relevant and there is nothing like the big corporations for following the money and paying to be relevant by employing the right artists
i dont need to characterise filesharers more than we already know it is 100% of the youth and a fair proportion of the older digital natives. they have cash to spend and they love to spend it on what they like and they are accustomed to spending it online on digital content. suffice for me to finish this comment by criticising the recortding industry because they could have already done all this for their artists. but somehow it just wasnt worth it, the artists were just were not worth the investment and that is the rub. it is cheaper for them to cynically attack the consumer than to invest in the artist
there are hundreds of other models i can suggest but it does all rest upon artists taking the initiative. exciting times because i know we are gonna love what is coming from the new creative industry
http://www.h33t.com going out for a fresh supply of beer and chips. this stuff really aint that difficult after all …
just came across this thread, to the poster above, “Bragg”, that’s not irony, merely sarcasm.
Yeah I know, but gimme a break. I’m dealing with someone who doubts that I exist.
@Billy Bragg
The guy on the street corner will eventually run out of money. You see, he sells material items, which one must pay to make. He needs to pay for dough and electricity or whatever. It’s a bad analogy because files are not material and cost nothing to copy.
But this is wrong in other ways. The industry has not suffered very much from piracy. It certainly hasn’t stopped all together, like the baker’s shop.
And the baker’s shop is tangible. It’s more than just a set of rules and a pile of money, like the music industry is; it’s a shop, selling goods. The music industry isn’t a shop. It’s a set of rules, basically. A stack of papers. All it is is copyrights and intellectual property. It makes money off the music that is there anyway.
The RIAA and MIAA don’t chase the free vendor away. They go up behind them and try to shoot them in the back of the head.
h33t,
Thanks again for a thoughtful post.
I’m not 100% convinced by the sponsorship argument. I went to see the new band of an artist that I greatly admire and was a little put off when I discovered that they were sponsored by a high end clothing company. I want to be in the NME, not Tatler, fer Chrisakes.
A better model, which you allude to it in your post, would be artists sponsoring other artists, making money available to record in exchange for a short-term licence to a central, artist controlled combine – an association of artists working for artists as you put it.
I agree with your observation that people are buying more content. That is a big part of the problem the music industry faces. There are just so many more competitors for the attention of consumers. Like you, as I teenager, I spent most of my money on vinyl. My son has many more distractions to spend his money on. This is why I believe that there is no technical fix to the collapse of income that the music industry is facing: its not just file-sharing that is the problem. If they sink all the pirates, people will still spend more of their money on the latest of all those home based technological wonders that you listed. The Wii is simply not going back into the box.
A new business model is desperately needed, but again and again the industry has refused to allow legal P2P to happen. Why? My hunch is that they fear losing control over distribution.
One other question, when you say that consumers are spending hundred and hundreds on content, but it not reaching the music artists, is that true of all creatives, or is this just a music and movie business phenomena?
Ok Name, bad analogy
What if the guy is a songwriter, spends all day long writing songs which he sells to performers for a flat fee, with no royalties – like in the old days of Tin Pan Alley. One day, he finds no-one wants to buy his songs because there is someone on the street corner, giving newly written songs away ‘because I can’.
Does he have to quit writing and start selling t-shirts then?
201 Sep 27, 2009 at 21:15 by Billy Bragg wrote:
“Bobe-On, Your incredible pun on the name of my home town has made me see the error of my ways!”
?
What pun and what home town?
” I now commit myself to the destruction of the music industry through file-sharing.”
Music needs no industry and never has. It will continue and be better off without it.
Huxterism may wane, purity, wax.
“That’s an example of irony, Bo. Thinking it’s okay to take other peoples work without paying then demanding payment for your own contribution, that’s hypocrisy.”
Those two cases are different, so I disagree. I’ll let you figure out why I think so.
“RM, I’m not convinced that stealing is the right word for what goes on with illicit file-sharing.”
RM seems to need no convincing, as intoxicated by his own sophism as he appears.
“Say you were a baker and one day your customers just stopped coming in and buying your wares. On investigation, you found that there was someone standing on the street corner, giving away cakes and bread for free. When you asked them why they were doing this, they just shrugged and said, ‘because I can’.
What would you expect the baker to do? Make better cakes? That won’t work because the guy on the corner will just copy them and give them away. Try chase the free vendor away? Or close up shop and sell t-shirts instead?”
What’s your industry already doing?
Do you have to be attached?
Is baking the only thing you can do?
Are you that at a loss?
I imagine those who bake work harder than some for less $. How much do/did you make? How about Annie Lennox?
For one, you may have answered your own question at the end.
Retrain, perhaps like the East Coast Atlantic cod fishers. Remember them? Real scarcity, as opposed to artificial.
Become a butcher or a candlestick maker.
It’s done all the time as wage-slave positions are axed, while others, blissfully unaware, fly from London to San Fran to get pumped on what they love.
Or find out how the baker can bake and give away. ‘Because I can’ might be enough for you, but it isn’t for me. I like to do my homework before I sign FAC memberships with charters that seem to involve threats to people’s rights and freedoms. Feedom.
If you are from the FAC, why are you even here wanting to discuss this, half-assed, at this stage of the game? Your lines already seem drawn:
“We the undersigned wish to express our support for Lily Allen in her campaign to alert music lovers to the threat that illegal downloading presents to our industry…”
YOUR industry.
If I find that our baker has a Star-Trek materializer (or whatever you call it), then the world has changed.
Then everything’s free– bread, candles, music, everything.
@h33t:
You wore out my mouse wheel. ;)
“…Brutality and unjust laws can not defeat us…
Money speaks for money, the devil for his own
Who comes to speak for the skin and the bone
What a comfort to the widow, a light to the child
There is power in a union…”
– Billy Bragg
Hey Bobe-On,
You do know some of my stuff!
Why am I here? Because I don’t see the world in such black and white terms as you do.
@Billy Bragg
Well looks like he’s boned because his quality/cost ratio is much worse than that guy’s. He’ll have to (OH NOES!!!) compete with the street-corner guy to make his living. The guy giving people his music for free on a street corner can do so if he wants. He can either wait out this business slump until the street corner guy gets hungry or change the way he does business to better fit the market.
LIKE THE RECORDING INDUSTRY.
Analogies don’t count as valid points. They are to help the reader understand a point, not to make one.
I’ll give you a good analogy.
There is a certain group of teens that like to hang out at an abandoned warehouse. They can do what they want there and nobody stops them. One day, a man sees that the teens are going in and out of this warehouse all the time. So he buys the land the warehouse is on, and puts a big wall around the whole place, with only one gate. He spruces the place up a bit and makes it a little safer. He stands at the gate with a concealed gun and charges the teens 20 bucks to get into his warehouse. Normally about 100 kids go there every night, but since he put the fee up, only about 75 go there. 25 of them don’t think it’s worth the money. So the next day, a kid really wants to go into the warehouse and have a good time but he doesn’t want to pay that douchebag 20 bucks to get in. He decides to have one of his friends pay 20 bucks to go in with a rope and throw the rope over the wall so the kid can climb the wall and get in. A couple more kids realize what’s going on, and to save 20 bucks, they climb the rope too. The Douchebag doesn’t notice the kids go in, but he does notice the amount of money he made. Before he put the wall up, there were at least a hundred kids there every night, so he thought he’d make 2000 bucks off them. When he only makes 1,500, he thinks something is wrong. So the next night he walks around the wall, and sees a kid sneaking in. The government’s laws say that the kid isn’t allowed to exist on his land unless he pays the 20 bucks, so the Douchebag takes the kid to court. He says that the kid is doing something terrible, that he isn’t just stealing from the Warehouse, that he’s stealing from teen entertainment. He looks at how much money he makes and concludes that the kid caused him to make only 1500 dollars instead of 2000 dollars that night. So (naturally) he sues the kid for 500,000 dollars, because all of the kids who “stole” from him need to be afraid. The government obliges because they’re tools and the Douchebag goes home 500,000 dollars richer. The kid’s entire family has to work their whole life in poverty to pay off the 500,000 dollars.
So… was that a necessary punishment?
I could go even farther with this analogy. One time, the Douchebag sees the receipt stuck to the rope, and finds out that the kid was using his grandmother’s rope to sneak into the warehouse. So he takes the grandmother to court and sues her 500,000 dollars. But you see, she has Alzheimer’s. She doesn’t even know what a rope IS. But because the kid used her rope she gets sued.
There’s a good analogy. To help you understand, The Douchebag is the RIAA, the warehouse is music, the kids are customers, and the kids who snuck in are pirates, and the rope is P2P, and the receipt is an I.P. address, and ‘teens having fun’ is music artists.
It’s obviously not perfect, but it covers the necessary areas.
Let’s see some evidence then.
Or do you want a “debate” only where, when, how, and with whom you please?
Reminds me of Reasoned Mind… and the industry.
…You sure you’re Billy Bragg, or just playing games? :)
“I’m gonna tell all you fascists you may be surprised
The people in this world are getting organized
You’re bound to lose, you fascists are bound to lose…”
– lyrics, woody guthrie; music billy bragg
“Now…
Hear this
Pay attention to me
’cause I’m a rich white girl and it’s plain to see
i got every kind of thing that the money can buy
Let me tell you all about it
Let me amplify
I got DIAMONDS…
You heard about those
I got so many that I can’t close my safe at night in the dark
Lying awake in a sick dream”
– Money, by Annie Lennox,
signed member of FAC
Billy you ignore the customer relationship model. please explain why artists fear interaction with their customers. to the best of my knowledge musicians are social and naturally mathematical. look at Wittgenstein and Bach. why should an artist not be able to engage with his customers? in terms of systems we are talking nothing more complex than myspace
on the sponsorship issue: why would any relevant artist want to be sponsored with a record deal by the likes of EMI? i am not just talkin bout the pistols. they got worse over time, today they attack their customers, they are exposed as a greedy fat cat multi-national exploiting the poor, they are irrelevant! we fukin hate them. if you are an artist associated with that level of money grabbing bullshit we hate you too
we call it the 404 where multi-national corporations have lost contact with their markets because they are no longer relevant. the new bands of today are the “untouchables” because they dont want to be part of the toxic corporate establishment
it aint nothing to do with the movie industry. the problem with Follywood is they pander death and pain and destruction. by the age of 8 a child has seen 1,000+ ways a man can die because Follywood feeds off a smorgasbord of action tripe. the MAFIAA scum who paved a desert with gold to launder their racketeering revenue into movies is something else than music. however, the movie industry is identical to the music industry in that it is making record profits once again this year regardless of the complaints against filesharers
the issue for artists is they are being painted as a relatively simple commodity that can be substituted by other content and we all know that view is complete bullshit. there is nothing stronger than music to move and touch people. but the recording industry while making record profits is squeezing artists harder than ever before. just like the merchant bankers *wankers* who sold us all and then took our tax money for their bonuses, the music industry is squeezing both the comsumer and the artist for their own short-term enrichment. the shareholder model makes me sick
“The artists took a vote and instead of backing up Allen’s disconnection calls, went for a more palatable option – maintaining a basic level of Internet access for alleged pirates but throttling their bandwidth so that file-sharing would become impractical.”
fail!
Lily Allen can go and SUCK A DICK TILL SHE CHOKES..
drug whore..
wtf,
What the f%&k? Does it make you feel powerful to say that? Stop bullying little girls and make a sensible point.
Name,
What was interesting about your analogy was the fact that there was no role for the artist/creator in your vision of what is going down. You see only yourself, the music and the douchbag industry. Might this be part of the problem we have in trying to understand each other?
It certainly explains why you weren’t happy with my analogy, which focused solely on the artist/creator.
Bobe-On,
You want to debate whether or not your pay off line on post 200 ‘bark-in-the-park’ was a pun on the name of my home town, Barking, Essex?
Happy to do that.
h33t,
I can assure you that I do not ignore the customer relationship model. Most savvy artists are using it to some degree. It allows us to carry on promoting ourselves between albums. And it works. Young people are turning up at my gigs and they know the words to my songs. How’s that happened? Part of it has to be down to P2P, cause they can’t hear me on Radio One or read about me in the NME anymore.
I’m encouraged that you endorse the notion of sponsorship for artists, as it shows that your community recognise that making records costs money. If we could set up that artist-run combine, do you think the P2P community would support it?
You are quite right to state that the labels are squeezing artists like never before – and misrepresenting them too. Anyone seen UK Music’s ‘Falco’ ad in today’s Guardian? Some drunken musician’s midnight blog in which he whinges about his album being leaked. I fear it does nothing but damage our cause in the eyes of the public, another own goal by the big labels.
Bragg misses the key issue when he makes his baker analogy. The baker on the street corner isn’t giving away just any old baked goods and he isn’t making the investment for the source of the goods. He waits until the brick and mortar baker, the true baker, develops recipes and invests in ovens and such, but only then after the work is done and there is something to copy……. THEN he uses tech to make illegal copies to give away.
THAT’s key.
Because without the brick and mortar baker, the street corner guy has nothing to give away. He has nothing more than an empty P2P app, and that’s the hypocrisy. No one here is against fair competition, indeed, that’s what makes better bakers. It’s the intellectual property theft and no-cost copying that makes the street corner guy possible in the first place, and inevitably puts out the brick and mortar guy until neither have anything to offer.
Bobe-On’s suggestion “Become a butcher or a candlestick maker.” is classic, priceless pirate think. In the pirates world, we’ll only pay for meat and candles until we can figure out a way to pirate those too. So confused, so unjust, so shortsighted.
The songwriter analogy at 207 isn’t correct, either. Original songs given away for free is fair competition. Making COPIES of the original songs by others for free isn’t fair because it isn’t competiton. It’s copying.
@ ReasonedMind:
We’re all sick and tired of your pointless arguments. You’re entitled to have your opinion and we’re entitled to have ours, live with it and get the hell out of here.
It’s not that if you continue to talk you’re right. We’ll continue to have our opinion. We’ll just ignore what you’ll say, because, as I said, we’re all sick and tired of you.
So, please, do all of us a favour, and shut off your trap.
Thank you very much indeed in advance.
James Holdger, the latest free speech advocate here on TF.
Holdger, if you can’t develop and present persuasive arguments here why disconnecting artists from their revenue stream (but still taking their products) is the fair path forward for everyone, good luck with governments and the artists themselves. “Shut off your trap” is impressive, indeed.
“You can’t stop us” is going to be the punch line of a bad joke someday. Well that……. and “James Holdger.”
James,
While I’m waiting to be moderated – must have been something I said – I do have to agree with RM. Is this a forum for discussion or just a circle-jerk for dittoheads?
h33t, your denouncement of the motion picture industry for giving the customer what they want because that’s where the customer puts their money is more of a denouncement of global human nature than the industry that creates what we want to buy and then watch. If we wanted to watch something else, that’s what they’d make. Mass taste and the product migrates in tandem constantly.
The “system”—however you define it–has developed along these lines because it is the most honest and accurate mirror of human nature in existence today. The “shareholder model” is embraced and eagerly sought the world over–especially in countries who style themselves “Socialist”, because it gives a chance to everyone and the majority (but apparently you) understands and appreciates that. I’m not saying it’s right. I’m just saying it IS because humans are as we are. if we were different, the system would be different.
Your argument isn’t with the shareholder model, h33t. It’s with our nature that created it. Human nature seems painful to you.
I carefully read your angry words “the shareholder model makes me sick”…… and felt a bit sorry for you.
The issue I have here is the entertainment industry still seems to believe that 1 download = 1 sale.
About two years ago I started ‘pirating’. I downloaded most of the TV shows I couldn’t watch because I worked at night and movies I couldn’t see due to other commitments. Eventually my HDD filled up and I stopped. For 8 months.
In these 8 months I purchased a grand total of two CDs. Both from live shows in small venues from the bands directly. I didn’t even buy DVDs as gifts for people!
Now that I have a shiney new 1TB HDD and working DVD burner I’m back to my ‘pirating’. I am trying to find active torrents of those seasons of shows that I missed and I’m not the only one with a story like this.
Forget the old concept that 1 download = 1 sale, its false and it ruins your credibility as an argument when it has no factual backing.
Bobe-On @211,
Your reference to Annie Lennox’s MONEY sent me back to YouTube to watch the video and listen. She’s fantastic. I’ve purchased three of her cd’s in years past. But I’m unclear if your intent is to suggest that her financial success is wrong? Somehow immoral? Or are you suggesting her parody of money makes clear her disdain of it?
There is no evidence to suggest this at all. She has had her issues with her label, but she’s also sold well over 80 million albums, even at only L pound per album that’s L80million British pounds alone and there’s no evidence she’s given it all away, either, so it seems she feels she’s earned it.
(and I’d agree)
It’s reported in Wikipedia that she, too, has objected to “unauthorized use” of her work in elections, indicating her belief that the creator/agents should retain control. I’d agree with that, too.
What point were you making?
Capn,
On of the problems we have with the music industry is that the labels insist that one download equals one sale. Everyone knows that’s bull, but it allows them to inflate their losses to £200 million. Last week, one of the big British ISP’s, BT, estimated that to suppress illicit downloading would cost about £1 million per day – £365m per yer.
Why don’t the ISPs just give the labels £200m and let the kids get on with their P2P, saving themselves £165m and a whole lot of trouble?
Looks like my post @ 215 has been stalled , probably because I had a pop at wtf for his ungentlemanly conduct towards Ms. Allen @ 214
I had a couple of other points too:
In response to Bobe-On @211, I’m happy to debate whether your pay off @ 200 “I’d hear you bark-in-the-park for that” was a pun on the name of my home town, Barking, as revealed @ 192
and to Name @ 210, it’s interesting to note that your analogy features the kids, the music and the douchebag industry, but has no mention of the artists. I can see why you’d want to dismiss my songwriter analogy, which has the artists at its centre.
Willya look at that. No sooner do I start to repost than my original gets modded.
Magic!
the album is an outdated model fixed on a material vinyl and a recording cintract mechanism
the now is engagement free from material restrictions and contracts
carpe diem
This girl has no talent other than her ability to be constantly caught by paparazzi with hit boobs out.
Why I am not surprised she’s become the RIAA’s little whore as well.
Hopefully this will prevent her from taking a dump on any more Clash songs …
This girl has no talent other than her ability to be constantly caught by paparazzi with her boobs out.
Why I am not surprised she’s become the RIAA’s little whore as well.
Hopefully this will prevent her from taking a dump on any more Clash songs …
@ Billy Bragg
Like, I said, the analogy wasn’t perfect. I’m not really sure how to fit the artists in…
I’ll just make a separate point about the artists.
I honestly don’t know that much about how the artists usually get paid – maybe they get a cut – I don’t know.
But I’m pretty sure the amount of money artists get for their work from their recording companies is small, and that they have to do live tours and sell shirts for money. So, correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think that piracy makes much of a difference in an artist’s salary.
But you see- that doesn’t matter anyway – how much the artist WOULD make if not for piracy. The point is that lots of people do lots of things that make record companies lose money. They give bad reviews of albums, they hear them on the radio, so they know not to waste money on albums, and so on. Record companies should NOT have the power to limit how we use our own property in order to get more money. Capitalism should have no affects on people’s inherent rights.
Wouldn’t it sound insane if they tried to ban keyboards because they could potentially be used for giving albums or movies bad reviews? Same thing goes for people’s internets. Their internets is theirs, the 1’s and 0’s that are the music or movie are theirs. So why should COMPANIES be allowed to punish people for making them allegedly lose money?
hahaha I obviously strayed from my original point on the artists… but oh well I was multitasking so what can I say.
Before I get on with the on-topic portion of this post, I would like to point out that the obviously offensive posters are most likely minors or trolls, and should have been ignored.
After reading most of the comments on this article, I felt the need to add my two cents. Addressing Lily Allen’s behavior, I have no idea why TF even bothered to write about it. She is obviously attempting to attract attention for her cause, and failed to consider all of the possibilities. That is no reason to brutally insult here or pay her any mind whatsoever for that matter.
I find it refreshing to see people involved in music attempting to find creative solutions to file-sharing, but slowing Internet traffic is not a viable enforcement tactic. Many of the more security-conscious file-sharers already work behind certain types of protection, rendering it nearly impossible to identify them. As these are highly likely to be primary distributors, I do not see how your methods would stop them. We are already on the brink of mainstream underground file-sharing as it is. Aside from that, the exclusive focus on music seems inappropriate. In all honesty, other media is pirated as well.
Aside from the obvious lure of illegal downloading, many young people feel that harming “the industry” is a good thing. The Industry has done much to foster this idea with ridiculous lawsuits, threats, and use of lobbies to attempt the passage of draconian laws. An unbiased observer would probably have to admit that this industry doesn’t look any more reasonable than the radical parts of the file-sharing community which they condemn. Of course, none of that honestly matters to me.
As for file-sharing itself, it would certainly be ethically questionable at best. To many of us, however, that is a moot point. Personally, I take what I know that I can get away with, as the same is done to me by society as a whole. Make it more difficult, and we will simply adapt. Not to sound unreasonable, but we can do it. You can’t stop us. This is the way that it has been and will be.
To sum it up, we do not all lie to ourselves. We know very well what we are, and we do not care. Much like you, we look out for ourselves. Lets all just be honest: We are similar to thieves, although not completely. You are a victim of a sort. Despite all of the other injustices perpetrated by business and government, these are the simple facts. The only difference here is that there are a lot of us, and the common man does not care about your agenda because of his failed perception.
@ Bragg/Mind/Styles (likely one-and-the-same):
I’m embarrassed for you, you seem terribly ill, like the industry, which is making everyone sick.
all good things
Regarding this ‘Baker Analogy’; there’s something missing. And i find it extremely odd that none of the contributors of said analogy have considered an ‘inbetween’ — did i miss it?
Firstly, we have the Baker. Let’s assume that the Baker is the sole creator of the bread. All tools, ingredience, staff, etc.. Used in the process of creating and selling this bread represent some level of industry input. They all need financial support to maintain sustainability.
Secondly, we have corner-man and his replication device. This replication device has numerous functions, and also costs to maintain. Corner-man buys the Baker’s bread, and copies its condition quite accurately, even the label remains intact.
The third factor, is comprised mainly of social networking, for lack of a better definition.
‘Yummy’, he thinks, and begins to give it out to people who are perhaps curious as to what this ‘yummy’ bread tastes like. He even recommends it to his friends.
‘Oh, you going to get some bread?’
‘Yup. Want any?’
‘Nah, but check out The Baker, he makes some tasty bread. In fact, here have some of this. Tastes nice, right?’
‘That is pretty nice. I will check The Baker out. Laters.’
Others, just out to get some free bread – never planned to buy any such bread of any such baker in the first place.
However, more and more people are becoming aware of this ‘yummy’ bread. And more people begin to try it. And more people visit The Baker’s store… As well as more freeloaders.
For some, it was merely free bread, to others, it opened up a doorway and they now visit the Baker’s store every so often to try some new types of bread.
‘What’s that corner-man giving out?’
Curiosity, hype, common interest… They all play a part.
Over time, The Baker grew in popularity, and as a direct result, so did the amount of replications; Suppy and Demand.
The Baker wondered if he was losing customers, but most of all, money… No, he ASSUMED that he WAS losing money.
Rather than adjusting to this ‘replication revolution’, The Baker gets rid of the corner-man, and instead of using the replication device himself, The Baker destroys it, and continues to work in the same way that he always did, or that’s what he thought…
The corner-man played a vital part in the growth of The Baker, unknowlingly to The Baker.
The Baker’s consumer base drops, and he blames everybody with a replication device.
The Baker, angry, confused, and fed up with having the least financial stability of The Store, despite working the hardest, looks to other Bakers for help.
Him and the other Bakers form a group, and attack the establishment behind the replication devices.
These replication devices are central to the daily function of countless individuals and corporations.
‘Punish them for eating copies of our bread!’
‘How do you suggest we do that, without discriminating against those who don’t do it intentionally, or at all?’
‘We’re protecting our rights!’
‘Ok… And how are we to distinguish your bread from other items?
‘By size.’
‘And what if somebody copied something the same size as bread, and we punish them for it?’
‘I like strawberry cake.’
Basically, my point is that fundamental design, and social networking are being completely ignored.
What the FAC are proposing is plain damn idiotic, and extremely costly.
And unless they’re planning on paying the ISPs to regulate this bullshit, it’d be completely counterproductive to everyone who used/maintained the service.
I mean, honestly… What the fuck?!
It’s all well and good arguing for or against filesharing, but the FAC’s actual proposition is just fucking retarded. :/
I said before, and i’ll say again. It’d require an enormous amount of manpower to regulate such a system based on numerous factors to consider. It isn’t, and will never be, as simple as most people believe it to be.
I respect a group who are (seemingly) ‘fighting’ for their ‘rights’. But at least do some basic research before you propose something that would throw the internet into a state of absolute… God, i can’t even think of a word. It’s just beyond retarded.
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