mcHammer is right!
The problem is not the users, it’s the industry!

Provide the music to the people for what it’s worth.. stop thinking about micracle money… artits should not be making that kind of money anyway unless they are amongnst the MOST PROLIFIC ARTIST OF ALL TIMES!

(this will also stop all the stupid empty (30 mins) albums… )

Damn people! They’re all alike..

Another kick in the buts eh MAFIAA?

Thumbs up. But I have to agree MC’s statements won’t do a thing to the industry. They aren’t just come out of their lethargy just because he said what has been being said ad nauseum… Still, nice when the actors voice their opinions contrary to the industry.

The present: Profits from album sales have plummeted. Record companies are suing anyone and everyone they can, including torrent site administrators, ISPs, and even their own customers, in a desperate and vain attempt to retain the old (profitable) system which they alone controlled

The future: Only those directly responsible for the production of music will receive remuneration, including of course artists themselves, sound technicians, producers, etc. They may have to recoup their salaries from concert ticket sales, or sales of other (physical) merchandise that can’t be digitally copied. Whether this is fair or not is no longer the question. It is inevitable.

On the issue of record companies suing ISPs: Nobody would tolerate their post being monitored or intercepted, or their phone being tapped without a warrant and reasonable cause. Why should this be any different online? The only agencies with the power to enforce law are law enforcement agencies with legal instruments (e.g. warrants) licensing them to do so. If ISPs are given the power to monitor and disconnect suspected copyright infringers, this is a major breach of privacy (and human rights) and will only result in the increase of anonymous networks (i.e. VPNs, which has already been seen in Sweden) This will itself probably result in record companies going after VPNs in order to enforce THEM to monitor and disconnect infringers.

I do agree that those genuinely responsible for the production of the music I love should be remunerated in some way – how this will actually work remains to be seen, when the shrapnel and dust caused by record companies firing every legal canon available have settled.

Until that time I’ll continue to download music. If record companies can’t control their rampant greed long enough to come to an acceptable compromise with consumers (and some services which I would be willing to pay for aren’t available in my locality for – guess what – legal reasons) — and if they can’t match or attempt to match services currently provided for free — then they deserve their inevitable fate.

damn, he was considered cool, when I was like 10. guess the old timer has some spunk left in him. :D

On the one hand there are the Lily Allens who believe that tough anti-piracy legislation will increase their profits,

Quoting Lily Allen in this case is the wrong way to go seeing as how she really is not able to make up her mind. Now – using Lars Ulrich as the example is much better.

She agrees that Neogays and Reasonable Maggot are, and I quote, “brainwashed”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCkX0KcNwrI

She who is hot, is always right.

Also, I would totally bang her.

Yes, bands can put out their own albums and record their own music, but they will never do as well with their own music as a record company can.

Record companies have access to the best producers, the best equipment, the best mastering and the best advertising companies in the music world.

I’ve produced a few albums and I know the equipment and the software very well, but I could never do as clean of a job as a professional studio working for a major record label, nor could I advertise it nearly as much.

The problem isn’t with their system, it is now with how they sell their product.

i am thrilled to see that radiohead, my by far favorite group, supports music file sharing. its ironic really that radiohead is one of very few bands i will buy the cd of to support the band.

perhaps if lars ulrich and eminem put out something more orginal and worth hearing they might not feel such a pinch in record sales.

/bearfacesmiling

I’ve got a Luniz CD (best known for the song “I got 5 on it”) made in 1995 that I found years ago which is all scratched up from the previous owner and it still plays fine as well.

It’s the same thing with DVDs. Everyone I know treats their music and movie collection like trash because I’ll always find discs all scratched to hell from abuse in their collection. Blu-Ray is very scratch-resistant due to the disc coating though. That’s something we didn’t have back then.

Granted this is much less of a problem for people that go hardcore digital since there is nothing physical to abuse outside of the hard drive.

I can get perfect, lossless copies with vinyl. You can’t put DRM on analog media. And most importantly, it’s uncompressed and recorded at reasonable loudness as opposed to the atrocious levels on CDs.

Go ahead, try to rip a track from a CD directly to flac and then load it into any audio editor, it’s already compressed from the start.

The whole music industry is screwed up at the moment because alot of em fail to realize how much technology has improved over the past two decades and how inexensive alot of it has gotten.

At least that is according to the logic they used to go after ISPs.

Atleast people are starting to wise up more and more on what they need to do to ACTUALLY battling piracy.

No, but it’s been suggested. The anti-gun people would LOVE to have such a power to use as a club against anyone connected to the manufacture or sale of guns.

You’re “Laughing My Ass Off’ing”? LMAO

He is a posterboy for the fact that you can get rich by being an performing artists, rather then by having a big record company pushing your albums.

(For some reason this is the first time I’ve ever posted a comment, so hi all :))

Good man.

can’t touch this

Actually, I only download what I intend to buy or can no longer buy. Old games that would cost up to $80 from a collector or $2 from a (if your lucky) garage sale.

If I download a game and liked it, I go buy it. Download a movie and I plan to watch it more than once I go buy it…or borrow it from a friend who bought it. Most likely that second one. xD I’m not a big movie watcher.

Let’s punish, sue and throw dead people, children, single parent low income families, pensioners, etc, in to jail.

I mean, lawyers need to earn their living and promote their views and interests in public forums, right SomeTroll/.neo.troll/Reasoned Troll?

Copy-paste this.

Really, if we download something illegaly, it means we will not buy it, right? They really think they will make more money? No, they will lose MILLIONS pushing people in court, which makes them a bad reputation.

It really makes me LMAO’ing that a few people are trying to control the earth.

So MC Hammer endorses suing individuals who engage in unlawful copying and distribution. He does nor endorse suing the ISPs for providing those people with Internet connections. This is hardly a call to stop crackdowns.

Furthermore, with digital music sales (as opposed to CDs), you’re much more likely to get lower quality encodings riddled with DRM. Yes, that “wax album” that “collector’s item” as Hammer puts it, carries more freedom than what you often get with legally obtained digital downloads. You have to be so careful about whom you do business with that most people aren’t going to know what to look out for and won’t care as long as it plays immediately after sale. They only complain after they realize their first-sale rights are mediated, the files might not work across all their devices, and they can’t always get back what files they lost. That’s no bargain.

They have been making car systems with line in ports for a few years, at least. Last time I looked, it was a feature offered on some of the low end models. (~US$150ish)

A few bucks on top of that for a 1/8″ stereo jack male-male cord, and your digital player is in business. :D