Money Expert: Industry Should Compete With Music Piracy

enigmax
January 4, 2010
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TuneChecker
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While warning that consumers could get ripped off if they don’t shop around when buying music, an expert on saving money says that if it’s serious about winning over pirates, the music industry must wake up and embrace price competition.

Journalist, TV presenter and Internet entrepreneur Martin Lewis is a pretty popular guy in the UK. Known to millions as the “Money Saving Expert,” he has regular slots on TV and radio where he shares tips on how people can make the most of their cash and fight back against corporate and retail might, by reversing bank charges, getting tax refunds and slashing credit card bills.

His first website, Moneysavingexpert.com, was founded in 2003 for around £100 but has since grown to receive around 7.5 million users each month. Lewis’s new venture, Tunechecker, is designed to help music fans get the best deal from online music stores.

Recent research by the site has revealed some alarming differences in prices for exactly the same products. Downloading all of 2009′s top 40 albums from the cheapest retailers would cost £864 less than if they were all bought from iTunes. That’s a lot of money.

When looking at singles, specifically last week’s number 1 record in the UK, the cheapest retailer offers the track for 29p, while iTunes wants 99p – nearly two and a half times more. The cheapest retailer sells Michael Bublé’s number 1 album at £5, while the iTunes price is £7.99.

Not surprisingly, recent research by TorrentFreak and millions of users worldwide reveals that the biggest savings are to be made on file-sharing networks, where all tracks by all artists, big and small, on any label, in any country, are to be found for free.

These are savings that Lewis can only dream about, but being realistic, most people recognize that the labels, musicians and the companies behind them have to earn a living. Lewis notes, as we did yesterday, twice, that the solution lies with competing with piracy.

“The music industry needs to wake up and embrace price competition. it’s facing annihilation from illegally download tracks, yet there are still remnants of an attitude that price doesn’t make a difference.

“If it promoted cheaper, legit music it’d mean fewer illegal downloads.”

Yet while millions flock to file-sharing networks and the knowledge on how to use them continues to spread, there is still a huge and largely untapped market out there, eager to funnel money through the official channels.

“Since we launched the TuneChecker.com a month ago we’ve had 400,000 users, an indication there’s a real appetite to download music at the lowest price,” concludes Lewis.

We get the feeling it’s is going to be a recurring theme in 2010. Pressurizing ISPs, monitoring Internet users and throwing around meaningless warnings is going to do little to bring customers back to the music industry.

The solution, the only solution, is good product, available now – right now, at a fair price. But that’s not going to happen, not for a long time yet.

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Em

While I agree that artists have to earn a living, I don’t agree with MAFIAA and the media moguls earning a living out of my purchased media.

How about a donation model? If I like the pirated content and wish to support that artist/producer, I just make a donation… since I’ve got the content already. besides, aren’t donations taxless in most parts of the word? So, more for them.
Unauthorized Content Consumer

Yes!!! The media corporations will listen to common sense! *facepalm* xD

Back in my day you buy a record with maybe average 10 songs, a liner/art sleeve, album cover and a record that is playable on any recorder player. The record company couldn’t place any restrictions whatsoever on where you could play it and they could take it back from you no matter what. You bought it, you own and control what you could do with it and you got alot more value for your money back then.

Today the corporations want to charge you $1 for an inferior low quality product in the form of compressed 0′s and 1′s, no liner/art work, no packaging, and with restrictions where they can even disable your purchase. Okay, a dollar is just a dollar, but to most saavy audiophiles out there that recognize real world value…$1 a track is simply not worth it compared to the value we got 10/20/30/40 years ago. By today’s standard for an inferior and flawed product i’d think I’m being generous by my willingness to pay 5 to 10 cents per song.

I seriously can’t see how or why I would be willing to pay more…nor UNLESS I am buying directly from the artist. To me buying a disk or merchandise directlt from them or seeing them live has way more value for me. This is how many value-minded and quality music fans want to spend their money.

We want to support the artists directly, and not the greedy and already superwealthy executives and lawyers that exploit artists and extort from consumers.
YessaMassaWEG

The machine is broken. It spits out ephemera and for some reason keeps slapping on classic price tags.
d[iO]nysus

@2 … and now you know why the Copyright Industry will never compete with piracy. It is precisely the reason that consumers would rather support individual artists directly than a Hollywood Fat Cat why the RIAA and MPAA are so crazed in attacking their own customers. It is their opinion that if they can’t make money off of us, no one should.

Way I see it, folks oughtta just firebomb their local HMV or equivalent.
wit

It’s not about the price, it’s about MAFIAA. I will support an artist, but I ain’t giving no money to a fat-ass middleman. It’s time to get rid of those parasites. Even if they asked 0.09$ a track, they ain’t getting it from me. I will however donate 20-30 bucks to my favorite artist directly to support him.
Dan

Funny how those music industries think that everyone has the $ for everything they download. Sometimes I download, sometimes I buy.
IAmUpForIt

“if it’s serious about winning over pirates, the music industry must wake up and embrace price competition.”

That is the truth that the industry needs to accept. They gotta lower their price point a big whack (and embrace online delivery,) if they want to survive.
RoestVrijStaal

Martin Lewis is right. Music (and video) must be more interesting to buy, if not, people will continue downloading it free on the internet.
The first thing to start, artist must get at least 75% of the revenue of his/her songs and the MAFIAA gets nothing, instead of the situation now: the artist gets 5%-10% revenue and the rest 95%~80% goes to MAFIAA.
Second, music and video in a store must be quicker found than search engines do. I don’t want to spend 2~3 hours in a store to find one music track when I know that I can find and play the track in a couple of minutes on the internet.
Third, the quality of the music @ online stores is very poor. I want lossless music and video FLAC, OGG and OGV files in studio quality, not crappy DRMed 128 kbps bitrate mp3′s or wmv’s.
In other words: the MAFIAA must mutate to a customer- and artist-friendly thing, without ripping off customers and artists, like now.
BustaLinx

“… cheapest retailer offers the track for 29p, while iTunes wants 99p – nearly two and a half times more.”

Should be three and half times.

Edit TF: no, it’s two and a half times more :)
AlienDK

I just don’t understand why you woun’t let them sell their product for the price they want to. If no one buys it, price will drop, simple. If want something, but don’t want to buy it, it does NOT give you the right to break the law. (oh and btw, please don’t say I work for the “maffiaa”, cause I don’t).
Bad MoJo

This argument reminds me of the US post office. When I was a bit younger, every household in the united states (A very large number) Ponied up to buy a book of stamps every so often so that once a month when the bills came due they could write some checks and send them all off. Think of the windfall for the post office every month.
But the Post office kept raising the price of stamps, it got so bad people had to buy 1 cent make up stamps and then they raised it even faster. Finally people figured out to pay the bills online and forget the stamps. The greed at the post office forced this issue and caused billions of revenue to be lost.

Once the cat is out of the bag it is very difficult to get it back in.

The media industry has done the same. They better find a new business model besides buying legislation.
Common Man

‘it does NOT give you the right to break the law’

Rights are not given. They are taken.
Reasoned Mind

“Reduce your price to what the market will bear or we won’t buy” is fair competition.

“Reduce your price or we’ll just take it for free” is extortion based on illegality, and it is viewed as extortion by the rights holders, the creators, the industries, the governments and the regulatory bodies.

Perhaps someday your boss will require you to work at a much lower salary than you reasonably earn using the threat to steal the value of your labor if you refuse to do it for the salary he or she indicates.

Online piracy is under increasing legal threat daily. Extortion on top of it just makes eradication that much more desirable. It compels the nations to work together. Good.
Lillitronic

@Reasoned Mind

We haven’t heard anything from you over Christmas, I hope you aren’t stealing both your boss’s time and Interweb bandwidth posting on torrentfreak now you’re back at work
chevron

“but don’t want to buy it, it does NOT give you the right to break the law.”

Mmmh. Nope.

Everyone has the right to break any law they please (insofar as everyone has a capacity for, and a right to, independent thought and consequent action) as long as they accept the penalties “society” imposes for doing so.

Further, if adherence to a law will require (in the firm and considered belief of the individual) immoral/unethical conduct, individuals are actually morally obliged to ignore the Law, despite threatened penalties.

A subtle but very important difference.

A difference that is especially important when dealing with those who justify, on account of *ideological* beliefs, their distribution of materials that are, in the eyes of the Law, privately owned.
Sketchhead

Not to forget that downloads are usually in some DRM’ed lossy proprietary format. These stores need to adapt FLAC and so does Apple. They’re trying to sell a product from the 90′s in 2010, still charging the full blow. That just doesn’t work.
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greedy

@unReasoned Mind

Are you BoNo or what?

The rich are getting richer. In this day and age, we the poor majority find it expensive even at 99p a track. Times that by a hundred or even thousands… It’s not change we find in the back of the sofa.

The rec label are ripping the artist soff, you should be looking into that, then you’d be able to pay higher wages to your butler, chauffeur, cook, personal trainer, tailor, etc. etc. etc.

Jeez!
nah in bmore

The problem is that even in this economic environment. Everything keeps going up! I abhor living in America mainly because the prices are egregiously inflated. It’s not like everything deserves to be priced superficially, games should not be 60 dollars. That’s 60% of 100 dollars, they used to be reasonable between 30-50 dollars, but now adays they keep rising. I dont buy too many new games now. I see why so many people modded there xboxes in orde to play Call of Duty MW2.

Music, is definitely not worth 14 dollars for the crap that comes out now. The international media market (and even America itself) has shown that people can get buy with charging 5 bucks for a CD. The majority of that money goes to the greedy Labels anyway whom thought control what music will get played anyhow (like I dl’d the Ke$ha album…she cant sing..most of the songs suck..but the Label succedeed in pulsing it into my head)

Now, the labels even want more money from radio stations….it’s getting ridiculous.

ALSO f#@k Apple and it’s iTunes platform…they are evil, I cant use it properly on Windows or at all on Linux…and I dont want lossy 128kbps mp3s. If I want to compress I would use something better as OGG. Just sell me the FLACs or APEs.

These greedy corporations need to understand that people work hard for there money, and dont have time for the unappreciated price gouging.

Look at James Cameron, he doesnt even appreciate his fans paying for his movie (which is a ripoff of Pocahontas anyway, with some stupid 3D that barely worked).

As far, as I am concerned stop producing (rehashed) crap, and stop overpricing just so you can buy a fancy jet.
Stefing

The big labels will screw them in the rear whilst Apple takes the front – artists are way better off without either of them, financially and artisticly.
Bad MoJo

@ Raisin brain
“Extortion on top of it just makes eradication that much more desirable.”

1. extortion

(an exorbitant charge)
2. extortion

(unjust exaction (as by the misuse of authority); “the extortion by dishonest officials of fees for performing their sworn duty”)
3. extortion

(the felonious act of extorting money (as by threats of violence))
———————————–

I guess ones View would be tempered by where the extortion originates.

Your crooked rhetoric may allow you to throw weasel words around but the dictionary wont.

Right.
So there.
ESAD.
William

Like others have alluded, my problem with “legal downloads” from official stores like iTunes and such is that I don’t want to support iTunes. It’s a rip off, not specifically to me but to the artists. I want to support the artists. Not the “content distributor”, which is what is invariably happening.

The artists who allow donations, or sell their music directly through their website (download or not actually) have got it right.

PS: Martin Lewis is a legend in this country!
IIvIIelt0r

whenever i actually DO buy music, i contact the artist through myspace and ask them if i can buy it directly from them. Without a Middleman
Whatever

@14 Lillitronic

Good point. :-)
Darth_Tater

@14 Lillitronic
@24 Whatever

He is back at work, doing what they pay him to do.
Ninja

Total win here. I will buy for $0.29 all right. And that tune checker site is just awesome!

However it is true that it won’t solve the problem artists face with major labels – they won’t get the share they should be getting.

Also, there’s something I wanna share – and maybe I’ve already done it but it’s worth repeating – of an experience from artists in my country. They decided to cut material costs by using hard paper with the art instead of acrylic, using the latter just to protect the disc itself and slash the price. The result is a physical media 50% cheaper and skyrocket sales.

In the end as enigmax pointed, it has been said ad nauseam here in TF and in many other places that the media industry just needs to make stuff available for sane prices and quality content and they have nothing to fear from piracy. File sharing, however, will never decrease in the future – accept it and use it in your benefit.

Also TF, you should look into this http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2010/01/04/nintendo-kills-zelda-fan-film/ as it’s a great example on how the industry slashes on creativity… Lame Nintendo. *adds Nintendo to the never gonna buy again list*
At Resoned Mind

@Reasoned Mind

I’m going to listen to music for free on the Radio.

What you gonna do? Take me to court for listening to music on the Radio? Get the radio to be pay-per-listen?
Boycott

The MAFIAAs are going to bring down the radio soon.

If the radio was invented today, they would be hell bent on stopping it from airing music.

It’s corrupted.
DHT

Dear Torrenfreak,

(ernesto: going to answer this inline)

I have a question about DHT, have been emailing you but got no reply, perhaps in a comment you might be able to help me?

Great article on DHT http://torrentfreak.com/common-bittorrent-dht-myths-091024/ and here is my quesiton:

Are trackerless torrents (torrents that only use DHT and PEX) indexed on ISOhunt or any other indexing sites?

Yes

Are trackerless torrents indexed at all, perhaps on other sites, and how can they be found if they do not have trackers and are not uploaded to a filesharing site? How can they be found purly using DHT?

You can’t find torrents using DHT, it merely replaces trackers as a means of finding peers

If trackerless torrents are not indexed on indexing sites can they be found from within a search in Utorrent or any other p2p client?

They are indexed, just like regular torrents

Does a torrent need to have a tracker and be uploaded to a site in order to be found on the web or on indexing sites?

All torrents have to be uploaded to a site in order to be tracked

Are torrents that use trackers from “an open tracker project” being I) http://openbittorrent.com/ , II) http://publicbt.com/ and III) http://nfo.tracker.ilibr.org:8080/ indexed by indexing sites such as ISOHunt WITHOUT the torrent actually being uploaded to a filesharing site?

No, all torrents have to be uploaded, even torrents with a tracker

I would be delighted to find out what you have to say to these questions.

Kind Regards
Reasoned Mind

@27. The radio has always been pay per listen.
You pay with your time and attention to ads. LOTS and lots of advertisements. Fully legal, reputable, time honored.

The defining feature amongst TF readers is a willful lack of knowledge that underscores a willful disregard of comprehension. “for free on the radio.”
Right.

You can’t make tis stuff up. And I love it that you think I get paid for this. lol I wish I did.
ourto

Its free. I don’t pay anything to the radio. If they have some way of making a revenue(see: adventisments as you said) then good for them, but you still don’t pay anything.

Nice phrasing though. Might fool some people who have an IQ of 10 or below.
Reasoned Mind

“but you still don’t pay anything.”

In lieu of cash, you pay with something far more precious, your time (which is finite) your attention (which is drawn from more productive pursuits) and your memory space, which holds the familiarity of the ad campaign in memory whether you wish it to or not. You pay literally in important and quantifiable ways and that’s why the revenue you generate is important and quantifiable.

And ourto, not incidentally, is precisely the kind of lack of knowledge—and therefore lack of comprehension— to which I referred. I couldn’t have demonstrated this more effectively if ourto had actually tried. Proof positive of that IQ of 10 or below.

lol
You folks are hilarious.
Gareth

@reasoned mind.

Sorry but you are wrong, the advertisers pay for their adverts to be played in the hope that the end user (the listener) will buy their product.

So as far as the end user is concerned, no money changes hands (unless they buy the advertised product). The advertiser pays the radio station, who in turn pays for the music they play through royalties. So listening to the radio is free.

PS. I was skeptical by others comments that your are a shill but as there have been no postings from you all over the holidays this makes me think your are paid to do this rather than just a rabid obsessive.
Recton Kracke

…and skiing is pay per snowflake, life pay per breath, cute. And it works in some weird Sylvia Plath kind of way.

It wont change the fact that folks are lining up like at wal mart on boxing day for FREE internet music.

Its been like that for a decade.

oh and ‘YOU CAN’T STOP US’ just for a laugh.
prodigydancer

Online music stores don’t even offer lossless formats. The true irony is that they sell lossy crap for those insane prices. :-)

This industry needs to die.
Tigger

“…viewed as extortion by the rights holders, the creators, the industries, the governments and the regulatory bodies.”
- Its already been pointed out that refusing to buy music because the cost is too great isnt “technically” extortion, but really it doesnt matter. We are the masses, if they piss enough people off, and people either refuse to buy or just download it from a P2P site, then these people business’s will die! You cant ask millions of people to change purely to save a business, the business has to change to please they’re customers – if they dont, they will go extinct. You could say that all business’s are darwinian – if no one wants to buy your product, or if your product is hideously overprised, you can kiss your business goodbye! If you are unwilling to adapt, there will be plenty of new business’s willing to. The way it should be no? Countries are run for the benefit of the citizens, not for the “fat-cat” business.

“…it does NOT give you the right to break the law”
Laws mean nothing to me. Morality is much more important. The reason i dont commit murder isnt because the government tells me not to….its because its morally wrong to take another humans life. As i touched on above, citizens have the RIGHT to break any law they wish, and if enough people agree with them, then that law is deemed to be of no use and is retracted. Laws have to reflect the mindset of the masses, laws are written for the benefit of the people, NOT to control the people.

If the music industry refuses to adapt, they will inevitably loose this battle. ALOT of people dont believe in the copyright laws, something will give sooner or later, its just a matter of time. Either piracy will continue until the copyright laws are completley meaningless and the industries themselves have died, or the industries will provide an attractive alternative. Its they’re choice =)

Its almost like David and Goliath…and we’re Goliath. They may have the money, but there are so many of us, WE have the power! ;)
(oh, and we wear an eye patch! lol!)
prodigydancer

@10
“it does NOT give you the right to break the law”

Sorry, can’t chat today, dear. Need to d/l and share MORE new lossless tracks. ;-)
MCAA

They know this. But they don’t do this because…….
Pilgrimman

Until the entertainment industry offers lossless, DRM-free music, and 1080p DRM-free video content all for a reasonable (5-10 Cents/track, 3-5$ per movie) price, I refuse to buy any product from the RIAA/MPAA/etc. I don’t want some crappy DRM riddled 128k MP3, I want non-DRM FLAC music that I can archive, burn, compress/convert, whatever. Until such time as the business customizes to the customer and stops screwing the creators, I will not patronize it.
Abbernomad

You are all playing cute here. We all know the score. Stop kidding yourselves. The only market for record companies is the credulous people who simply don’t know about downloading. There’s a lot of misinformed, uneducated people scared by media of downloading. This ‘fear’ market is what is now driving the industry. But this won’t last. People will eventually wise up. (Man, that sounds optomistic.) Here’s why people will not pay for music, (assuming they’re all caught up with the how-to’s of it all.)

5 reasons why the Pirate Bay is better than ITunes:
1. It’s free
2. It’s more widely available
3. It’s instantanious.
4. It’s in multiple formats with no standard, allowing for adaption to better technology.
5. It’s a potential tool for Artists, who can sell directly via websites. Give away the album, and if your band doesn’t suck, I’ll be more willing to purchase (physical) merchandise.

My advice for record companies? Change your format. Become record promoters instead of producers. Promotion is gold to an artist.
lverona

“but being realistic, most people recognize that the labels, musicians and the companies behind them have to earn a living”

I don’t think it should be people’s business to figure how musicians and the companies behind them should earn their living. How come they are not concerned how I am going to earn the money to buy the records and also support a family?

All of this babble is about exploitation in the end. Because what they are doing is essentially saying – guys, the new technology made us, distributors, irrelevant, but we still don’t want to loose our jobs, so let us proclaim downloading files illegal and you, folks, put your minds together and figure out how we, distributors, should make money in this new situation.

Many people, especially in the official circles, are afraid to say the words, but at TF this has been said a million times – distributors and music publishers have become irrelevant – not just to some point, not because they do not “compete with “piracy” “, but simply because THEIR SERVICES ARE NO LONGER NEEDED.

And that’s the truth. The truth they are trying to hide by creating an illusionary link between supporting musicians and downloading music, although it has nothing to do with one another.

Musicians live absolutely fine without music publishers. In fact, most musicians in the world do not make a living by selling records.

All talks about music industry needing to “compete” with piracy are not a progressive talk from known people, but, in fact, just another step backwards from the way things naturally are. No matter how much less you ask me to pay for an mp3 download, nothing can beat getting it for free and without DRM – simply nothing. And if they are saying that the money goes to musicians – as a paying customer I would like to see proof of that and to know how much of my money goes to the artists directly.

And, in conclusion, the most important thing.

The phrase that I’ve quoted from the article in the beginning of my comment contains two assumptions.

First, is that the only possible way for musicians to make a living is to sell records. This is not true.

Another assumption is that our culture benefits from professional musicians, i.e. we need to have musicians who earn a living with their music. This is a very arguable assumption, especially in light of the cultural decline with the dominance of commercial profit oriented music. This assumption, however, is given to us as an undeniable truth.

So… I do not think the industry should compete with “piracy”, as it is wrongly called. I do not think music industry should be supported as a social institution at all.
BustaLinx

@TF

2.5*29 = 72.5
3.5*29 = 101.5

I’d say the second was closer to the truth :P
BustaLinx

Oh, I see now. Apparently I’m grammatically challenged ;)

Carry on, nothing to see here..
Crack Smoker

Even if music was being sold for a penny a track people would still choose the free option.

At least I would.
\\.neo.styles|sSG

Is this the latest bit of naive wisdom from “experts” who have become deluded with today’s new, “information age of piracy” brand of bs? How are you supposed to compete with something that’s free? What about the artists and copyright holders? When did they stop mattering. What used to be a market that enabled people to make a living off their work (as it’s been done for thousannds of years) is now one that exploits artists and then acts like they don’t exist.

This “Money Lewis” guy seems a lot like a character we have over here in the states named Jim Cramer. He’s nut job who will undoubtedly say whatever it takes to make him the center of attention. From what I can see, he’s no more of an expert in money than Howard Stern is in physics.

What kind of a world do we live in where TV personalities preach that theft is okay because it’s just legitimate competition?

Everyone has the right to break any law they please (insofar as everyone has a capacity for, and a right to, independent thought and consequent action) as long as they accept the penalties “society” imposes for doing so.

Nope. If that was true, laws wouldn’t be called laws. They would be called “guidelines.” You have the CHOICE to break the law. The reason is that choices don’t imbue your actions with a justification

Today the corporations want to charge you $1 for an inferior low quality product in the form of compressed 0’s and 1’s, no liner/art work, no packaging, and with restrictions where they can even disable your purchase.

It’s not the medium that matters. It’s what it represents. It is the hard work of an artist (something which, I admit, is like an alien language to pirates.) That’s just like saying “books don’t matter because they are just words.” It’s almost amusing how the concept of a creative work is so confusing to a pirate. The only that comes easily well is exploiting other people.

No one here seems to understand anything about fair compensation. Maybe if one day, they get a job, their boss will hopefully tell them “Don’t be greedy, I’ll pay you for your work If I feel like it.)
gorehound

This corporate industry needs to die.They are the real thieves who have not only been ripping us consumers off but they have also ripped off their artists for money and for large BS contracts that tie them down for years.
I am an artist and have played rock music since 1972.my website is
http://www.bigmeathammer.com and you can download all you want for free.all at 256-320k mp3

I still own a lot of vinyl.I have no use for buying any digital compressed like hell music with all of its krap DRm.Give me a break !!!
whenever i bought physical music i rip it my way or i do not ever buy it.
do not support large labels and artists who sign with RIAA.if you have to have their music buy it used not new.
Anonymous

@45 Enough with your Bullshit. Your full of it and is the master of Bullshit! The MAFIAA is also full of bullshit and anyone who says other wise is the God of all Bullshit!
hdt

You people should just ignore Reasoned Mind. Personally I do not think he is a shill, I believe him to be nothing more than a lowly troll. He only responds to those who’s posts are easy to attack, any well reasoned argument is usually ignored, his absence can be explained by the holidays, this person clearly has a very boring job, just trying to stay entertained and all that. As with any troll, stop feeding it and it will go away. Although, perhaps such easily baitable people deserve a troll or two.
hdt

@\\.neo.styles|sSG

Back in the day, musicians played what were known as ‘concerts’ or ‘shows’. Then along came commercial recording and vinyl records were used as a promotional tool for an artist or band to promote their concert tours. Then along came the corporate machine known as the record labels, who decided it would be more profitable (for the labels) if the primary product was the vinyl record and the concert tours were used as a way to promote the record. Artists went from receiving the majority of the profit of their endeavors to the minority. Artists could easily cover the costs of recording and distributing free music on the internet with the profits of their concerts, if only the labels would whither and die.
JT

“There is still a huge and largely untapped market out there, eager to funnel money through the official channels”
SO GO FOR IT.
chevron

@ Neo (45)

“Everyone has the right[...]”
“Nope. If that was true, laws wouldn’t be called laws. They would be called “guidelines.” You have the CHOICE to break the law. The reason is that choices don’t imbue your actions with a justification”

Inconsistent and imprecise argument there, Neo : a) Laws are a set of rules that attempt to exact specific penalties for specific infringements. They are (in theory!) inflexible. Guidelines have no such penalties, and are by nature flexible. b) You state there we have a choice to obey laws. Correct. But until we’re fitted with a device that thwarts our illegal desires, it is our RIGHT, as autonomous individuals, to make such choices – which includes the right to choose to break the law. c) A choice/decision is the result of a decision-making process. This process contains the justification, not the decision itself. And there are many possible justifications, from the point of view of an individual, for breaking a Law, depending upon circumstance, although the Law itself may not recognise these justifications as valid exceptions.

In short, my point has been quite missed by you, Neo. I was not arguing there is a right to choose to break laws (its self-evident: see above), but that there are circumstances under which individuals may – with a clear conscience – ignore the Law. Let me try again …

Everyone uses their intellect, values and knowledge to decide upon and justify a course of action (ie. freedom of thought leading to consequent actions).

Further, every individual is answerable to both their conscience and the Law. Where there is a conflict, morality dictates that conscience take primacy whilst recognising the possibility that the Law may still exact a penalty on the individual for taking an illegal stance.

And because there is something above the Law (personal conscience) every individual has the right to disregard a law if they believe, but only after careful consideration, that they are conscience-bound to do so.

Therefore it is inaccurate to say that people have “no right” to break the Law. They have every right, but at the same time Society has every right to exact the penalties it sets down for a given infringement.

You cannot argue that something is immoral (here, the theft of alleged property rights) without recognising that there may exist – for whatever reason – individuals who disagree with your assessment and believe the absolute opposite course of action (here, paying exorbitant fees to support middlemen for access to what they believe ought be available for less or nothing) is immoral.

The morality of a choice or obey or disobey is judged by conscience, not laws. And laws are (in theory) made to codify the collective morality of society.

And congratulations if you got to then end of that without dozing off :)
chaos

All that talk about artists and record labels making a living – I don’t give a damn about that.

I don’t listen to music to enable these people (Artists, record industry guys, whoever) to feed themselves or their families, nor to give my money to them. I listen to music because I like the music. And if I (and some other people probably too) don’t have means of purchasing the stuff I like in the way I like, then I have to stick with the way which comes closest to the ideal – which is p2p, filesharing, piracy, call it however you want.

BUT – if I (or respectively other people) like the music, and have an efficient way of purchasing it (legally), then I don’t have a problem with these people getting my money. But as long as they (record industry for example) don’t offer me a way of purchasing it in a form that suits me, then that’s solely their fault.

When it comes to luxury goods (and I would classify music, or any kind of media (games, movies) as such), demand should determine supply, and not vice-versa. And as the record industry failed to provide that supply, filesharing stepped in to fulfill that purpose. It’s as simple as that. But I wouldn’t blame the sharers for that.
Anonymous

dont feed neoreason-mindstyles when he gets bored of no one paying attention to his idiocy then he will go away. reasoned bored…reasoned go home go to sleep…
chaos

Probably you’re right :P
Ad

The Russian mp3 sites have the right idea. Choose your own file type, bitrate, *huge* range and a low price ($0.15 is a reasonable price for a single song IMHO…not [price of album/#songs on an album] like iTunes does).

The music industry *still* has their “our way or the highway” attitude. The free market thinks differently. They should respond or they’ll fade out.
The Voice of Reason

Absolutely agree with Martin that music has to be cheaper. Not only that though it has to be a better quality than what they are selling at present. The film industry is flourishing because it is keeping up to date with technlogy. I download films but i also buy blu ray films to play on my hd tv. The music industry is going backwards. Also they should not be marketing just data. Data on its own isnt a good product. I used to love buying lp’s and even cds because of the interesting artwork that came with it. Most CDs have no artwork atall and its usually just a picture of the artist,their name, and the album name. I also agree with others about refusing to pay all the middle men. This should be a transaction between me and the artist, and at the most a small number of people in production and marketing.
maths

I can see simple people can’t do maths.

“offers the track for 29p, while iTunes wants 99p – nearly two and a half times more”

note `more` (in addition to the original cost)

2.5*29 = 72.5 + 29 = 101.5 -right, well closer
3.5*29 = 101.5 + 29 = 130.5 -wrong

/seriously not difficult
Anonymous

When they are corporate terrorists no discussion is possible.

We have to exterminate the corporate terrorists first.
Anonymous

“You can’t make tis stuff up. And I love it that you think I get paid for this. lol I wish I did.”

yes you are paid for this! Deu!

And stop using others names we know it is you and we even know who you are working for.

Yes you can be anonymous on internet but you have to take certain precautions. All of you guys are sooooo computer illiterate!
guillegr86

Piracy Will Never Be Stopped, so why not use it for your benefit developing a career as an Artist . Websites like The Pirate Bay are the best way to distribute media to the masses.

Music artists should make a living out of concerts and other live presentations and use file sharing systems for promotion.

Why does they need music labels to promote their music when they can build a nice website to offer their music as free downloads and make a profit from live presentations and with advertising on the website.

I’m sure big artist will do fine by their own, fans will follow wherever they go and all the profit will be for them. The cost of web-base business is very low and once is set it work on autopilot.

New artists just need to be creative and take advantage of all the social media (YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Blogs, …)to promote their Name and music and make a fair amount of followers(fans) and start a career. There are free software on the Internet that can be use for music editing and mixing.

http://www.twitter.com/guillegr86
Anonymous

@Reasoned Mind
“The radio has always been pay per listen.
You pay with your time and attention to ads. LOTS and lots of advertisements.”

Cute.

The fact that radio isn’t pay per listen blows a hole in your specious argument, so you need to make up a way that it really is pay per listen after all.

So you claim that the listener pays with their time and attention, which is completely irrelevent given that the point was that listening to the radio is free in the sense it costs no money.

People don’t pay money to listen to the radio. It doesn’t matter what else they pay – time, attention, electrons – because the point is that they don’t pay money.

Radio = free music.

Filesharing = free music.

Contrast and compare.

By the way, I spotted a typo in your next paragraph. So I’m going to fix it for you:

@Reasoned Mind
“My defining feature is a willful lack of knowledge that underscores a willful disregard of comprehension.”

There.

Perfect.

@Reasoned Mind
“And I love it that you think I get paid for this.”

We’ve been over this before. Working for free is against your ethics, so the only logical conclusions is that you do indeed get paid for this. Lying obviously isn’t against your ethics, though, so I’m unsurprised to see you still pretend that you aren’t a paid industry muppet.

As to who you specifically are, you’re likely just a faceless, nameless worker bee at some marketing firm who was assigned the task of spreading MAFIAA propaganda one day when they signed on as a client.

Although I have a small theory that you’re actually the Web Sheriff, John Giacobbi(!). But that’s only because you use a somewhat similar vocubularly and writing style, you’re apparently both from the UK, and I know that obsessive loser with a God complex(wonder if he has a tiny penis? That’d explain a lot) would have nothing better to do than post the same trolling comments on a pro-filesharing site over the span of several years, as you have.

But like I said, small theory. I’m 95% confident you’re just a run of the mill viral marketing drone.

@Reasoned Mind
“What kind of a world do we live in where TV personalities preach that theft is okay because it’s just legitimate competition?”

Considering that filesharing – the process of cloning virtual objects which in no way, shape, or form robs anybody of their property – isn’t theft, the kind of world you speak of is an invention of your own imagintion.

Please forgive the rest of us for instead inhabiting reality.

@Reasoned Mind
“How are you supposed to compete with something that’s free?”

Ask Apple. Wait, silly me. Since you ignore the existence of anything that contradicts your propaganda and regularly exercise a willful lack of knowledge that underscores a willful disregard of comprehension, iTunes is invisible to you. So pointing it out as the definitive example of competing with free won’t help.

@Reasoned Mind
“It’s almost amusing how the concept of a creative work is so confusing to a pirate.”

Rejecting fallacies posed as facts doesn’t constitute a state of confusion, sorry.

@Reasoned Mind
“It’s not the medium that matters. It’s what it represents.”

Exactly. It doesn’t matter that digital files have a production and distribution cost of $0. It’s what they represent that counts, and that’s why it’s okay for the labels to demand out-of-touch prices for them.

Stupid filesharers, why can’t they stop questioning the status quo with all their damn logic and reason?
stillkicking

The media content companies, along with their fellow travelers in the telecommunications field, have consistently fought technological change for decades. In the 60s greedy executives in Capital Records split albums by the Beatles into multiple units for the US market so as to gouge their customers. Beatles 65, Help!, Yesterday And Today never existed in the British market. In the 70s they all jumped on the CD bandwagon even though the recording technology was clearly flawed at the time simply because it meant buyers would have to replace all their now obsolete LPs. The rise of the Internet, along with rapid advances in memory size and miniaturization, made it clear that hard copies of music were soon to disappear. The same companies that now seek to cap bandwidth were the original promoters of rapid downloads of large media content. The business models of all these companies are failures and yet they continue to deny reality and attempt to keep cheating their declining user base. I don’t want to start a flame war but for those seriously interested in why these highly intelligent individuals can be so stupid and greedy I can only point to something I realized a decade ago. Look at the last names of all the top executives in the media companies, along with all the failed financial firms, and see if you notice anything in common. Avarice is not part of one’s DNA. It must be learned from within a culture.
Anonymous

@Reasoned Mind (lols at the person who called him Raisin Brain)

You sound just like one of those guys who complain when someone views their websites with AdBlock on. “My content is being stolen!”

Face it: things are changing. Culture is changing. You can’t stop progress- or the signal.

@neo

Obvious troll is not only obvious, but still up to his old tricks. Yawn. Not worth my time.
yarrr

This is pretty simple.

MOST of my few hundreds CDs and DVDs has been bought ONLY because I’ve seen the movie, TV series or listen to the mp3s from torrent downloads. If I like it – sooner or later I buy it, because I want to support the guys who created this stuff.

Now, special explanation for those “OMG piracy is eeeeviil!!” trolls:

If I got pirated version, there’s high chance I gonna buy original.
Torrents =- $$$ =- artists (ka-chinng!)

If I didn’t saw the movie/music album before, there’s 99% chance I will never ever spend my money for the stuff I don’t know.
No torrents =- 0 null nada =- artists (bzzzt!)

Is this reasonable enough? And no, 30 second movie trailer isnt’t enough for paying for the DVD, or radio hits don’t match the mp3 album.

Dear starving producers sirs and your MAFIAA-protected products – this is my money and I make the decision if you deserve it or not. My cash, my rules, love it or GTFO.
Rboy

Forget who has a right to what. If you can find a way to get what you want in this life take it. No one forces anyone to do anything they don’t want to. An artist or songwriter can change profession anytime they like. I have had many different jobs. Anyone who knows how to get stuff for free go get it.

Life is too short to worry about everyone else. We have been brainwashed for far too long that we should worship copyrights like they are gods. In business the mantra is innovate or die. In the music and printed industry it should be the same.
Michael

I’ve been using a similar site called http://www.comparedownload.com for the past 5 months and have saved a few quid.
lverona

“It’s not the medium that matters. It’s what it represents. It is the hard work of an artist (something which, I admit, is like an alien language to pirates.)”

This is a fallacious argument, although on first sight it sounds so reasonable.

First off, nobody ever judged music or creative work by itself. It is impossible to put a price on. How much does a Beatles song cost? Or a Bach composition? 99 euro cents? More? Why? What if I do not like it?

Second off, if we are admiring hard work of an artist, why shouldn’t we also take into account hard work of an ordinary person, who, getting much less money and absolutely no fame, works 8 hours a day and more to provide the public, along with said artist with food, transportation, a house, appliance and all those other stuff our civilization has to offer? Why should that input matter less? Because an artist is a person who is above us all? Apparently this argument assumes so – artists are benefactors of the public and should be worshipped.

Third, hard work is irrelevant. What matters is the end result. You can spend several months perfecting your song, but if it turns out to be crap – sorry, but you will not deserve any money. This myth of people deserving money for their hard work is absolutely false. People deserve money for good work, not for hard work.

Fourth – please show me a line between artists and “consumers”, as businessmen like to call all other people but themselves. I am a composer, I create albums, I perform in concerts. But it is not my main job. I do not have a deal with a record company. Does it make me less an artist? You might say – perhaps I am not a very good artist because if I were successful I would not have to have a day job. But this is a very poor argument (although assumed by many copyright apologetics). Not all good artists are successful and not all successful artist want to leave their day job. I, for one, do not. I like my day job and although I spend lots and lots of time on music, I do not wish to become a full time musician – it is just not my method of work. Also, not all musicians have to be successful. What about just good normal local musicians?

So all of this is pretty weak stuff in terms of real life. All those pro-copyright arguments always operate some general notions like “hard work of artists” and such, yet having no understanding and dealings with real life processes and lives of real life musicians.
jon7272

um guys .isnt ditital download legal sites being sued for not paying artists. 6billion class action. argue that reason turd. whos the real thieves at least most uploaders dont make money so i say who is worse lol
josh

““Reduce your price or we’ll just take it for free” is extortion based on illegality”

The record studios are extorting the artists themselves by paying them such low royalties. Say the album retails at $20, wholesale cost is say $10. The artist will be really lucky to see $1-$1.50. And divide that between the band members and take away more fees.

There are plenty of ways of getting your music out there as an artist for next to nothing. All you need is talent and a computer.
RoestVrijStaal

@DHT:
Q: Are trackerless torrents indexed at all, perhaps on other sites,
and how can they be found if they do not have trackers and are
not uploaded to a filesharing site? How can they be found purly using DHT?

A: Via DHT you can’t find other torrents. Via DHT You can only find other peers who have the same hash of the torrent running.

Q: If trackerless torrents are not indexed on indexing sites can they be found
from within a search in Utorrent or any other p2p client?

A: Via other p2p-networks like Gnutella, Gnutella2, Edonkey2000, Ares,
(Advanced) DirectConnect and other filesharing networks / methods you can find torrents.
however, it is more uncertain or the torrent is trustworthy,
because there is no verified system like the indexers has.
The risk of downloading a fake torrent or a torrent feeded by the Anti-p2p is much higher than on indexers.

Q: Are torrents that use trackers from “an open tracker project” being I)
openbittorrent.com/ , II) publicbt.com/ and III)
nfo.tracker.ilibr.org:8080/ indexed by indexing sites such as
ISOHunt WITHOUT the torrent actually being uploaded to a filesharing site?

A: No, the on ISOHunt (and most of other indexers) the torrent files are uploaded to the indexer itself.
However, an indexer doesn’t really need that.
An indexer has also the option to use a torrent-file storage like
torrage.com/ or zoink.it/ to store it’s torrents.
So, you have then 3 different units:
1) The tracker for seeking peers, but it isn’t needed thanks to DHT, you can see trackers are more accelators now).
2) The torrent-host to store the torrent, but it makes not public what the name of the torrent is, only it’s hash (used by DHT).
3) The Indexer, who shows what the name of the torrent is, what it contain, which trackers it uses and how many peers running the torrent.
pirateprideWW

Of course they *should* compete in a free market, which means lowering prices and innovating. These dinosaurs wouldn’t even have an online presence if it wasn’t for Apple, and Napster happened in the 90s! Unbelievable. But why do any of that when you can just buy off governments instead, thereby gaining the power to disconnect people from the Internet permanently and otherwise extort money out of them? The MAFIAA has done an assessment and worked out that it’s somehow worth it to piss of the entirety of your potential customer base in order to retain some semblance of the old, failed business model, even as it continues its slow burn and descent to assured and complete obsolescence.

You can call that many things, but don’t pretend it’s competition. It’s corporatism, the co-opting of government to do the ends of an ostensibly “private” company (which, in the case of the MAFIAA, is just a government-sanctioned cartel). We would have a much different environment without this behavior. It’s really not dissimilar to the bailouts that have been going on across the world since the financial meltdown. The MAFIAA is “too big to fail”, and you, the little guy, is expected to prop them up. Screw that! Boycott ‘em and only support independent artists.
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illunatic

Unf! I’m trying to hold up all of these heavy comments above me.

Meanwhile, I am wondering why anyone would expect me to pay for music that make an original copy of with my own resources (computer and internet connection).

It is reasonable, however, to ask that I pay for a service that allows me to see this music and then proceed to build my own copy of it.

Pricing should be based on the service provided; not on the product I build after using it.

Selling me blueprints and telling me it is a house… I still have to build it with MY hard earned 1′s and 0′s! THEY TOOK OUR JOBS!

No thanks.
Mehz

okay i looked up a few tracks and about 3 diffrent retails came up as cheapst am i realli going to bother to sign up to all those retailers….no easyer and faster just to download the album from coda.fm
TheLaughingHitler

@Neo.styles:

Keep whining and whining while your industry dies. I’m laughing. I love to see this and so do most of the public because the recording industry is hated. HATED… by the public. Understand? If the recording industry announced today it was dead NOBODY would give a shit.

Let me spell it out for you: WE DON’T CARE.

So whine on m8. Cry your goddamned eyes right out of your head. NO ONE CARES, WE HATE YOU OK.

Penny dropping yet?
prodigydancer

@45
“How are you supposed to compete with something that’s free?”

/yawn
And who cares? It’s called free market, pal, and life’s hard. If you can’t compete – lie down and die. Nobody’s gonna miss you anyway. :-)
Quality Control

Quality comes into it too. If I’m paying for something I want FLAC. Especially when I can get FLAC for free but can only get shitty mp3s for my hard earned cash.
Cordelia

I don’t care what happens to record companies, or even if artists miss some of their potential income from record sales.

LET THEM PLAY LIVE and make money from tickets. Or sell T-shirts or whatever.

We are at a stage with sharing that there is no way back to how it was. Sharing is here to stay. Some phenomenons can not be stopped.

Unless someone will lock the entire internet down and start seriously spying on internet usage.
johny5

Music sharing has been going on for decades.Remember those dubbing cassette decks? Mp3 sound quality is still not as good as cd. People will find another way to share legally or illegally. The recording industry has screwed over artists and consumers for years.They should be concentrating on lowering prices so that the consumers can afford to purchase their products.The price of cds have not changed for 20 years
johny5

You have to understand,If the recording industry or the movie industry dont have their hands in the cookie jar they will destroy anyone in their path.That includes any digital means of producing,recording,distributing,or playing music or video,Its called the trickle down effect Everybody profits from music execs to radio,to theatres,If you skip any of the above they will come after you.The real people that suffer are the general consumer and the artist.The artists never really get a fair share of the profits.and the consumer gets screwed by everybody.Technology should be used to make better and cheaper products But that will never happen because goverment gets invoved.Its sad
johny5

You know,The real people that profit are music execs,politicians,lawyers.movie execs and copywrite offices. The only way to handle this situation is to make all applications web based and controlled by a central governmet body. Thats a scary thought huh? Theyre taking away our freedom to exchange information no matter what it is. We do not need internet police
Annie Moose

This is such a good point, and I’m glad somebody finally pointed it out to the morons in charge of companies whining about copyright infringement! They keep looking at piracy as some evil crime *first*. They keep on this same boneheaded path to take out piracy by treating it as a *crime* rather than what it really is–competition. They need to quit looking at piracy as crimes and start looking at it as competition, and then they might be able to make some headway here.

I’m not saying that piracy isn’t (or is) a crime, but either way, that’s something for the police and the law to handle. If someone’s stealing something from a company (or otherwise ripping them off), the company turns it over to the police and figures out internally how to work with their new losses. That’s what they need to do here, rather than try to take the law into their own hands. Piracy is competition, not just crime. It will always exist, UNLESS the recording industry can figure out how to stay relevant and competitive in the new market, of which piracy is an important (and permanent) part.
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Aaron1617

Why are people arguing about downloading music??? is it really THAT big of a deal to download a song? seriously? todays record companies are not into making music because the artists want to, its because of the greed that the owners of these companies have. why the heck would someone pay 14-15 bucks for a freaking piece of plastic??????? the money made from selling records doesnt even go to the artists, it goes to the record companies so that the owners of those companies can get richer and richer and continue to exploit the artists of that music. the only real way that an artist makes money is by performing live, and the company’s fat asses STILL take some of that money just because they can. downloading music is not at the loss of the artist, it is at loss of the record companies, which i could care less about. dont even get me started on itunes either. they dont give any money to the artists cuz they “need” it to suport their company. i highly doubt apple needs the money, since they sell millions of ipods a day, not to mention overpriced music to people who either dont want to download because they’ve been taught its “cheating” the artist, or because they think that that music is actually a good deal. i buy music off itunes all the time and i lost it all recently since my computer crashed. unless itunes starts giving us a way to store our downloads online, im not buying from them again. record companies…STOP TRYING TO RIP OFF THE ARTISTS AND LET THEM ACTUALLY MAKE A LIVING OFF RECORDS!!!!
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