Music Pirates are Immoral Cheapskates, Or Are They?
Written by Ernesto on October 21, 2009Millions of people are downloading copyrighted music every day, using file-sharing software such as BitTorrent and LimeWire. Some argue that the music industry has brought on this behavior by refusing to innovate. Others, including the RIAA and some lone researchers beg to differ, and see other reasons for this deviant behavior. So who’s right?
A recently published study by researchers from Duke University and the Department of Justice reveals that music pirates are just immoral cheapskates who have no fear of lawsuits. But do these claims really hold? Let’s take a look at the study and the findings the researchers present.
The researchers surveyed a few hundred undergraduate students who were asked if they would buy the single “Right Round” from rapper Flo Rida for X amount of money. The price tag for the song was based on the last two digits of their social security number, ranging from 0 to 98 cents. The regular 99 cent price was excluded.
The students further had to indicate the likelihood of being faced by a lawsuit from the RIAA and what the expected settlement costs would be. On top of this, they were asked to fill out a morality questionnaire along with questions regarding their download behavior, all anonymously.
With this data in hand the researchers were able to draw some interesting conclusions.
First of all, they found that the students who were said to have pirated their latest track, were willing to pay less for the “Right Round” song. For every $0.01 students were willing to pay more, the likelihood decreased that their last song was pirated by 0.3%.
Even though the researchers claim that this means that pirates are cheapskates, it could also mean that pirates don’t like the song “Right Round” from rapper Flo Rida that much. Perhaps they have different music tastes?
Taste aside, the researchers conclude that dropping the price of a single track to $0.63 would decrease piracy by 50%.
Besides the pricing issue, the study also showed that pirates (compared to non-pirates) think the chance of getting sued by the RIAA is relatively small, and that the settlement fees are lower. The usual conclusion from this data would be that pirates are well informed since their guesses were closer to the real answer, but the researchers twist it somewhat different.
“If the goal of the RIAA was solely to deter piracy, it should not have abandoned its policy of suing the people it caught pirating digital music,” they write, referring to RIAA’s promises to stop mass-lawsuits against copyright infringers.
The latest insight from the study is that those who indicated that they had pirated their latest addition to their music library scored lower on the morality ‘proxy’ scale. However, the researchers note that the mean and modal respondents score very high on morality, which basically means that pirates are more normal (morality wise) than those who pay for music.
To summarize, the study makes it look like pirates are immoral cheapskates, but all it really suggests is that the music industry should lower the price of downloads if they want to sell more music and increase their net profit.
Previously: Copyright Threats Against Compulsive Singer Withdrawn
Next: Court Orders The Pirate Bay To Delete Torrents
155 Responses
“…the researchers conclude that dropping the price of a single track to $0.63 would decrease piracy by 50%.”
Haha, sorry, but I can’t imagine that happening. Even though some pirates aren’t cheapskates, it seems most people who have been exposed to music piracy aren’t going to go back.
pirate bay down?
edit TF: Yes, it will be back when they are sober again.
So, ALL pirates are students?
I KNEW IT ALL ALONG! BAN STUDENTS!
RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
(Guess it´s slow news day again, right?)
LOL lame..
Next thing you know people will start tagging routers to see if people are pirating.
oR all Students are Pirates Yaaaarh
No, but, seriously
THEY like :-
I got something for Nothing
I did something illegal, I might get caught but unlikely(like underage drinking)
I make the excuse it’s all too expensive but I still wish to consume media. If only it was cheaper. Make all albums £2 aand films £3 theyd still do it, it’s the frisson of fear and getting away with it
I actually buy CD’s from the artists that I think deserve it. However I download anything that would just be “nice” to have around for parties or whatever. No, I will never pay for that corporate rapidly produced bullshit though… ever.
If it is actually a great album i will buy it. Even if i dont buy a certain artists album it doesnt stop me from paying 120$ upwards for a concert ticket and merchandise. In the end they still win.
eztv is also down
I am not a pirate but i refuse to buy any music from any corporate band or any corporate label.
i will support indie labels and local stuff.
the riaa and their stooges can go to hell.
Here’s another thing I’ve been thinking – everyone assumes that people who watch or listen to content somehow *owe* the artist(s) and insdustries some money for the ‘privilege’ of paying attention to it. I call BS and that and say that in this day & age – with the literally endless streams of content available to me these industries need to be PAYING US for the privilege of our attention on them rather than on something else. This whole argument of stealing vs. not stealing is a moot point: ANY amount of cash payment extracted from the viewer/listener is stealing from us. Why? Because we’re already paying WITH OUR TIME! That doesn’t fit their business model? Well too bad – get a real job – I have endless amounts of ‘legal’ free entertainment available to me any time I want – if the people who pump out that stuff (free & legal) can figure out how to be successful at it but you can’t well too darn bad for you, I say.
What a stupid research!
I by the cds that I like and downloading the mp3s is just a way to check out the music.
The industry should care for interesting music and not sales!
I beg to question the used methodology to maximum extent possible. What damn university can it be then?
The song’s crap, btw…
What I don’t get is that all these copyright organizations claim they lose all this money yet key actors and musicians make MILLIONS. Which they turn around and piss away most of the time. Then they end up going bankrupt, doing drugs, suicide or a combination of it all.
Id support being more legal if I knew that everyone was making a descent wage. Theres lots of musicians out there if they made 100k a year they would be perfectly fine. Some people just love the music not the money.
…and I fully agree to Carefully Watching! Exactly!
I wouldn’t pay a penny for that song. I wouldn’t pirate it either. It’s not worth my unlimited bandwidth.
millions of people still using file sharing for music download? how stupid of them. google your rapid share today ™!
The biggest criticism of this kind of study is the ridiculous nature of copyright today. NO REASONABLE DISCUSSION can even start until people acknowledge that copyright, as it currently has been legally changed, is no longer in the social interest. No culture, arts, or media created today will be legally available to you without a license in your lifetime. Nothing. The legal framework for copyright has been created and benefits large commercial organizations almost exclusively now.
whats the next study?
if you stand out in the middle of the road in the pouring down thunderstorm would you get wet? lol
the RIAA or who ever think the problem is their not moving with technology or innovation omg how wrong could these people be.
Figure this out
Sony Pay to sponsor the RIAA and MPAA and their all in bed together then they create and brand DIVX players with the SONY brand which plays XviD and DivX MPEG4 movies.
So what legal store online do i use to download media legit in XviD/DivX formats? none not a bloody one exists
so they are making players and selling approved by the FCC/FCE players by the millions when they even know there is no legal way on this earth as of right now to buy the media these players was made to support?????
At the moment the only media available to use the DivX features is pirated movies tv shows etc…
And this proves without a shaddow of a doubt that the industry is and will not use new technology :)
SONY and other company’s should be sued left and right by the media cartels for aiding and abetting in helping to promote and commit conspiracy to de-fraud lol
The survey i want to see asked is “do you guys own a DivX stand alone player or other media to support a format that there is no legal way to get media for the supported format.
and let these idiots ask these questions they’d then understand that people own all this technology with no legal way what so ever to use it.
How did the researchers define morality?
That is a very important point, since being moral doesn’t mean that you do as the law says you should do.
Moral values are what people think is right and wrong and there are no set of moral values that can be imposed on everyone.
Laws are just a compromise on how to act made by people with different values.
fuk. excellent point dude
btw fked up point bout bunker is they have only copper in copper out. no fiber
So clearly, price elasticity of demand is much higher than expected. Hence, larger revenues can be made by reducing price. Makes sense since many people see music as a commodity good.
This just goes to show that these surveys can proove anything that they set out to prove – ie they are bollocks!
99% of music is crap.
selling it at 1 cent wont make me want to buy it. crap is crap regardless of the price.
which is a major problem with the iraa music. some new singles are ok but by the end of the day the song being played so much i am sick of it.
if the music is good then people will pay for.
if the music is good I’ll pay the 99cent per track straight off.
provide it on a label not part of the IFPI/Riaa cronnies.
i wouldn’t pay for anything i could steal and get away with
If I download music illegaly for free, it means I WILL NOT BUY IT. Will those ‘you know what’ understand that?
I download copyrighted music and software everyday and I’m not affraid to say it.
Morality is a very elastic concept. How can it be measured in such studies?
Besides: what those pro-RIAA researchers deem moral, many pirates and non-pirates deem deeply immoral, i.e. helping financing life-ruining lawsuits against little people, buying more and more draconian laws all over the world etc.
But they may be right on one point: if the content creators adapted their prices to more reasonable levels (something around 3 ct/track, of course non-DRMed looks about right), they’d make a LOT of cash. Not because they scared the little consumer-rabbits to buy instead of file-share, but simply because finding stuff could be made faster and more convenient. But no, the current big content guys and gals are just too old, they can’t adapt anymore, and will go the way of the dinosaurs.
When it comes to modern day over produced noise pollution they call music. Then it is a HELL YEAH!!!
I pirate regularly and i also buy regularly off iTunes because it’s cheap, easy and convenient and i have an iPhone. It’s fantastic! I have yet to see something that matches iTunes to the same degree. If the f**king braindead money hungry music industry would just hurry up and catch up to the 21st century this problem wouldn’t be such a big deal for them. Give us a DRM-free, cheap, easy to use music & movie service and bob’s your uncle.
RapidShare sucks. Always when I try to dl something every time it has been deleted.
@27 (DatGuy):
You’re less moral than the most of us, then.
Some pirates do buy what they download. By “admitting” to your “crime” in an effort to gain some moral high ground, you’re only making yourself look like a fool.
THEY’LL FINALLY CATCH UP WHEN DIGITAL MUSIC IS OUT OF DATE AND THERE’S A NEW AND BETTER FORMAT OUT THERE. THEN AND ONLY THEN WILL THEY CATCH UP TO 21st. CENTURY TECHNOLOGY – WHEN IT’S OUT OF DATE.
THE EIRCOM PROXY LINK TO PIRATE BAY ISN’T WORKING EITHER IT SAYS THE “CONNECTION TIMED OUT”.
I still lol at the mentioning of ‘illegally downloading music’. Welcome to the netherlands :)
ok anyone who has read the first few chapters of a high school statistics book would know there are so many problems with this survey
“…the researchers conclude that dropping the price of a single track to $0.63 would decrease piracy by 50%.”
Go ahead! drop he price by $0.63
and let see if we buy it!
WE ARE BOYCOTTING!
DIE PARASITES! DIE!
@27 By Dat guy
“I download copyrighted music and software everyday and I’m not *affraid* to say it.”
Yes, Reasoned Mind.
And I am boycotting every day and I am not afraid to say it.
*Syntax error at “affraid”
I used to Buy albums from the independent artists I liked, I discovered them all from OiNK.
The morning OiNK got busted I vowed no musician would ever see another dime from me. I vow I hold to this day.
They brought this on themselves.
Im not exactly sure what is being proposed.. that the music industry should concede to the demands of those who have been recreation ally ripping them off for years? Im also sure that if we lowered the price of all movies to $1, more people would buy them, but it would not suitably compensate the people behind them.
Anyone who isn’t even willing to pay a mere 99 cents for a song is cheapskate.
It is all about price point, availability, and convenience. Drop the price low enough, make all content available (not just some of it), and make the content easy to find and download.
Do all these things and most people will happily buy.
And if the copyright industry wants lecture about fucking morality, then how about they also give the artists (you know, the people who actually MAKE THE DAMN CONTENT THAT YOUR BUSINESS DEPENDS ON), a much bigger slice of the pie. There is no excuse in this day & age for the middlemen to still be taking such a large portion.
So, first they choose a biased sample – a sample which on average is likely to have a lower income than the the general population; then they sent out some magical QUESTIONNAIRE which is supposed to determine how moral the subject’s are – even though philosophy has yet to fully reveal what it truely means to be moral; and then finally formed invalid conclusions – conclusions that do not logically follow from the premises.
Who the hell conducted this research? They should have their qualifications revoked.
Then again, I suppose I should read the actual paper. For all I know this could just be rhetoric.
It’s because all the students are using PeerBlock and ipfilter.dat loaded into their client which is autoupdated..
If they dropped the price to .49 any currency I would buy lots of music..
why would they use a POS song like that for the survey? ummmmmm, to skew the results of course, and make all students look like pirates or cheapskates. what they should of done was put in the survey takers favorite track they wanted. duh, what dolts the entertainment people are. oh, and sleazebags also. but the real hemmoroid lickers are the riaa people. don’t you just love your pitiful jobs????
It’s just more proof that shows that the music industry would rather label us, then change their ways.
I’ve heard this song and dance too many times and on soooo many levels.
I would feel sick to my stomach if I contributed to record companies after all the bullshit they pull
Face it, by the time an album shows up on a torrent site for download, chances are the artist responsible for creating it, has already made a dump load of money off it. If i formed a band tomorrow, im reasonably sure no one would want to pirate it cause no one would have heard of me!
I havent downloaded an MP3 in years, it all seems a bit shitty to me these days. Ive got lots of MP3’s on my pc…but its all good music i downloaded years ago, ive got no need to download music anymore…
About the only thing i download are TV shows….and thats mainly cause i havent got terestrial TV in my room…just my pc…even if i did have a terestrial connection, chances are im at work when the show i want to watch is on, plus i have to put up with annoying adverts and miss half the show if i need to take a piss…
What does morality have to do with anything? all i want is covienience!
I would quite like to listen to the 1997 Wing Commander soundtrack….but i cant find it anywhere to buy or download *sigh*
It’s funny that this “study” wasn’t yet published in a peer-reviewed journal. It’s labeled as a ‘working paper’ on the guy’s homepage, so much of its content and/or conclusions can be up for debate.
One man’s treasure is another’s trash. Music that is crap to you may be great to someone else. The value of music has gone way way down due to technology. Even .99 for a track ripped at 128 kps is way too much for the best song in the world.
With massive amounts of storage available to the average person we all have ravenous appetites for digital media. At the current prices no one could afford to fill up a terabyte or two drive. Movies and TV shows on discs are way too inconvenient and almost obsolete since they are not available to download legally at reasonable prices we have to resort to downloading.
It is basic supply and demand. The demand for the digital product is huge and the supply is not being met by the copyright holders. The laws are really backwards. Copyright holders ought to be forced to make the media available immediately eg right after a show airs like eztv does and not allowed to hoard it. Original copyright laws were to help protect publishers due to a slow distribution system. They simply don’t work and in today’s world ought to work the other way by forcing immediate and widespread distribution.
Huge awards against an individual down loader are an incredible miscarriage of justice because copyright law was mean’t to apply to commercial infringement and never to individual non-commercial distribution.
Bottom line the study is crap morality or lack there of is perception cannot be be quantified. The premise is all wrong so the conclusion means nothing.
Hey torrentfreak since pirate bay and eztv seem to be up and down like yo-yo’s why not provide a quick link and an on going thread that we can all post the latest?
Fail research indeed. You want someone to pay for a crappy song that an artist stole from someone else? Who’d pay for unoriginal garbage, made by garbage.
In terms of morality, who is worse? Customers that don’t like every pos released and test it out first, or millionaires who milk off artists… Tough question indeed.
The conclusions drawn from this heinously flawed study should come as no surprise.
Social “Sciences” employ cargo cult methods of collecting data in their “research.” This is just an essay paper written by some dweebs who can’t think of any way to contribute to society, so they make believe they are intellectuals.
And who the fuck is “Flo Rida?”
@19 I think Sony makes those players so eb users can “legally” backup purchased media and concert it into the divx/xvid format to play on their hardware. But then again, isn’t it almost impossible to make a legal backup according to the FBI warnings at the beginning of movies nowadays? It seems as if though you are right in the sense that Sony is playing both sides of the fence, but if you were a bigtime corporation and piracy is a common thing, wouldn’t you still try and cash in by making hardware for pirates to play their illicit content on?
Not that the obvious question of why the hell are we getting surveys on this site, comes to question but seriously, we know this type of stuff is flawed, most people don’t care. It’s some class of misfits that thinks they hit a break-through yet proved that they learned nothing. You don’t prove a conclusion with 2 premises that are vague at best. That makes a weak argument, you need atleast 2 strong, detailed premises to even make it worth reading.
ummm….well i`ll just say this: there are many things that i`ve d/l`ed and was so glad that i didn`t pay a dime for them when they ended up in the recycle bin…so why is file sharing bad again?
whats the old saying? “if you can`t give it away for free you sure can`t sell it”
@ 40 .neo.styles|nvDX
“Anyone who isn’t even willing to pay a mere 99 cents for a song is cheapskate.”
Hardly – this is nothing more than recording industry propaganda. First of all, what format are we talking about? Crappy MP3? It’s not worth one cent – how about FLAC at 10 cent a pop? An average CD containing 10 songs should be downloadable for one dollar and every penny should go directly to the artist – not to some criminal cartel who decides how much to keep, or how much we should be fleeced. A technologically outdated physical CD should cost no more than two or three dollars – and I’m being bloody generous, mate.
“the researchers conclude that dropping the price of a single track to $0.63 would decrease piracy by 50%”
that the music companies aren’t doing this is good evidence that they aren’t opposed to piracy on moral grounds, but on monetary grounds…
but I guess we already knew that…
Well, wouldn’t you say that making millions off of a song could be somewhat called a cheapskate? I know that if it were my world, teachers would be paid more than athletes…the world is efffed so eff it back (in more intelligent ways :)
That research could be called a joke. If they asked me if I would pay $5 for the song Last of the Wilds from Nightwish I’d say “no, I’d pay $10 because it’s insanely beautiful” and yes I would (in time: I downloaded it and bought the CD 2 months later AND went to the show, twice). But I wouldn’t even download the song mentioned.
Anyway, asking broken students has another downside. I started buying stuff regularly when I got a regular job that actually paid me enough to survive and do something else than that. Wrong group to ask.
Also, it is obvious there are people that will never buy, just download. But those also buy pirated media on the streets if they can’t find online. But since MAFIAA fails then everybody must pay for their incompetence.
Anyway, your own research tell piracy will fall over 50% if you practice sane prices and yet you still sue. MAFIAA, you FAIL.
By golly Duke sucks… Now expanding their suckage past sports and into statistics.
i love how all music artists are always complaining about how there losing money while making huge salaries every year. I mean really what do they do? Sit around and write songs, tour the world in expensive buses and play concerts for thousands of people who love them, get hundreds of girls who love them and there complaining about some lost money???? Ive gotta bust my balls all day to make a lousy 50 bucks and make barely enough to get by. I’m not gonna pay for there glamor so they can sit around and do jack shit. I’de trade places with them any day
Wouldn’t really call piracy a deviant behavior any longer. It’s more like a norm today.
What about people like me that would NEVER pay to download. Why would I, I can download for free! But I’m no thief, I own over 400 CDs. That’s cuz when I like something, I do buy it, but I don’t wanna pay for a digital download, if I’m paying real money I want something real.. in this case a disc with album art, etc.
I agree that 99% of music is crap, but to get to that 1% that I like requires hours of crappy listening, the music industry should pay me for all the time I spend sifting through their crap.
I have payed my dues, I had a extensive record collection, then CD’s came out and I replaced my record collection with music that I really only liked, (approx half my LP collection), so I have infact paid royalties TWICE, yes TWICE for the same album, and I didn’t even get a thank you card from the Big Labels, so FVCK them, I have payed my dues I’ll download whatever I can, which isn’t much as it’s mostly..CRAP.. I support independent artists… FVCK you RIAA and Big Labels.
I like both buying and pirating music. On the piracy hand, it is my quick fix to get the MUST HAVE song I heard on the radio. Buying is a bit like donating to charity. I do it when I have the money for such things. Buying music, like charity, is usually the last thing on the (long) list of what to do with my money.
That doesn’t mean I’m immoral, if I always had the money, I would always buy, and I always try to pirate as little as possible.
Lowering prices wouldn’t do much for me. It’s under a dollar, get over it.
As for boycotting legit music to avoid financing lawsuits, I am a bit bothered by that, but I also want to support artists. It feels better to pay for music.
This just demonstrates that the value of music as a commodity has indeed dropped. There’s now an essentially infinite and infinitely cheap supply of music available. Like it or not, charging hard media era prices in light of that fact no longer makes sense and it shouldn’t be a surprise to find it yields less money.
There’s also the problem that most “pirates” aren’t going to buy everything they attain for free. See, if it’s free, you have nothing to lose. Crazy idea, I know. Thus a “pirated” copy does not always imply a lost sale, but the MAFIAA knows that: they just don’t care. They want to maintain their dinosaur model of pricing and distribution. They also want to change entire societies, disconnect people from the Internet, and so forth in the process of maintaining that dinosaur model. BOYCOTT ‘EM!
that could be possible but iTunes just increased prices so it wouldnt work out.
Is it not possible that since piracy rates in the student target group are so high, that these test results are biased since it compares the majority i.o.w. norm (pirates) with the extremes of this group (people that are really fanatical about buying music)?
“If people hear it I’m happy. I’m not going to say go and steal my album, but you know I think its great that young people who don’t have a lot of money can listen to music and be exposed to new things.” — Norah Jones
“If you love music you’re going to make it anyway. You’ll find an audience, and you may not make like millions of dollars but you’ll make enough to have a house and a family and a car.” — Nelly Furtado
“I like what’s going on because I feel closer to the fans and the people who appreciate the music. It’s the democratisation of music in a way, and music is a gift. That’s what it should be, a gift.” — Shakira
My issue is how much money actually gets to the artist… I’m more likely to buy a CD from an artist’s website where money goes to the artist than from a record store (online or RL).
I’ve bought several albums just to support bands, and they’re still wrapped in plastic because I’d downloaded the songs.
In the study btw… was there an option for not buying at all because you just don’t like rap.
Anyone who would pay anything for a Flo Rida song probably isn’t smart enough to participate in a survey anyways, no?
“Right Round” from rapper Flo Rida? Really? I would be willing to take $10 as a compensation for wasting 3 or so minutes from my life. Thank you!
As a research scientist it amazes me that you guys spotted the major weakness (only one song compared – they should have used *at least* 3-5 songs and randomly assigned the participants to each one) of this study. This raises the question of just how many participants they had in the study as one very good reason for using only one song was that they had too few students take part. I am surprised that this article made it through review and I recommend you check out the links between the article authors, the publishing journal and the music industry. As much as I don’t want to start you all thinking “conspiracy!” it is widely accepted in health care that dodgy papers funded by the pharmaceutical industry are regularly published (despite major game-changing flaws) merely because they show something “controversial”.
The conclusion that people who buy music are effectively too moral will tickle me for some time to come.
Richest Musicians of 2009
10) Bon Jovi: $50 million
9) Toby Keith: $52 million
8) AC/DC: $60 million
7) Rascal Flatts: $60 million
6) Dave Matthews Band: $65 million
5) Kenny Chesney: $65 million
4) Coldplay: $70 million
3) Bruce Springsteen: $70 million
2) Beyoncé: $87 million
1) Madonna: $110 million
cheapskates my ass ;)
The sense of entitlement shown by those who pirate music, movies and books is astonishing and oh so hypocritical. These same persons would be appalled if someone came to dine at their home, admired a fine piece of furniture or art or jewelery, complimented them on their taste and at the end of the meal walked out with said object/s. It is no different with intellectual property. Someone has worked to create it and they are entitled to be paid for it if someone else wishes to posses it.
http://www.buzzymultimedia.com
I’ve spent over $2000 on music this year (on CDs and LPs, most of what I like is best consumed in album form rather than singles) and you couldn’t get me to download anything by Flo Rida if you paid me.
@74 Troll Williams:
Except your analogy forgets that in a digital world we can make perfect digital copies leaving the home owner with their piece of furniture in tact and still purchasable if they wish to sell it.
Analogy fail.
Oh, and @June: There’s no excuse for this analogy still being used after so many years, every time it gets brought up it causes a flamewar.
Theft, by definition, involves deprivation (and by most definitions, intent to deprive). If I walk into your restaurant, eat a meal and do not pay I have stolen food from you. You had to pay for that food, it has been consumed and you have made a loss.
If I pirate your music, you have not lost anything. You still have the music, you can still sell it to somebody else. “But you would have paid for it if you didn’t download it” you say? No I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t have known you existed.
I’ll throw my two pence in. I pirate a considerable amount of music, however, the music I like and appreciate I buy on VINYL. So instead of purchasing MP3’s at 5op – £3 I purchase the music I like on vinyl at £6 a pop.
Piracy has allowed me to discover two new genres that I love, I don’t distribute the files to other people so in my case piracy has led to me spending money on music which I wouldn’t have discovered.
Did they say how many would download it if they didn’t buy it?
@guacamole I do not accept your premise. Stealing someone’s work is in my opinion even worse than stealing furniture. That sense again of entitlement to something that YOU did not create simply because you currently have an easy way of stealing doesn’t make it right-And I am not a troll. I simply don’t agree with you. I have a small company that produces audio books and I am aware that the number of our books that have been illegally downloaded is more than quintuple those that have been sold. The remarks that I have read from people who have done this are very complimentary about the quality of the work. They love the narrators etc but they aren’t helping to pay those actors fees, or studio fees, editing costs, author advances and royalties, accounting costs etc. Maybe they think the government is paying us to produce them.
@Pharoh Someone has to pay for the food? You bet. Someone has to pay for all of the things I listed above.
In addition if I were to copy your term paper that you worked on and use it without permission is that OK in your worldview? How about is you spent years working on an invention or some biochemical research and someone steals it? The US is in financial distress for many reasons but one that isn’t mentioned very often is the theft of such things by countries like China that have cheap labor to produce these things at a fraction of what it would cost a US company. Whatever edge we once had has quickly eroded and as China is turning out engineers at an amazing rate maybe they won’t have to steal that kind of thing from us much longer.
@Anon Sampling isn’t the same thing as piracy. Seems like you have been sampling not really stealing. We give away the first 3 chapters of any of our books for free. Our reasoning is that a person will probably know if they like it or not after 3 chapters.
$0.10 per track and I can see some change happening.
But anyway, this whole ‘research’ stinks all across the Atlantic. I don’t put much trust in its rightness at all.
Can’t speak my name for the fear of repercussions, but I suppose I qualify as a music prirate, and I have a collection of CD’s and music that towers higher than I am, all paid for, most of it not at discount marts.
My reason for starting to pirate wasn’t price, it was poor availability of what I wanted and poor quality of the available category choices in mainstream (more or less corporate controlled) music ailes.
It is also that after some years of considering what my money went to, that I’ve started to find it repugnant that I’m paying to a cabal of industry fat cats that use the turnover generated from my customer-ship to destroy the lives of others for what I figure is a tiny percentage of potential extra profit.
No, I’m not a commie.
The piratebay is down for me. What about u guys ?
Although the merit of college education has decreased a lot since baby-boomers generation, College students who have above-average intelligence are well aware that paying even a penny for some retarded music, especially ‘flo rida’ is worse than being a cheapstake.
Besides the quality of music, why would you pay for an overpriced plastic disc with less than two tracks on it, when you can expose yourself to such babbles(with a bunch of advertisements and half-naked whores in advertisements) by watching MTV..
Since I got internet I did not purchased a CD anymore.
I will not pay for music, or videos, or anything I can copy. Period.
The will neve get me, I dont even live in the first world.
If I could duplicate hardware, and/or print my own money, I would, and I know that it would collapse the world economy if anybody could duplicate goods. I dont care. I hope for World War 3 and the end of the human race too.
Yarr!
Many people seem to spend to much time worrying whether something is right or wrong, trying to justify what they do. Why bother? We will always do what we want to do, and some people will always be dissatisfied with that. Morality is really based in point of view anyway, so one person’s morality can and will be different from another.
Personally, I would never pay one cent for music. I really don’t enjoy it that much. There are so many more interactive forms of entertainment available. Perhaps the record labels should consider the fact that other media actually exists. That would account for their lost profits.
i’m a proud cheapskate pirate. if i can get it for free, i will. then i can spend my money on more worthwhile things of REAL value that i can’t get for free instead of quick entertainment. i don’t have any conscience about this, the record industry is dead/dying.
don’t deny this shit, i know most of you feel the same way.
Dropping the cost of tracks substantially is one option. The music industry needs to forget its old business models and come up with new ones that people are prepared to accept. Things have changed and the music industry needs to seriously recognise that. Governments should not be backing them with their luddite attitudes. Sadly the UK has fallen, blindly I’d say, on the side of the music industry. It just goes to show out very, very out of touch Government ministers are.
Piracy may be illegal, but the argument that musicians are hurting for money is hard to swallow. Just yesterday, I watched a re-run of Time Warp and saw Hetfield (of Metallica) destroy 2 guitars just for shits-n-giggles. According to him the total value of those guitars: 70000 USD. In his native state of California, that is the average _yearly_ income of a 3-person family. I could not find the data for average income of a college student, but I am certain it is a lot less than 70000 USD.
I don’t want to support the RIAA’s goal of terrorizing students, seniors and the rest of us so I don’t buy anything from them. It only gives them money for their lawsuits.
Anonymous85,
you’re right, but I still worry about the right thing to do because, well, thats the person I am.
Artists should surely get their cut, and my being opposed to cartel fat cats is in concord with that view. Popular piracy is at its heart a question of wide-scale distribution, not of compensation.
I don’t feel my opinion is just an excuse to pirate, though thats how the MAFIAA and their supporters say it is. I’ve hut no-one doing what I do. On the other hand, my actions spread otherwise lost music and cultural impressions to those who, like myself otherwise, would probably not get to experience the tunes of their youth again, with memories gone down the hole and thus more or less lost.
all that argumentation about a stupid-not representative-futile “study”…
people will always have different opinions/values and morals from one another…fact.
this is because of their education,past,experiences,etc…
i am also a “pirate”( brrrr,scary…)but essentially because i think you should ” try before you buy”!!
how many times have i bought games/dvd’s/cd’s to realise too late that apart for one or two songs the rest of the album is s**t,or the film/game is crap.
at the price they sell them at…i can’t afford to do the same mistake too often.I do not get paid enough to make those mistakes.
I understand both sides of this conflict: those who want to get paid for their work ( understandably) and those who can not afford to pay for it,or want to “try before you buy”.
But you know what? some people don’t want you to try it before you buy just because if you don’t like it you won’t buy it…
if you guys are so sure that your product is THAT good,give some samples for free…;)
and one more thing,if something had to be bought from an artist than the artist should leave the big labels and sell their products directly to the consumer on a web-site they would have created and beneficiate of all the revenues ( or most of it).
and they should make it available FAST and CHEAP ( i mean cheaper than the big labels…;))
it wouldn’t stop “piracy” but it would reduce it conciderably and they would make more money out of their work…
that’s my opinion on the subject,but i do admit that i like having everything for free,even though even pirates have to invest money as well to get to their ends…( dvd’s,burners,covers,etc…).But there is one sort of piracy i do not tolerate: it’s piracy for MONEY.
do it for YOURSELF or don’t do it AT ALL!!!!
peace on earth…
The above should have been adressed to Anonymous87, and from Anon83.
@19 GRX
You’re wrong actually. There may currently be no online marketplace selling ‘legal’ versions of copyrighted content to play back on those DiVX players, but that doesn’t stop anybody with a video camera making their own content and encoding it as DiVX to watch back on those players. So Sony aren’t actually making devices aimed at promoting piracy. Just thought I should point it out… but I know where you’re coming from.
Who the hell is FloRida?
a pirated prog/film/game/etc… means a good one!!
keep them coming…;)lol
June K Williams, you are a moron, get a real job.
who this is brand new! look at:
http://api.theghostbay.org/
Digital tracks are nothing more than ‘radio ads’ for live performances. That’s how I see it and how I will always see it. Artists shouldn’t whine about that and just start working for a living. Record some nice tracks, draw people to your shows. And use your world wide exposure: it’s free, what more do you need?!
having a decent collection to enjoy would mean spending thousands ,, who could afford it ,, not me ,, thats for sure ,, i’m lucky if i can keep the bills paid on time
“I am not a pirate but i refuse to buy any music from any corporate band or any corporate label.
i will support indie labels and local stuff.
the riaa and their stooges can go to hell.”
that is EXACTLY what i do, gorehound.
piracy isn’t a crime…it’s just another way of getting what you want for cheap ( or free…;
))
@June K Williams
“That sense again of entitlement to something that YOU did not create simply because you currently have an easy way of stealing doesn’t make it right”
1) I don’t think he feels a sense of entitlement – there is a difference between being entitled to have something and taking a copy of it because you can.
2) To call the technology “simply an easy way of stealing” is to ignore the fact that the widespread acceptance of this technology among humankind means that it is no longer thought of as stealing. Laws are human constructs that should be defined by consensus among humankind … and the current consensus is that its time for change.
GO download the original version of Right Round, or maybe the Gigi D’Agostino version. Flo Rida is not like the new coke, as it won’t be around forever.
I would quite like to listen to the 1997 Wing Commander soundtrack….but i cant find it anywhere to buy or download *sigh*
@47 Learn to search properly. ;)
Anyone feel offended that they’d rather spend $1,000s to label their potential customer-base as cheap? Then turn around and figure out what the absolute maximum they can squeeze from us?
1: I am offended that they waste money on this instead of trying to improve their business model
2: Who is the cheap one really? Us for not paying for shit? Or them for trying to squeeze every. last. penny. out of their once loyal customers?
-Capn
PS. If this survey was anon, how did they question each individual for cost based on their social security number? That’s about as public with information as you can get.
Asking students who dont have income to pay for music. Maybe they should ask homeless ppl next and post the results.
Whatever… i dont know if anyone would pay MAFIAA ever again. They treat fans like criminals and ruin their lives with million dolars fine, they want to ban public singing, they are destroying creativity when they take down some video compilations that have their music in it…
Artists should open some PayPal account or something where you can donate directly to the artist and avoid those criminals.
right round is a horrible song and remixed from the original which was remixed from an older original.
and they wonder why people hate the song? jesus, it’s not even unique by name or otherwise. Flo Rida?
I hope that guy commits suicide for sucking up to the industry.
Making money from art is immoral.
hey June K Williams lets be friends :) seeing as we have agreeing views on copyright and both agree that the pirate mongrels must be stopped.
It all comes down to this: money is a finite resource. Every cent you didn’t spend on music because you downloaded it instead is a cent you’re going to pump into another industry at some point. That’s how the economy works. Especially amoung college students who generally don’t have a lot of disposable income. If it’s not the music industry losing out it’s just going to be another one – games, movies, etc. all eat into the entertainment budget. Music piracy may actually be helping those guys in a way, it’s definitely a driving force in Internet infrastructure improvements.
China steals biochem inventions from USA? How? Not likely!
But let’s talk about US’s organized corporate espionage of European companies, sanctioned by the government and performed by the military and CIA.
Fuck America!
@ #74 Oct 22, 2009 at 09:39 by June K Williams
Only retards and MAFIAA trolls are unable to differentiate between physical theft and making a copy… so which one are you?
Flo Rida? That’s the ‘artist’ they chose for the study? Who in the hell listens to that asshat? He should be paying me to listen to that retarded pile of shit he calls music.
We need to reboot the corporate music scene. Take everyone’s fucking auto-tune away, eliminate rap all together and lets get back to a better time.
prehaps they should have used several different genres, not everyone likes rap. I wouldn’t even download a rap, let alone buy one!
@June K Williams – “I have a small company that produces audio books and I am aware that the number of our books that have been illegally downloaded is more than quintuple those that have been sold.”
So what? All that means is that you’ve got a market of paying recipients and a market of non-paying recipients. The vast majority of non-payers *wouldn’t have paid anyway*. They’re the people who choose to spend their money elsewhere. This is the nature of competition in the marketplace. Why should you be entitled to receive money from people who would never have been in the paying market even if the option to “pirate” wasn’t available to them?
i have not spend a dime on music in 15 years, i guess. for very few songs or pieces i would pay a few cents. i do not want to finance the rich. my work is for me AND a better society, and my salary is a joke. therefor, if i need something, i am more or less forced to pirate it.
@11 : you are right. we pay already with our time and attention, permanently surrounded by advertisement, which is actually some kind of environmental pollution. who pays me, if i stand in the elevator and that crap music goes on my nerves?
and in terms of discussing music quality: i have a music education myself (classical piano), and from that standpoint of view, hardly any successful pop musician can nowadays be called an artist… and even such high-class-artists as the few orchestra-directors (20 or so of real importance in the world) do not make more than 20.000 euro a month. that is serious money, but it is peanuts in comparison to the pop world and the big companies…
simple and sad truth: too many idiots are buying too much trash… it would be better, if more they would pirate and pirate more…
lol its not stealing morons its sharing, and sharing is good!
http://piratesagainstpedos.co.cc
Cite your fucking source TF. Some of us would like to read this study ourselves, to see if either pro or anti piracy side are twisting their words. I have a feeling the study’s conclusions are far more neutral than you suggest.
Download uTorrent 1.8.4 > Preferences > Bittorent > Connection type > Encrypted (Forced)
Have fun! ;]
@Paragon19 We linked to the source in the article.
The study isn’t so much biased, we’re only trying to show that all the results are open to interpretation.
Reasoned Mind:
Thank you for your kind words and offer of friendship. I know you probably mean well but I’m guessing you’re a teenager looking for some female validation.
I’ve read many of your posts and while you make some good points, you don’t seem capable of constructing a sentence [grammatically] to save your life. If you want to be taken seriously by those who read your writing then write like someone who has been educated.
Cordially,
June K. Williams
“I’ve read many of your posts and while you make some good points, you don’t seem capable of constructing a sentence [grammatically] to save your life. If you want to be taken seriously by those who read your writing then write like someone who has been educated.”
Haha, thats the funniest thing I’ve read here in ages.
What a REDICULOUS study. This thing does by no means live up to accademic standard regarding data integrity ans stable sata points.
1) I would not buy the single made by Flo Rida even if it was free, simply because i don’t like rap. Did the researchers even filter this out or take it into account?
2) Since the student had to value the songs themselves, giving a high value to a song indicates they deem it more worthwhile to buy. Isn’t it quite logic that they bought it then?
3) The research seems to suggest that the higher a person values a single given song, the higher their chance is that they will buy a song of their favorite genre. Do i even have to say this is comparing apples and pears?
4) The lawsuits – and specifically their spectacular misses such as suing dead persons – turned both political and general public opinion against both the RIAA and the “Greedy” music industry. On top of that the lawsuits actually costed the RIAA money. Are these researches truely so tunnel visioned that they didn’t take this into account at all? Or what did they think could possibly make up for this?
Open market determines the value of a product. This product is a very restrictive used of a copy of a song, software, etc…
Right now, the market decided that the monetary value of this is zero!
Trying to change that by making a law artificially raising the value of something doesn’t help. This law will simply be ignored.
I would never again buy any cartel content, in fact I go further, I wont ever buy greedy corporate content for friends and family either. Instead, I’ll download everything for myself, family and friends, and work colleagues for free. The copyright cartels don’t realise they have started a war against the internet public, and if history has taught us anything it’s that the people always win these conflicts in the end, whether it be against powerful governments (french monarchy), or nefarious organisations (like microsoft).
Power to the people! Not corrupt self-serving governments or evil corporates trying to dominate us.
Who in bluehell would listen to some hack with a name Flo Rida? This DOOFUS stole the name from the State of Florida albeit he somehow intelligently(Ahem!) added a space.
Crikes how lame and stupid can one get!?
Who in bluehell would listen to some hack with a name Flo Rida? This DOOFUS stole the name from the State of Florida albeit he somehow intelligently(Ahem!) added a space.
Crikes how lame and stupid can one get!?
See, now, this makes a lot of sense to me. I don’t buy music because I very rarely listen to it, so what’s the point of paying 10 or 15 bucks for a CD or the tracks off iTunes? I’m in high school, I don’t have a job, so I get my measly $10 allowance every week. Is that enough to buy music? Not at all. Would dropping the price by a third make me buy all of my music? Probably not, but I’d be much more likely to buy it. I don’t like torrenting, but it’s usually my only option.
@ June
As an artist, I have to disagree with you 100% on the subject of piracy. I feel that piracy is the best way for an artist to gain exposure. I also feel that it would be impossible to stop piracy because it’s so rampant.
I’ll start with a simple question. How does an artist gain popularity in the first place? Chances are, somebody hears the song on the radio or from another source, they tell their friends, and if the artist is good enough for them, they share and share, either by word of mouth, or by torrent. The more you share, the more exposure the artist gains, and the more popular they become.
If you were to take my term paper and share it online, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. Chances are, whoever copied my term paper would get in trouble for cheating, but it’s their fault for copying other people’s work anyway. If I were to develop a product that took me years to make, and I wanted to keep how it’s made a secret, chances are, I wouldn’t release it onto the Internet where the entire world can see it. If its computer software, chances are I would release it for free online anyway so I don’t have to worry about copyright infringement. I actually encourage people to share my artwork with everyone so that I can gain exposure. I release my artwork online and everyone’s free to copy and share it with anyone.
Copyright infringements happen billions, maybe even trillions of times a day. When you share a YouTube video, download an image, or share files without the original owner’s permission, technically you are committing copyright infringement. The only way to completely stop copyright infringement is to completely crack down on the internet in general. Prevent people from ripping FLV files from video sites, ban social networking websites from sharing content they find online (images, music, videos without the original owner’s permission) and take down software that contributes to these actions (YouTube Downloader, Firefox Apps, uTorrent, proxy sites). Doing this will create outrage among the Internet and even then you still have to worry about physical bootlegged material coming from foreign countries as well as the threat of pirates setting up underground operations.
You have to consider the fact that most artists don’t make more than the poverty level off their work and these are the artists that you should support. Those big-name artists already make enough money and push out subpar music anyway. Chances are if you like the artist’s work, you will share it with as many people as you can. You also have to consider the fact that lawsuits and jail time don’t deter piracy, just make it more versatile. Piracy has also existed with the industry for decades. Even before Bittorrent, Limewire, and Napster, people were still sharing music, recording TV shows on their VCRs, and bringing tape recorders to concerts to record live music. And yet, the music/movie industry still manages to survive and big-name execs are still blaming pirates for their lost sales.
You can take away all the big-name artists and pirates in the world, but without exposure, nobody’s going to recognize your work.
I’m hardly surprised by this. Most businesses operate based on the ideals of meeting consumer demand while trying to give their customers greater value at lower cost (aka getting the most bang-for-your-buck). The entertainment industry steadfastly refuses to be reasonable, operating on the opposite ideals of charge more/give less, sue the rest. Suing people for wanting your product is not a very good business model at all. Clearly there is demand, so how do you get the masses to pay? Isn’t it obvious?
I suspect the government sponsored monopoly they’ve had for so long now is whats responsible for their blindness. Either that or they really are crazy greedy. In any case I’m betting they honestly would see greater net profits in the long run by simply reducing their prices. Charge less, make up the difference in bulk.
It’s so sad to see people on both sides lacking faith in this working. There is this completely false belief that you can’t compete with free, despite the fact that AllOfMP3 proved you can. I’ve been a downloader for a long long time and despite that I would happily pay for music and movies if only they were priced more reasonably. Hell, I’d probably buy more than I usually do most months without even realizing it. I’d probably be broke much of the time. I already want to buy an entire genre of albums, free of DRM in a lossless format of course. It’s not a matter of being cheap either. After paying rent, bills, groceries, and other debts, I rarely have much left over for the non-essentials.
Until the industry wises up, I will keep waiting… and downloading. The longer the world has to wait, the less likely it will be for the industry to regain the customers it has lost. If they die, oh well. I’m sure something better will fill the void left behind. Something always does.
BTW about your comment about China… What does that have to do with piracy? So what? The Chinese have more workers that produce things at lower wages. That’s why most developed companies outsource there. However to expand on my previous comment about new inventions…
Let’s take a look at American Capitalism…
Going back in time, when monopolies ran the country, that’s pretty much how business worked. Person A makes a new invention that changes life, everyone copies it.
When Holiday Inn was established, the owner, Kemmons Wilson created a hotel that was above the rest, driving mom & pop motels out of business. When other companies caught wind of Holiday Inn’s success they copied the format. Today we have not only Holiday Inn, but Best Western, Days Inn, Howard Johnson, Ramada, etc.
The same happened with fast food (Mc Donald’s success led to Burger King, Wendy’s Carl’s Jr. /Hardees, Jack in the Box, White Castle, Krystal, Chick-fil-A, etc)
Even Wal-Mart’s success led to Target and Meijer gaining popularity.
Bringing this back to the Internet and filesharing, how many copies of Chuck Norris Facts can you find on the Internet? How about Star Wars Kid parodies and copies? What about Never Gonna Give You Up? The way most viral memes spread is through sharing, whether it happens through a torrent, 4Chan, or YouTube. When you attempt to distribute a meme, you have to rely on word of mouth and sharing in order for it to gain popularity and notoriety. Let’s take an in-depth look at Star Wars Kid, which is the most popular viral video of all time! The video itself was taken and distributed without permission. As a result, the person in the video is pretty much an Internet celebrity. Even though the subject of the video didn’t want to be seen swinging a golf club around like a lightsaber in front of hundreds of millions of people (and he filed a lawsuit to prove it), the guy’s famous! The video has been copied, parodied, and shared hundreds of millions of times.
It just goes to show that sharing = exposure. The more sharing you do, the more exposure you give to the artist, and eventually, the more popular the artist becomes. It also goes to show that if you have a very successful product, people will copy it (or attempt to copy it) in order to capitalize off the original product’s popularity.
oh the irony…
Hollywood was created because some folks back then didn’t want to pay royalties to the existing hardware manufacturers of the time so they setup shop in a remote corner of the USA whereupon they pirated whatever they could and, voila, Hollywood…
I will never again buy a CD without listening to it thoroughly first, so how can I try music before I buy ?, *drum roll*, The internet, I have sampled hundreds of songs and not been driven to buy any of it as it doesn’t appeal to me, in the old days I would have had to purchase those hundreds of songs which means that I would have hundreds of CD’s that would be gathering dust, thank heavens for “try before you buy”.
Three cheers for the Internet and the downfall of a captive, immoral and archaic business model.
im not cheap i spent like $500 on hard drives
I rarely buy DVD’s, the only DVD’s I would consider buying are National Geographic and Shakespeare productions, most of the shite being ushered out of hollywood is regurgitated crap, same theme’s, good guy gets bad guy after a car chase with lots of “boom bang” crap, it’s just bubble gum for the mind, not worth collecting.
All the results of this study would tell us about piracy of one single. How are they extrapolating is beyond my reach? If this result is applicable to other songs then they will have to show that those other songs share high correlation coefficient with this single? I don’t see that is mentioned anywhere.
It’s like they are asking:
Draw the line passing through a given point. And unless you draw that very like which they have drawn you will not get any marks. Don’t they have any mathematics department in Duke Univ.?
“… the music industry should lower the price of downloads if they want to sell more music and increase their net profit.”
Well, duh.
@ 137 Oct 23, 2009 at 09:39 by dont_buy_crap
I rarely buy DVD’s, the only DVD’s I would consider buying are National Geographic and Shakespeare productions, most of the shite being ushered out of hollywood is regurgitated crap, same theme’s, good guy gets bad guy after a car chase with lots of “boom bang” crap, it’s just bubble gum for the mind, not worth collecting.
yeah and Shakespeare has none of the comparable scenarios eh?
you sir are a snob
i could go buy the track “Right Round” from rapper Flo Rida but theres one catch. I don’t wanna. Ide rather get something good : )
With all the new music to discover thats not made by corporate c**nts.
Why would anyone even need the Riaa and the corporate music industry anymore.
There is no need for them.
You can promote yourself on the net and there’s thousands of small record labels to chose from or you can start your own.
And if BRIEN and others don’t manage to the destroy the net, sooner or later there will be websites which literally millions of songs for sale from all different styles. Its already starting – just needs to get really good.
I saw an advert on the tv the other day, advertising some bitches number one debut single. With the Riaa and others out the way, there will be none of that. I hope
Instead it will be look for your own music and get 20 tracks instead of one for the same price.
That’s what I’m looking for and I do need it as well, normally I have to wait a few weeks to get less popular tracks because they don’t spread as quick on p2p.
“Music Pirates are Immoral Cheapskates, Or Are They?”
Well, think about this.. How immoral and stupid is it to pay for music which limits itself on what and which devices it can be played on.
Music, or any digital content for that matter, isn’t worth paying for if you can’t play it on whatever device is available to you at the time. Not all, but most pay-to-down load content has some form of proprietary DRM embedded in it. Which can, and usually does limit how and on what device it will work on.
;)
@143 – You said “Most pay-to-down load content has some form of proprietary DRM embedded in it.”
Actually over the past few years, most major retailers have dropped DRM from their online music stores. Microsoft is a notable exception.
How are we cheapskates, hell i like some of flo rida’s songs like the remix of dead or alives – right round. The only problem is everytime i look at the cd to buy it or download it it cost me a dollar person song 20 songs on there cd 20 bucks hmmm. hmm then i see that its free for downloading on the internet. Next thing is im a poor person i dont have millions of dollars and cant go out and buy every damn cd i want cause i can afford it… and of course if you lower the amount of the songs your gonna get more ppl to buy it… common sense, just cause ppl dont like spending money on things doesn’t mean there cheapskates or immoral. Just means there trying to save money (recession ring a bell for anybody?) and i can make ppl answer questions all day and say they have this kina morality not the kind they actually have. Just cause its a high class college doesn’t mean there lying about the results. heck as far as we know they could be getting paid by the music industry for doing this test.
click those links people
“pirates are immoral cheapskates”
i finally found a place i belong
/weep
The fact that “the researchers surveyed a few hundred undergraduate students” nullified the outcome of the entire survey. Terrible sample.
Microsoft Zune pass = winner
I hate rap. I would never buy any music from Flo rida. What a stupid survey -_-
Could they have picked a worse song to test with? I’d certainly buy the song from Dead or Alive, but I can’t stand thirty second of that damn rap crap.
In my view, internet users who downloaded a lot of copyrighted materials are simply a backup agent.
If I lost a file due corrupted media. I can always refer back to the internet and download them off these lovely users.
I’m Reasoned Mind and I sniff butts.
“surveyed a few hundred undergraduate students”
They might as well go down to the slums and ask what those people think…
or they can start a real survey and not insult us and ask people with master degree’s.
Some artists, such as struggling local musicians, I would never pirate from. I want them to continue to make music, so I support them with my money. But people like Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, or Frank Zappa (all of whom I love) are either dead or are too rich to care. And even though this has nothing to do with music, I am a huge supporter of Bethesda Games. I bought Oblivion and Fallout 3 for the 360 and then bought Oblivion: GOTY for my PC. I pirate a few games, but something, for example, from Bethesda, I would buy.
Movies, on the other hand… Well, I just pirate those all.
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