MP3 levy - here we go again

[Booche]

soooo...let's put this into perspective...you're attacking me for pointing out that putting a levy on all electronic devices is a preposterous notion.

and from your stand point, you don't ever download music from torrent sites, tv shows, dvd's, etc.

am I correct so far?

I have Bob Loblaw's album Monkey Do on my hard drive. I downloaded it without paying for it. Are they still putting out music for us? Are they?

[Davey Boy 2.0]

6 months later? BAM! Herpes!

[Velvet]

For the record I am 100% okay with sharing anything Bob Loblaw has produced.

[Davey Boy 2.0]

CAPITALISM SUCKS

[TheAlphaNerd]

Edited November 27, 2010 by Guest

[TheAlphaNerd]

you just stole something you Hippocrates

[Booche]

Pirate Bay appeal falls on deaf ears.

[YearsAlongTheSea]

still trying to figure out how walking into a store and taking property is the same as recording a stream of zero's and one's.

Still wondering how you got a flat-screen TV under your jacket...

All that aside, even though the TV analogy makes no sense, it's a very good point. There are a lot of albums I owned in my youth in one form or another that I would love to have again and wouldn't see the harm in downloading. As far as new music goes, I don't see the harm in downloading things to "broaden my horizons" as long as I eventually buy these things or support the artist in another way...

[bagochips]

Nigga please!

Ollie, last time I checked you were white.

[bagochips]

I see where you have the exchange of music on a physical medium without the artist, label et al being compensated for it. But there is at least a transfer of ownership whereby the original owner no longer has access to the material. This isn't the same as the owner making the material available in a digital format, retaining ownership and allowing an unknown multiple of people to acquire the material that they would otherwise have to pay for.

I am currently selling my entire CD collection, but I am ripping the whole thing to Itunes first. So I still have access to the material. Does this make me a bad person?

[ollie]

Nigga please!

Ollie, last time I checked you were white.

It's a turn of phrase.

[ollie]

I am currently selling my entire CD collection, but I am ripping the whole thing to Itunes first. So I still have access to the material. Does this make me a bad person?

I don't think anyone here is a bad person and I'm really not trying to lay a guilt trip on anybody, just trying to make people realize their role in getting to the point of this legislation while also touching on the impact of song stealing on other facets of the industry, like record stores, which I assumed we all (non-casual music fans) love.

[bagochips]

It's a turn of phrase.

Yeah and it's a turn of phrase that you as a white person should have the class (and respect) not to use. I'm not dumping on you, but I think that you lower the tone of the discourse (which is already pretty low in much of this thread) when you chose to call people assholes and "niggas." It's seriously weak and I think you are a much better human being than your recent posts demonstrate. There is just no need to get this base.

That's all I'm saying, amigo.

[ollie]

I thought it was obvious I was joking. I like The Alpha Nerd and meant nothing personal.

I forget sometimes that most of the people reading the board don't know me and I shouldn't assume they know I'm horsing around half the time. I did think before posting "nigga please" but figured it was a ubiquitous enough pop culture phrase that I'd get a pass.

One of the things I love most about the skank is these threads that start off serious then once the pissing contest is over veer into the ridiculous.

I also included myself in the asshole comment. In that case I purposefully chose to use strong language to make my point. I assumed everyone in this thread had thick enough skin to take it.

So, yeah, my human decency won't be reflected in everything I post here. I think that would get pretty saccharine anyway.

[bagochips]

Carry on then. Happy Saturday everybody.

[ollie]

Oh come on.

[TheAlphaNerd]

[TheAlphaNerd]

There ya go stealing again!!!

It is a very slippery slope as to what you consider to have monetary value. Just because someone invests time and money into something does not mean that it can so easily be monetized. Once something is introduced into the public domain we get into the grey are that is known as fair use.

The only people who should really pay for media are the people who make money from using the material...

[phishtaper]

hats off to the recording industry for conning the lawmakers into simply assuming that there would never ever be a legitimate use for a cd.

perhaps we should start charging jewelry store window, smash and grab surtaxes on all hammers, because we all know that noone would ever buy a hammer and use it for legal purposes.

im kinda surprised that the cd surcharge hasnt been challenges and thrown out by the courts.

[The Chameleon]

This is more hot air that will result in nothing substantial.

The reality is that they are going after the wrong people for money. The atists, labels etc.. need to go after the I.S.P.'s they are the ones providing the porthole to which everything is downloaded and they certainly know what you are downloading.

In time I believe that you will pay for a music license "package" with your monthly internet service and then you will be able to download whatever you want. Basically music will go they way film has with Netflicks. You make the media affordable (no more that $12 a month) so no one wants to steal it and provide faster downloads and superior quality.

The film industry has learned from the mistakes of the music industry and in the meantime the music industry is trying to put the genie back in the bottle.

[d_rawk]

I'm a little late to this party.

the article says "in the same way a levy is currently applied to blank CDs and cassettes."

is that the case? i know there was a great deal of discussion about taxing CDs, but maybe I was sleeping when it was actually imposed.

Yes, this is the private copying levy. The assumption is that if you buy any blank media (cassettes when people still used cassettes, CDs, DVDs) you are going to record copyrighted material on it. So you pay a levy to the recording industry on any of these purchases, and have for a long time.

If you have a band and want to record onto CD-rs, you pay the recording industry for the right to do so, even if you have no association with them.

If you want to back up your Word documents from your computer, you pay the recording industry for the right to do so.

If you want to take a blank CD and throw it into the ocean, you pay the recording industry for the right to do so.

It has been this way for a very long time. And they fought hard for it.

This is why downloading music in Canada is neither illegal nor (in my estimation) properly unethical. The assumption is that you are copying music without paying for it, so you are charged for it. Given that you were already charged for it before you did it, there are no grounds for prosecuting you for taking something that you already paid for. This is why downloading mp3s in Canada is a very different scenario than downloading mp3s in the US, where there is no such existing levy.

Now, they want to have their cake and eat it too. Keep paying us the money, but get nothing for it. I'm ambivalent on which way it goes, but it simply can't be both, and they fought hard to get it the way that it currently is. Now, maybe they regret it. If I have a son who wants to sit around with his friends and record a fake radio show, he - or I - shouldn't have to pay the recording industry to do so because that media might be used to copy an album. If the recording industry wants to collect full value on commercial studio material, they should repent and remove the media levy and go through the appropriate legal channels to do so.

They didn't want to do that. They said, in essence: "If you buy blank media, you pay us, because you might be a thief. And by paying us up front, you will not be a thief." That is the route they took, in this country at least.

Downloading music in Canada is not a crime. There are all sorts of issues surrounding it (does that money ever make it to the small artists? How do they determine to whom it should go? Does this whole system just reward the big names at the expense of the smaller ones?) but it is not illegal, and the ethics of it are ambiguous at best.

Aren't you going to miss record stores?

FUCK NO. I have no stomach for physical media anymore. I am drowning in books full of CDs, shelves of DVDs, so many books on so many bookshelves that it makes my stomach hurt. NO. I'll always have nostalgia for the record store, but they can go to hell and die already. I simply have no interest in their product anymore - a sheet of plastic that degrades over time, massively overpriced (remember the class action lawsuits of 2004 over CD prices?), is prone to scratches and other damage, and that I have to find room to warehouse.

If they extend the levy, I feel quite comfortable with getting the material that I already paid for - whether I ever even wanted it or not. If they don't extend the levy, I won't do so. But they can only have one or the other.

[bouche]

It's a turn of phrase.

That's all I'm saying, amigo.

All of a sudden "Amigo" is ok to use? Who's making these rules?

[d_rawk]

The reality is that they are going after the wrong people for money. The atists, labels etc.. need to go after the I.S.P.'s they are the ones providing the porthole to which everything is downloaded and they certainly know what you are downloading.

In time I believe that you will pay for a music license "package" with your monthly internet service and then you will be able to download whatever you want. Basically music will go they way film has with Netflicks. You make the media affordable (no more that $12 a month) so no one wants to steal it and provide faster downloads and superior quality.

The film industry has learned from the mistakes of the music industry and in the meantime the music industry is trying to put the genie back in the bottle.

Subscription based music packages make sense, provided by the rights-holders, or a proxy for a conglomerate of them. If an individual actually makes the decision to sign up for them. Requiring ISPs to sniff every packet of every single byte of data that you transfer does not, nor does it make sense that Grandma who has an internet account only so that she can email or Skype with Grandson should be charged for your music habit.

What about common carrier status? Ie. service without discrimination and with impartiality. I can feel how all of this starts to go down the net neutrality road -- but there are larger implications than even that.

[bouche]

I'm going to bet that internet will be available, wirelessly to every electronic device in about 10 years (or earlier) so that you will be able to stream any content that you want. By then, we'll be hit with lots of embedded advertising. There will be ad-free avenues for those that pay.

There won't be any need to have a copy because you'll be able to get it anywhere, anytime, with anything.

[ollie]

There won't be any need to have a copy because you'll be able to get it anywhere, anytime, with anything.

Comcast endures major Internet outage on the East Coast