Music sites and piracy

[Nev]

oh, um, i kind of decided against that piracy thing for the present...

i mean, i know the system needs to be changed, but i just still don't feel all that right about it.

[Kupek]

it's the one thing i really just don't understand about humans from an evolutionary standpoint. i mean, what good does it do us to hear music from a pure biological standpoint? birdsong is pretty and stuff, but it's just so strange.

It probably doesn't benefit us, from an evolutionary prespective. Our ability to listen to and appreciate music is probably a byproduct of needing a well developed system of hearing subtleties in sound. For example, it is certainly in our interest to be able to hear emotion in another person's voice. I think it's likely that whatever capabilities our brain developed to be able to survive were general enough for us to use them for other means.

I think this general idea is true for a lot of things that we are capable of that don't have an obvious evolutionary benefit. Why, for example, do we find little furry creatures cute? All other animals are potential food. Wouldn't it be better if we never had emotional attachment to potential food? But I don't think that we find animals cute because that benefitted us. I think it's a sort of "misfire" that results from finding babies and other humans cute. (It's obviously evolutionarily beneficial for us to find babies and other humans cute.) I think that whatever criteria we have for determining "cute" is general enough that other mammals wind up qualifying.

A good book that touches on some of this is <a href=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... 507846>The Selfish Gene</a> by Richard Dawkins.

[Shellie]

oh, um, i kind of decided against that piracy thing for the present...

i mean, i know the system needs to be changed, but i just still don't feel all that right about it.

AllofMP3.com isnt piracy, sorta.

All the materials in the MediaServices projects are available for distribution through Internet according to license # LS-3М-05-03 of the Russian Multimedia and Internet Society. Under the license terms, MediaServices pays license fees for all the materials subject to the Law of the Russian Federation "On Copyright and Related Rights". All the materials are available solely for personal use and must not be used for further distribution, resale or broadcasting.

It's legal in Russia anyway.

[Nev]

i know, but it's not technically legal here. the riaa doesn't support it. and, as much as i think the recording industry hasn't exactly been the sweetest and most charming bunch over the last few years, i still am not sure i want to take the law into my own hands that way.

[Shellie]

If the RIAA goes after anyone over AllofMP3.com it will be the site owners. And since theyre in Russia..oh well!

The RIAA doesnt KNOW you're buying music from that site.

I think we went over this before anyway, the RIAA and MPAA are going after the uploaders. They're really big on Bittorrent'ers right now.

[Nev]

i'm not really afraid of the riaa so much as i am about violating my own principles, i find that when i do that it's very difficult to come back from. i pirated a lot in college, and i'm not proud of it.

[Shellie]

http://www.museekster.com/allofmp3faq.htm

It's so cheap because of the exchange rate of dollars to rubles.

And the legality of it is a loophole in current copyright laws. See the site for more info.

[Nev]

thing about the difference in copyright law is that in america the songwriter, recording artist, and record label all have to be paid a royalty, while in Russia only the songwriter does, if i remember correctly.

i'm not sure i agree with the principle of not paying the recording artist and record label, so i'm staying away for now. thanks though.

[SineSwiper]

You can buy the music off of AllOfMP3.com, and sent the amount that you paid for the song to the artist directly. They would be getting more money than the RIAA gave them.

The way I see it is that ultimately, the entire music industry really doesn't give a shit about you or cheaper CD prices. Otherwise, they wouldn't be a part of the RIAA, and artists wouldn't bother signing up for the Big 6 (or however small the number is). So fuck em. They are the only ones with the power to change the system, and they aren't doing it. They apparently LIKE getting 50 cents or so per CD. So fuck em. I steal their music and I'm proud of it.

I hate CDs. I like the artwork and all, but overall, I have to deal with a crappy piece of technology that only stores 72 minutes of music, and I have all of these damn CDs that are in various places in the house. Someday, I'll get the rest of them together to rip into my fileserver and probably end up giving them away.

I also hate the music industry's "solution" to this: iTunes. For only 99 cents a song, you too can get the same quality music on a DRM-encoded format. One, it's not even MP3s. (Yeah, I know you can convert them, but that's not the point.) Two, an average album is going to have 12-13 songs. Guess what: 99 cents times 12-13 equal 12-13 dollars. I'm back where I started from and I don't get any artwork either. People don't want MP3s because of the myth of "we only listen to one or two songs on an album". (Jesus, what the fuck shitty artist are you listening to that only puts out one or two good songs on a goddamn album?) People want cheaper music, and they want it on MP3, and they want the fucking artwork in JPEG format or something.

Until then, I'm lazy, I'm cheap, and I'm a pirate. Arrrrrrr!

[Nev]

agreed on almost all counts, but i'm still not sure, and i'm trying to stay on the sunnier side of my own moral gray areas these days.

[Tortolia]

Ironically enough, my iPod lacks the space to store any MP3s I might rip from my CDs. Pretty much all the music on there is downloaded.

Only overlap I can think of offhand would be the Xenogears OST.

[Nev]

It probably doesn't benefit us, from an evolutionary prespective. Our ability to listen to and appreciate music is probably a byproduct of needing a well developed system of hearing subtleties in sound. For example, it is certainly in our interest to be able to hear emotion in another person's voice.

Come to think of it, that's a pretty big part i did overlook.

[Torgo]

Ironically enough, my iPod lacks the space to store any MP3s I might rip from my CDs. Pretty much all the music on there is downloaded.

Only overlap I can think of offhand would be the Xenogears OST.

20 gigs of downloaded music alone? Yarr, matey!

[Shellie]

20 gigs of downloaded music alone? Yarr, matey!

You dont wanna know how much we have.

[Julius Seeker]

I could give a shit about "morals" myself. The only reason we buy music is because of capitalism. Still, it's for the same reason that we live in a capitalist society that I will buy music/movies from those who I want to support, but not from those who I don't care about.

[Torgo]

20 gigs of downloaded music alone? Yarr, matey!

You dont wanna know how much we have.

It was more of an expression of surprise that he has 20 gigs of music, not counting his CD collection. It's just that I have 20 or so gigs of music myself, but that includes songs ripped from CDs. I'm sure there are lots of people who could fill multiple iPods(like yourself, probably). I just didn't actually know anyone who could until now. Maybe it's because I've slowed down on downloading music after I came back home.

[Tortolia]

Four odd years of broadband and downloading game music albums will take up space with relative ease.

[Torgo]

That explains it. I only had two years of broadband. Videogame and film scores make up the vast bulk of my collection. Frank Zappa albums are a distant second.

[Nev]

someone at my office claims to have (i think it was) 400GB of music? all pirated? i could believe it, though i'm not really sure what i think of that.

[SineSwiper]

I think ours is close to 100GB. I really need to back it up, too.

[SineSwiper]

News flash, Napster: We don't want your fucking DRM bullshit! Damn, it was starting to look like a nice service until you read the fine print.

Also, from the AllOfMP3 FAQ Sera listed:

Allofmp3 is paying the songwriters, via the collection agency ROMS, but they are acting without the permission of the other copyright holders.

So, at least they are paying the songwriters. They are probably getting more money per song/CD from them than the RIAA ever does. Furthermore, it is actually legal to download songs from there in the US, and Russian CDs cost three dollars even without the online factor! Wow...$3 legal CDs. Judging from that, you can really see how much the RIAA is ripping you off.