FAQs: what did you do, why so much, and what now?
Frequently asked questions.
Q: What did you do with 30 songs that got you nailed?
A: I downloaded them and shared them on Kazaa. They also proved in court (because I admitted it) that I used Limewire, iMesh, Morpheus, Napster, and Audiogalaxy, but it doesn’t matter.
Q: Isn’t that a huge friggin’ number just for that?
A: The RIAA and the Judge in this case succeeded in convincing the jury that the DMCA act of 1999 (http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html) should be applied here. The ranges specified are:
(1) $750-$30,000 per song
(2) $750-$150,000 per song if the infringement was “willful”
The jury decided to go to the lower end of willful and chose $22,500 a song.
Q: So are you challenging this?
A: I think the plan is to appeal to Judge Gertner to adjust the damages. She seemed itching to want to do this for a while. After that we can appeal on the basis that our Fair Use argument was wrongfully dismissed by the court.
Q: If the $675,000 stands?
A: I declare bankruptcy.
<<redacted>>
Q: Why did you share them? Why didn’t you just enjoy them yourself?!
A: Art is meant to be shared. For more info, please read John Perry Barlow’s beautifully written (of The Grateful Dead) expert report, points 3 and 4. (http://beckermanlegal.com/pdf/?file=/Lawyer_Copyright_Internet_Law/sony_tenenbaum_090410ExpertWitnessReportBarlow.pdf)
Q: Come on, don’t you want the artists to be paid?
A: More than anything. They take the time to learn an instrument, spend the money to get the equipment, and then they pour themselves so completely into their expression. The artists are what matter and 2/3 of them don’t see file sharing as a threat. Just read what Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails has said on this.
So….our takeaway here is what? “The RIAA are a bunch of rotten bastards.” (That’s not a question by the way). Please show me the stats regarding 2/3 of artists who don’t see file sharing as a threat. Having been a songwriter for many years, not affiliated in any way with RIAA, (writers have their own bones to pick with labels but that’s for another post) my personal experience has been that at least 90% of artists are disgusted with their songs being ripped off. You want “more than anything” for artists to be paid. That’s a laugh. Your selfish motives are in the trial transcripts. How about the songwriters, studio musicians, programmers, engineers, etc. who make huge contributions but don’t tour and get $0 and no benefit when a song is downloaded. (the top downloaded songs each year are hits from, guess who, the hated major labels. Hypocrisy anyone?
How big a megaphone would Reznor have if Nails hadn’t been broken by a major?
If you have the guts, let me know a neutral place to contact you and I’ll host you and a few friends for a few days in a major music center and you can meet all of the above.
You’ll come away with some facts instead of the crap that bounces around the echo chamber in which you’ve sequestered yourself.
Up for a challenge??
Q: Come on, don’t you want the artists to be paid?
A: More than anything.
I just don’t…. well……y’know…… want to actually have to pay them anything myself.
It’s a freedom of speech thing.
Bob,
Assuming that the RIAA gets the $675,000, exactly HOW MUCH OF THAT will be paid to the artists, writers, musicians, programmers, engineers, etc. that have (so far) gotten $0 from Joel’s downloading? The answer is easy. None of it will be paid to those people. This is a zero sum gain in that Joel will be $675,000 poorer, and the RIAA will be $675,000 richer, and aside from lawyers taking their cut here and there until there isn’t any more, the money will stop there with that transaction. The RIAA and the music companies may be a bit richer, but it is the lawyers that will get most of it, most likely.
The music industry knew that P2P wouldn’t end when Napster was destroyed. They should have know that there was a thirst for content out there, and they should have filled it. They didn’t.
It took Apple to create the iTunes store and charge people less than a dollar a song. Guess what? The service is a success, and there are now others out there competing.
I don’t expect to see an end to P2P. However, I would hope that by spending my dollar or so at iTunes will allow the performers, writers, musicians, programmers, engineers, and everybody else who had creative input into a song will get the compensation that they truly deserve. I don’t know the mechanism of how this happens (I’m not in the recording industry), but I hope this is the case.
I just think you are wrong to be blaming Joel for your situation. He isn’t your problem, he’s just a convenient scapegoat. He’s not the face of the enemy, but a poor schmuck that got caught and was unlucky enough for this to proceed to trial with the defense’s hands tied behind its back. The industry executives at the trial insinuated many times that he was just a scapegoat.
The people driving 75 MPH on the Interstate aren’t willful criminals. They are just normal people who think that, for whatever reason, they need to go faster. Their car is capable of the speed, and the design of the road is sometimes for speeds in excess of the posted limits. If you have never exceeded the speed limit at one time or another, then you, sir, are a true innocent. If so, I cannot relate to you.
To Joel:
As for the “art should be free” rationalization, I don’t agree with that at all, and it sounds to me as if this justification was not on your mind when you started using KaZaA in the first place. You wanted the free lunch. You didn’t care. You got caught by an industry that is willing to sue their own customers.
Personally, if I want a song on my iPod, I will rip it from a CD or, if I want it badly enough, I will download it legally. There are many places I can go for that. If I want to share a song with somebody I know, I will make a copy and give it to him or her. After all, I have lent CDs, VCRs, and DVDs in the past, and I see this as a similar act of kindness. Let them listen to the track, and if they like it, they will get the CD. You will never convince me that this is immoral.
Although I’ve been willing to share a track or so with friends, I have never allowed who-knows-how-many people that I don’t even know to download them. That, to me, is just asking for trouble. That was a decision I made a long, long time ago, around the time that Napster was being destroyed. I’ve never regretted making that decision, and it hasn’t been any burden to me since.
I do feel sorry for you. Nobody wants to be a scapegoat, and from the fine you’ve been given, it’s apparent that they are treating you as if you were a willful pirate that creates bootleg CDs and DVDs to be sold out of the trunk of a car.
I just don’t buy into your rationalizations. You’ve admitted your guilt at your trial. You did get good advice not to perjure yourself. Your defense was hamstrung from the beginning, and perhaps that will allow you to get your fine reduced or the verdict overturned on appeal.
As for what should be done now, I’d leave it to people smarter than me to offer real suggestions.
Larry
[...] the other hand, it seems that Tenenbaum hasn’t learned a thing. This Q&A session for the Joel Fights Back site doesn’t exactly indicate any reflection or repentance. So maybe [...]
I agree that this website doesn’t help Mr. Tenenbaum’s case very much. It simply demonstrates his shallowness.
One other thing: Mr. John Perry Barlow is NOT “of the Grateful Dead”. He co-wrote a few songs that they played on occasion. By that definition, the Dead would include Merle Haggard, Bob Dylan and many others. But unlike Mr. Barlow, those musicians do not need to leech off the Dead’s reputation.
Smug privileged man claims he wants the artists to be compensated “more than anything,” but steals slmost 3000 songs.
Up next, Harvard Professor commits malpractice and law students embarass themselves, leaving them with a blank resume.
To all the people who have written posts thus far,
My understanding is that the record companies pay an advance to artists. This is repaid from the profits of the music. It is repaid at an insanely low rate - ie: less than 7.5% of each CD or track sold - and so many artists do not really ever make money from anything other than touring and the associated merchandise. Could this be the reason why the record companies are now desperate to sign deals that include tour profits as well as the recorded music itself?
The RIAA has spent no money reimbursing the artists from which it was ’stolen’ - check the definition, nothing was ever removed so nothing has actually been stolen. The record labels at one point threatened to sue the RIAA for said monies but that went quiet after initial reports. Perhaps they didn’t like being extorted? Odd, huh.
To Bob the ’songwriter’, perhaps if you wrote some more successful songs you would see a greater return from the industry on your investment. Perhaps you have written some extremely successful songs and have been ripped off? If the former is the case I wish you the best of luck. If the latter is the case then you’re on the wrong side of the argument.
As for the Grateful Dead, they toured all the time - irrespective of who wrote the songs. That’s where the money is for musicians that want to make a career out of it. To call yourself a musician and expect to make a living off one or two CDs would be like being an accountant; expecting to make a career from doing one or two tax billion-dollar returns, collecting ninenty percent of the return and then suing every other accountant that does them for less.
If you want to make a career out of music, get out and do it. Promote yourself. If you’re any good you will make enough from touring small to start touring big. It’s called building up a fan base. Had Trent Reznor launched NIN today he would most likely be just as popular, perhaps a little less rich but that’s the future of music. Not over-valued like a Picasso print vs a print by someone called John. The expectation on poor Trent is that he now needs to launch new artists and promote them with no expectation of profit. I hope he succeeds.
This case was not about Joel being innocent or guilty of filesharing. Only a fool would think so, even before reading Joel’s own testimony. The case was about the abuses of justice, the mob-like tactics and the fear of an industry that failed to innovate in time to keep their profits up. This is an company that spent over 1 million dollars to make $675,000. Even Bear-Sterns wouldn’t have seen that as a good buy.
Like so many other people, Joel has my full support. He did the wrong thing, admitted to it and the RIAA expected to be able to charge him over 22000 times the amount the industry charges anyone else for a song. Not to mention them breaking the law just to get to that point.
I also believe artists should be paid. If I download music from the artists’ website I pay them through the artist website. I miss going to the music store and browsing for new talent but those days are gone. Accept it.
Help Joel fight the cause for a new business model and maybe any artists who have posted above will actually be able to make a living, rather than just a hobby.
” If you’re any good you will make enough from touring small to start touring big.”
Totally untrue, it’s clear you have no experience producing tours. Even a modest tour is well outside the reach of any but trust fund kids and very few purchase a ticket to hear someone they’ve never heard of.
Principled men gather followers by making principled stands. Joel Tenenbaum is the current posterboy for privileged hypocrisy. And “once again the point” wasn’t “missed.”
It’s on top of your head.
“This case was not about Joel being innocent or guilty of filesharing”…
Um, this case was about deterrence, so the rest of us would think twice before uploading music to be shared with 100,000 of our closest friends.
“the RIAA expected to be able to charge him over 22000 times the amount the industry charges anyone else”
Well, how many songs did the guy upload? 3000? So the industry nailed him for about $220 per song, not $22,000. In fact, if each of these songs ended up being downloaded by 220 other people, then we could say that the industry is charging Joel $1.00 for each song that he distributed. That seems fair, doesn’t it?
Maybe the folks who downloaded these songs will find it in their hearts to contribute to Joel’s defense. Nah, that would be too much like paying for music. And we all know how totally unfair that is.
My apologies. The case for the defence was not about Joel being innocent or guilty 0 he admitted to doing it. The case by the plaintiff was. To prove willful infringement they needed to prove he was guilty in the first place. After that it was about setting an example. Just like Metallica did. How are they doing these days by comparison to the pre-Napster whinge.
As for the amount of damages per song, I have no idea what anyone else read, but I read this quote:
“The jury decided to go to the lower end of willful and chose $22,500 a song.”
No, wait. Here’s another that $22,500 factors into a nice even 30 times.
“Q: If the $675,000 stands?
A: I declare bankruptcy.”
Yep, he only got sued for 30 songs.
“Well, how many songs did the guy upload? 3000?”
Probably worth reading the text above the comments next time, rather than just the comments themselves… perhaps even the available documents thus far might be of assistance as to what was being sued for.
Me not having much experience at producing tours? 100% correct. Why? Because unless you have the financial backing to pull off something really big then you’re going to lose money. Unless of course you can shift the loss onto someone else in which case you will make it.
Which leads to making money off touring. Once again correct. Most concert tickets are outside the financial ability of the majority of people, as are the CDs which most artists really only tour to promote. Actually, I’ll rephrase that since most actual artists will tour multiple times between recordings and ‘lyrical interpreters’ tour for each album release. Juliet Lewis (I didn’t even know she was in a band) was interviewing on the radio a year or so ago and didn’t even know that tickets to her show at a local nightclub were $50 each. Suffice it to say she was shocked and launched into a tirade against the promoter/producer.
Pearl Jam took a very public stand against Ticketmaster’s prices for their concert tickets, not too dissimilar to the current generation’s stand against the cost of CDs which has tumbled dramatically over the past 10 years - adjusted for inflation. At the same time bands who most gen-Xers will remember like Duran Duran and Motley Crue are touring because the people who grew up listening to them can now afford the tickets. The former have Justin Timberlake producing songs for them so they can reach the youth market, Madonna signed a deal that covers recordings, touring, merchandise and whatever else they can sell and the record companies are falling over themselves to do more of these deals with other artists. If there was no money in touring why would 50+ yr olds don the spandex (it was an embarrassment to everything they once were) or record companies put good profits into loss-making ventures?
The point is not on top of my head. The point has been in the making since the first printing press was invented around 1440. That’s a few more years of copyright history than the RIAA can claim existence during.
That house you might want to own someday - or maybe already do TheTruthCanHurt - only is because of lawsuits similar to this a long time ago, as with most of the products you can buy.
I highly recommend watching the lecture “The Pirate’s Dilemma”, or anything on copyright published by the Pirate Party (not The Pirate Bay). Once you know the origins of copyright law, and understand the definition of the word principled, hopefully you, and others, will be able to see past this case and see what it’s about and what is actually at stake. It’s not just about music.
In any case, I do actually pay for my music. But with any commodity the price is set by the market. This market just happens to have valued it between zero and two dollars. Tis a fair price. Zero for the crap. Two dollars for the quality.
Yes Joel is guilty of the charges whether he has your sympathy or not. His penalty will surely be seen as a historical news of the weird once we find ourselves in the future.
The computer is a copying machine. That is exactly what it is. All you honest people out there following current laws who use a computer are asking it to copy every single time you use it for any purpose whatsoever. This technological fact has affected all content based industries, such as newspapers, the film industry, the music industry, telecommunications and the mail, for instance. It’s not illegal to email, but it affects the economics of what is now known as snail mail, for instance. An email is a digital copy of some code command by your keyboard interacting with stuff I don’t even understand. When I was young we copied vinyl lps onto magnetic tape (maxell/ memorex) and these were quasi-legal activities that were almost universally socially sanctioned.
Joel’s comment that he wants artists to be paid while admitting to sharing/ receiving songs outside of retail arrangements is not as glib as it may seem. Some artists are claiming they receive more sales when they give away digital copies. See Radiohead, as well as much smaller artists such as Nina Paley, creator of Sita Sings the Blues (http://www.sitasingstheblues.com/) and no, that does not suffice as a complete discussion. I just think that if you want to address the issue of digital copies versus people’s livelihoods, you need to tackle the impact of a technological revolution across industries. Convicting Joel as an example will do nil to reverse this. This is more than crass kids stealing, people- get a grip. As we speak, the survivors are coming up with strategies to monetize content, or experiences with content that will have to benefit from sharing, or survive despite it. The trend seems to be towards strategies of giving to achieve attention (twitter/ youtube fb, etc). Think of it as advertising as free content. Things will change, there will be perhaps even more artistic careers, but we haven’t struck the right deal yet by far. My concern is for artists who had bad deals to begin with, are part of our recognized heritage, and are still alive (or have descendants who could benefit from their heritage). When I buy a used blues lp at a swap meet or download a Robert Johnson song off limewire, where is the justice there. These artists had no chance to negotiate their digital portfolio and typically were dealt peanuts to begin with.
Smoe… I think you’re awesome
There was a study done in America to do with people photocopying &/or scanning documents for uni, work, fun, whatever. Turns out that on average - in that group - the average person breaches copyright law on 50-something occasions each day.
Anyone prepared to give up scanning their documents, textbooks, etc.. because you’re breaching copyright laws?
These law suits will end soon. In fact, they already have. The RIAA announced their change of strategy some months ago. Now they just need to go to court to finish all the lawsuits they couldn’t get tossed out. No more new suits are being lodged.
Great point, “Once again…”. Next week, I’m going to borrow the latest Sophie Kinsella book from the library, scan the whole thing to PDF, and upload it to a file-sharing site.
Fiction wants to be free!
Sal, how much money will it cost you to borrow that book from the library. Do you think that the library’s lending practices harm the author’s sales figures? Do you think that the author would prefer that all of her books be removed from public libraries as a way of increasing her bottom line?
We can take the computer/ copier out of the debate and come up with similar questions.
The Google Books project is trying to do just that and has been fighting with various self-interest groups for a couple of years now. The publishers who didn’t care ten years ago that their copyright expired out are trying to stop Google from publishing said copyright-free works in the public domain. Seems they’re scared of missing out on any future dollars that they previously didn’t care for. I highly recomment people check out Google books for a good read of some less well-known books
People will also find a large number of both PDF-copies and audio books available for download via torrent (or other methods) that cover almost every genre out there. Some authors are using it to release their own material. Others are simply releasing their work chapter by chapter on blogs and collecting donations via PayPal. If the book, music or whatever gets popular enough a producer will pay them for the rights, make a movie which will subsequently also be available for download via bittorrent. It’s not that bad a business model. The artist gets paid for their work and the movie studios lose money by selling over-priced tickets. The recording and movie industry are learning though.
…and everyone always focusses on the musical aspect of this. Could it be that the MPAA actaully had someone on staff whou pointed out the flawed strategy and decided they wouldn’t go that way? Not really. The only two groups of people getting screwed over by the movie industry are the viewers and the writers…ironically without whom there would be no movie industry,
As much as they pretend to despise the torrent sites, newsgroups, etc… they (the RIAA) are slowly discovering that these structures provide free market intelligence of what the growing trends are in music, just by looking over the lists of most popular downloads. They have also been known to seed their own material to guage public interest in it. Cheaper than the previously used focus groups. That’s right. Jar Jar Binks would not have made it into The Phantom Menace if the movie had been torrented now rather than focussed group back then.
I wonder if some of the lawyers that the RIAA no longer needs have moved into publishing.
Incidentally, I am not advocating the use of Bittorrent to download materials illegally. Just stating the facts as they are.
On a side note, there are a number of websites selling music simiarly to iTunes located in Russia, amongst other places. Last report I read indicated that there’s a few hundred million dollars sitting in bank accounts in Russia that have been offered to the RIAA to pay for the copyright use. The RIAA, in all its usual ineptness, has refused to accept any payment from these sites solely because the royalty rate the sites are offering is lower than what the RIAA is demanding.
In simple terms, the people “representing the financial interests of the artists” are doing so by refusing to accept and therefore pass on monies to which the artists are duly entitled. The artists aren’t missing out because of downloading in this instance. They’re missing out because because the “people looking after them” aren’t.
Apparently all of nothing is now of greater value than most of something.
(I will get off my soapbox now and let someone else have a turn)
Bugger. I missed a point that’s worth discussing as well. In the lecture titled “The Pirates Dilemma” the presenter talks about the increasing prevalence of cunsumer level 3D printers - the ‘printers’ that companies like Nike use to make prototypes of their shoes, for example.
In the future, not only will music, movies and books be available for download; if someone downloads the 3D model of a pair of shoes and feeds it into the computer the ‘printer’ is able to make a perfect replica, materials availability notwithstanding. How long will it be before non-complex items like shoes, cups and other simple items will be facing the same issue that the music industry is already facing.
That is why this case is so important to both sides. On the one hand there are the people who set the prices for commodities by paying what they believe is an acceptable cost. On the other side are people who are paid to artificially inflate the price of said commodities. In the stock market this is illegal. Why should music, or any other article, commodity, body of work be exempt from this?
To paraphrase Pete Falvinge (from the Pirate Party in Sweden) “In Stockholm there used to be the biggest company in Sweden. They made and distributed blocks of ice covered in sawdust so that people could keep food chilled and not have it go off. They no longer exist because someone invented something that put them out of business and they refused to innovate. That invention was the fridge”
And yes, the author’s bottom line will be affected if their works are removed from the library. Despite the fact that it costs nothing to borrow a book from the library - unless it incurs fines for being returned late - the libraries still have to pay a licensing fee to have the book on the shelves. As such, even though people borrow the same book 100 times, the publishing company - not necessarily the author - will be paid so that the library will have the right to lend the book out.
Where have all the anti-Joel people gone? Would it be too much to hope that they’re doing research on why their argument is flawed? Maybe the RIAA ran out of money to pay the rent-a-trolls?
My spelling sucks tonight, so don’t even bother pointing it out
“Maybe the RIAA ran out of money to pay the rent-a-trolls?”
Please, show some dignity. I have nothing to do with the RIAA, and am doing this on my own time/dime.
“…the libraries still have to pay a licensing fee to have the book on the shelves.”
Where did this information come from? I’ve worked in libraries, including the acquisitions side, and never heard of licensing fees.
“Sal, how much money will it cost you to borrow that book from the library.”
It will cost me a gallon of gas and an hour of my time. Also, the reason I must wait ’til next week to check the book out is that another patron has it this week; I am on the waiting list. And scanning the book will take another few hours. Happily, once the book is available on a P2P network, the other readers will be spared these inconveniences. Just like all of the people who benefited from Joel’s generosity.
“Do you think that the library’s lending practices harm the author’s sales figures? Do you think that the author would prefer that all of her books be removed from public libraries as a way of increasing her bottom line?”
Probably not, because only one patron can check out a book at a time. A single library copy would only deplete 26 sales each year, at the very most. But once the novel is on P2P, we’ll really be able to stick it to the man!
Sal, I wasn’t referring to you in the rent-a-troll comment. It was directed at people who seem to have gone quiet above. Apologies if you took it that way.
However, the fees that the libraries pay, in my part of the world, are fixed in the original price of the books. Libraries pay a higher amount to purchase their books than they would as a retail customer walking in off the street to a bookshop and part of this intial price is a licensing fee to the publisher to account for those 26-odd lost sales per year. This is a model that actually works because the publishers did seem at some point to work out that someone who is going to borrow a book from the library does not count as a lost sale since they probably wouldn’t have bought it anyway. If they like the author after they borrow one book then they may even buy subsequent books, resulting in increased non-forecast sales for the publisher. Depending on how successful the book is the author may have even paid back their advance at that point so they might make additional profit too.
As for the cost of gas and time, the latter will reduce with the book available for download, illegally or otherwise and the cost of the gas would be replaced by the cost of electricity used by your computer - albeit at a much lower cost than currently depending on the computer you’re using. If you did happen to live in my part of the world, where signing up to the wrong internet plan can leave you with a bill of $148,000 for a month**, the internet cost would be introduced as well. Once again, most likely at a lower rate than the gas and time..but it’s still a cost.
**It’s an extreme example but I come across a customer’s monthly bill to that amount. Whatever the RIAA wants to charge for that customer’s downloads they will probably have to get it from the telco.
Unfortunately for book lovers, all the current majors in the e-Bookshop trade seem to think that DRM and tying their product of books to another of their products indicates that they have learned little from the music industry. Reading a novel on a electronic reader may not be the most popular and so not affecting the sales of novels much, but technical books and manuals can be found in much higher quantities on the internet than in the library. Whoever is publishing these books is going to be taking a loss…and good on the downloaders of these too. Perhaps the publishing industry will make some subtle changes without suffering the embarassments that are the RIAA and MPAA. Why should a textbook be $200 when the initial investment on producing it is nowhere near the multimillion dollar advances that get paid to once-popular authors to keep producing the same story in a different context?
Works of art - music, books, movies, paintings, etc - need to meet (in a very simplistic manner) the supply and demand curve, not simply be free.
Information itself is already free. Structured ideas are not simple information but they do need to conform to market expectations rather than operating in some sort of fantasy bubble.
Bringing this thread back to the issues Joel faces:
Joel,
You are yet another in the long line of people that have stood up against the abuse of copyright that publishers of all works have been perpetuating since its inception. I do hope you can take this to appeal and pay the market price for the songs you downloaded - $30, slightly higher if you want them DRM free (using Apple’s model).
If the RIAA want to recover costs from the people that downloaded them from you then they should have to find the people themselves and not try to force it out of you. Come to think of it, on appeal I would suggest that you request only the songs fully downloaded from you be charged at the full rate of $1.00-$1.69. Any song that was only partially downloaded should be charged at the proportional rate at which Mediasentry or their employees, contractors, experts or otherwise got that percentage of the song from you. Someone else can stump up for the other half, including the metadata
Sal,
I agree that you’ll have to expend some personal energy and resources to go to your public library but you’ll have to admit that unless you are borrowing someone else’s computer, and don’t have to expend the same sort of resources as going to your library, that is, your friend has brought their computer to you, and paid for all related internet services, you will have to pay up to get on the playing field. My computer for instance cost $800 and I had a keyboard and mouse and monitor I had acquired earlier. My internet costs roughly $60 per month. Neither these fees or your gallon of gas go to any artist so why are we even discussing this?
You are not really engaging the model that I proposed of the Free Library system. Authors do not just have their book placed in one library and then it is a hassle to read it so who really cares. I really don’t buy that that represents how an author would view the situation. My guess is that nearly 100% of book authors wish that their works are available in as many free libraries as possible and would gladly donate whatever they could spare if and only if the library wouldn’t otherwise buy it, the thinking being that the more people read their works, the more they will be considered as writers to turn to and the higher the sales will be of their books. More readers = more cache. Now I wouldn’t argue that all authors want their books scanned onto P2P networks. I don’t think anyone has come up with the right deal yet. Choking off free content on the internet will not raise sales nor will whatever you are satirizing as ’sticking it to the man’. I’m sure itunes is doing well. Micro-payments are largely responsible for financing Obama’s campaign. This was very successful for him.
I bring up library lending as a free sharing service that is an accepted part of our social contract. Is there any real dissent on that? I agree Sal that the internet is a different scale than the free library system and that this must be considered as we construct new agreements. I don’t think we’re there yet but I am confident as I said before that even more artistic careers will be sustained and attainable through this technological revolution.
Smoe: I agree with you 100% about libraries and micropayments. Very well stated.
In my facetious example of putting books on a P2P network, I only mentioned libraries in passing; I wasn’t trying to address the library model. I think the Kindle and I-tunes are using valid models for distributing books and music, and many libraries have downloadable, time-limited audio books. But all these models are defeated by P2P users who try to justify their freeloading by claiming to represent the cultural vanguard.
“The dispute over ownership of the copy led to the Battle of Cúl Dreimhne (also known as the Battle of Cooldrumman), in which 3,000 men were killed”
I’d love to see a replication of this over current copyright infringement, if only to see the internets come out of the basement - stereotyping intended.
I stopped buying Metallica CDs when their music started to SUCK.
Load was crap… and the last metaliica CD I ever bought. They got even worse after that. Which had Nothing to do with file sharing.
The music industry has been asking too much money for their wares, anywhere
from 15 to 20$ for a new cd. Yet you can get an entire movie DVD for even less,
which has over 2hrs of content - both Video, and high quality Audio!
AND the music industry has been reducing the Quality of the recordings, by
using digital compression. Making the music you pay for sound like utter Trash.
(Its bad enough that they promote talentless crap that isnt worth buying to begin
with!)
They can sue the pants off of everyone.. and it will NEVER change the facts.
The olden days of huge money for Music is Over with.
No matter what methods they use to find pirates.. sooner or later, the pirates
will find methods that are nearly unbeatable. Making it even harder and more
costly to try to stop… (and less reliable too).
Raising the cost of internet fees will only stifle the process of innovation and
cost of doing business. People wont stand for it. Its too darn expensive as it
stands.
They will have to Face the Music… and Lower their prices. Up the quality. And
start innovating. Such as DVD music discs that are less prone to scratches,
under $10 a disc… with higher quality sound… and options for surround sound
modes. Additional content able to be viewed and played on pc.
Lower prices & Innovate… or you will fade away forever.
P2P file-sharing is not stealing it’s copying, they are different things, Most young people don’t connect paying for music with paying the artists. They mostly connect(and correctly so) paying for music with paying the faceless, emotionless, ridiculously wealthy Record labels. what percentage of a CD or I-tunes sale actually make it to the artist? The second part of the problem is a disagreement over the “value” of music. “How can it be worth 16 bucks when one mouse click and it’s mine?” The record labels seem to be incapable of comprehending that their product just isn’t worth what it used to be, “it’s always been $16 how could it possibly be worth less”. This is especially hard to fathom when you understand that the costs associated with recording music have plummeted, dropped right through the floor. They are probably less than one tenth of what they were when the record labels were born. Music prices however have remained static presenting the record labels an ever increasing profit margin, for some reason they expected this to continue forever, they believe it is their right to collect your money, to them collecting your money is akin to the sun rising in the morning, it’s always happened before how could it change? The music industry has always been able to control the supply, however in the digital age supply is made of ones and zeroes and is effectively infinite this is the conundrum that the RIAA and it’s ilk cannot survive, at least not without suing customers and lobbying greedy politicians into forcing you, the customer to follow their geriatric business model. Vote with your wallet, don’t buy music from big labels.
I wrote this on Torrenfreak:
68 Aug 10, 2009 at 22:27 by Bobe-On
To me, art and industry/money is a kind of contradiction.
I suspect that if you take the industry/money out of the art– and out of many other things, for that matter– you’ll have better, purer, healthier forms, and cultures.
I think that if the blight of industry were to die overnight, art would truly bloom and flourish.
Industry, like as it has done with agriculture (our food, our world!), seems to disease everything:
“Sustainable agriculture takes many forms, but at its core is a rejection of the industrial approach to food production developed during the 20th century.”
–http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/habitats/sustainable-agriculture
Here’s another repost:
“Stop treating the scarce as if it were non-scarce, but also stop treating the non-scarce as if it were scarce… Knowledge, unlike throughput, is not divided in the sharing, but multiplied. Once knowledge exists, the opportunity cost of sharing it is zero and its allocative price should be zero… Sharing knowledge costs little, does not create un-repayable debts, and it increases the productivity of the truly rival and scarce factors of production. Existing knowledge is the most important input to the production of new knowledge, and keeping it artificially scarce and expensive is perverse. Patent monopolies (aka ‘intellectual property rights’) should be given for fewer ‘inventions’, and for fewer years. Costs of production of new knowledge should, more and more, be publicly financed and then the knowledge freely shared.
The following is a link to the full text of his speech From a Failed Growth Economy to a Steady-State Economy. It is brimming with scientific and pragmatic insights that extend well beyond open source.”
–http://opensource.org/node/441
See also ‘Steady State Economics’ and ‘Money As Debt’. Cool stuff. (Bankruptcy indeed.)
The bottom line is that the amount is disproportionate, irrespective of what pre-established fines are.
It saddens me to see that the the jury and the court has ruled in favor of this ridiculous fine.
Let’s put the law aside for a moment and think of what really happened here. I don’t see how anyone in their right mind can justify 675k in punitive damages.
I’m sure joel has bought hundreds of cd’s in his life…and what did he get from from them? 2, maybe 3 good songs, a plastic case with a gloss insert and a url to some shitty merchandising website.
The court sides with executives and artists who claim to be getting ripped off as they sit cozy in their multimillion dollar executive towers, drive benzies and throw ridiculous bling bling parties.
Is it possible that the real criminals here are the ones who have been robbing eager fans of their money so that they and their superstar clients could make more money than a thousand or so hardworking citizens combined?
Is it possible that the word disporportionate here doesn’t only apply to the ruling, but also to the lavish lifestyle that these people live.
Sure some may say it’s a free market, and the law of free market economies applies in justifying the amount of money these people earn. One shouldn’t forget however that free markets are slave to the the environment in which they thrive. It so happens that today’s environment is one of democratized social linking facilitated by an intagible network, a network where it is possible to have many friends with whom you share music.
Is the maytag distributor in Solon Ohio going to sue the seller of a used dishwasher on ebay for infringing on his exclusive distribution rights in that territory?
Why should Joel be sued for sharing used music with friends online? This wasn’t a commercial transaction, this wasn’t an attempt to pass the music off as his own, this wasn’t a brand new cd case with a beautiful gloss insert and a wonderful url to the coolest website in the world! This was simply a guy in Mass. doing something that we have been doing for as long as music has been around. It just so happens that he has more friends to do it with now.
I know legal experts are saying “Yes but the fact is Joel broke the law and admitted to it, and the law is the law”. I think that Joel did something more important. He stood up to a multibillion dollar industry and said that he`s not going to stop doing something that was perfectly legal pre-internet and he`s not going to be forced into conforming to a business model that has become obsolete.
The fact that the internet has made sharing more accessible ought not be looked at as a reason to give right of way to a dying business model at the expense of one`s right to practice a fundemental act, that of sharing….
Bravo Joel Tenenbaum….
I WILL GLADLY PLEDGE 10$ TO JOEL (WITH PROOF THAT HE HAS INDEED FILED FOR BANKRUPTCY AND DECLARED HIMSELF INSOLVENT AND THAT THE PIECE OF SHIT MUSIC INDUSTRY NOT SEE A DIME OF MY MONEY) FOR STANDING-UP AND ASSISTING THE REST OF THE WORLD IN FIGHTING FOR A COMPLETE DEMOCRATIZATION OF ART, SCIENCE, INNOVATION, JOURNALISM, BUSINESS, AND SOCIAL FREEDOM.
To all you artists out there that warrant the 675,000 dollar fine, i don`t care what your label spent on posters, merchandise, public relations, launch parties, the ad campaign, securing air time to shove shit down my throat, and the action figures. I`ll judge the value of your art to me.
It`s a new era and this business model of lavish expenditures is going the way of the telegraph.
Good luck Joel, i`ll keep reading to follow up on this pledge.
to #8 “very few purchase a ticket to hear someone they’ve never heard of.”
People dont mind paying $5 or $10 to see an unsigned band play. The idea of touring small is to get your name out there, not to make money.
If an artist was truly passionate about their craft, they would just feel good knowing that other people are enjoying it. Expecting to make millions from it is just Selling Out. Its that simple. A local band with even a scrap of talen can cover their expenses by playing in bars and local festivals.
@JD: “Expecting to make millions from it is just Selling Out.”
Why do you want to acquire music from sell-outs?
“Why do you want to acquire music from sell-outs?”
Well, since the point is above you, painfully so, I’ll explain it to you.
Expecting to make millions of dollars from your music, when you’re first starting up a band and (possibly) have a glimmer of talent is not only ignorant but pathetically arrogant.
This is the epitome of the ’sell out’ — the company crafted boybands, people like Britney Spears, almost every popular “rap artist.” These things are specifically made and crafted to get millions, if not billions, of dollars away from the slack-jawed lowest common denominator.
However, those hard-working kids who loved playing music, who worked at McDonalds just to scratch up enough money for rent for the month. Those who did that while trying their best to play gigs around town at night, who played because they loved to play, who lived to see people enjoy their music, who strive to make an influence on popular culture these are not the sell outs. I don’t think anyone will fault a band like that, who just happens to become rich and famous because of their hard work — and if they do, there is something wrong with them.
The point is: The ‘real’ bands, the actual artists, will not stop playing because they’re not suddenly going to be guaranteed millions of dollars suddenly (as if that’s the case now) any more than the kid who plays junior-high football is suddenly going to stop suddenly because professional NFL players suddenly make ten-percent less average a year.
Nibien: Thanks for the explanation. If I may summarize your argument:
1. Sell-outs are the musicians you don’t like. And you don’t pirate, or even enjoy, their music. Lots of other people pirate their music, though. But that’s OK, because you don’t like those musicians. They are sell-outs, and don’t deserve to make more money.
2. On the other hand, the ‘real’ bands — the ones you like — aren’t affected by piracy because they aren’t in it for the money. They aren’t sell-outs. They are volunteers.
You might want to look up the definition of ‘rationalize’… OK, I’ll save you the trouble.
rationalize : to attribute one’s actions to rational and creditable motives without analysis of true and especially unconscious motives
@horse badorties: You are naive, sir. No where did he say anything bias, like that of your first summary, in his argument. Please never summarize anything again. You look like an ignorant fool.
Nibien was simply saying, the best musicians play for the love of it, not the money. They play to bring joy to those around them, and listening to them. They are unlike other artists who play simply for the money, and nothing more. These are your sellouts. And yes, Nibien is correct when he says almost all of our Britney Spears’ and modern day rappers, are the core examples of our sellouts. Note this is not everyone in those genres of music, but there is a large abundance of sellouts that tend to dwell in those genres specifically.
As for summary number 2, bands really aren’t that affected by piracy at all, their labels are. And no it shouldn’t bother them if their music is being pirated. That just shows them people are enjoying their music, and that should be their one and only goal.
Your sarcasm and poor summaries show that you are childish, immature, and close minded. You missed the entire point of Nibiens argument, and really showed it.
Raw-berry
I find it amusing that so many people purport to speak for “bands” and “artists.”
Thanks for dictating what “should be their one and only goal.” Who exactly gave you that authority?
Here’s a common scenario; a band plays live around a college campus, tours a little, releases a CD and gets a following. In this band there’s a great guitar player who is a crappy singer and doesn’t look like a star but… he writes the songs that people come to hear and sing along with. Like most bands, five or ten years later they break up. This guy, however, decides to stick with it. He writes songs for others, produces some records, plays in the studios and makes an ok living from his unique talents. Everybody else in the musical food chain is making lots of $ from his contribution and efforts. Is he a sell-out to be hated and dismissed because he found his niche? Because he didn’t quit doing what he loves? Multiply him by tens of thousands and you have the music business that I know. Men and women who started out in bands but found that they had a gift and a specific, valuable creative talent, writers, producers, engineers, etc. etc, etc. Should they spend all day amassing facebook friends, chasing down gigs and stapling flyers to telephone poles or should they do what they do best?
Just wondering.
@RAW-BERRY: Thank you for supplying a further example of rationalization.
” the best musicians play for the love of it, not the money…That just shows them people are enjoying their music, and that should be their one and only goal.”
That’s like saying, the best employees work for the love of it, not the money. So knowing that their boss is happy should be their one and only goal, regardless of whether they get a paycheck.
Yet somehow I don’t think that you’d be happy if you didn’t get a paycheck from your employer. So if it’s not ok for you to have to work for free, why should the musicians in their chosen line of work?
Musicians get paid. If they suck and don’t sell, they get dropped…just like a crap employee would.
Musicians tend to get paid via advances, as with most other artists. As they make money from album sales this advance is paid off. Once again, if they suck, they get dropped by the label and usually don’t have to pay back the advance.
What Joel did was copyrighting and had he won it would have set a precedent and copyright law would have been changed. This is part of the legal process. Look up the origins of land ownership.
The RIAAs argument about the cost of music is based on the fact that in the ‘old days’ people would still buy enough of the crap that was recorded by the people who were dropped to mitigate some of their losses.
In the ‘new days’, people don’t have to buy crap to listen to it and decide they don’t like it.
Therefore, the music industry needs to find a way of recovering all the money they invested in crap artists who never paid back their advance. This is their challenge and their screwing it up.
Ours (the music-listening and buying world’s) is to force them to hurry up and sort it out before good artists get lost along the way.
Q: Come on, don’t you want the artists to be paid?
A: More than anything.
I just don’t…. well……y’know…… want to actually have to pay them anything myself.
It’s a freedom of speech thing.
lol
Sorry man, but the reason you lost was because you went to trial with a college professor instead of a REAL lawyer!
There is a big difference from life in ‘Acadamia’ and what goes on in the real world…for you that difference comes out to $675,000.