http://cabalamat.wordpress.com/2008/07/04/open-letter-to-indiana-gregg/

Indiana Gregg vs The Internet. The comments rule!

Enjoy!

Since you posted your incompetent stuff on TF too, let me copy my answer from there here too:

@ART

TPB is NOT bullying any musician.

Its’s the “downwardspiralchick”-indiana’s husband that is bullying people!
wikipedia he is/was bullying for example! (*)

and beside all that “character swineness” of indiana and her man, why the hell are those loser artists always complaining about what TPB does?

They complain that they have no marketing, that they are not known so well so far,that they can’t pull therefor a Radiohead or NIN act in having the people(fans) decide what to pay.
To hell with those whining “artist”!
Nobody, I repeat NOBODY is hindering those artists to rent a dedicated server for Euro 29 per month and set up their own TAB (The Artist Bay) and compete with TPB that way!

(*)
http://www.p2pnet.net/story/16342#comment-581518

Yes, you can steal an IP address. You can not only steal it, you can use it and basically download porn, use it to hack into https websites without
being detected. It is a serious problem.

The problem here is that a torrent site “The Pirate Bay” makes over $3 million in profit by pointing us to URL’s where
we can download. The argument isn’t whether or not someone would’ve bought all those albums/ software/ films/ TV shows or not.
The argument is that sites like the Pirate Bay exploit the material and earn advertising revenues by allowing users to infringe copyright.
So, the argument is that these sites should share with all these copyright creators. Everyone else is getting something out of it except for
the creative people. Those creative people need to be able to continue creating.

There are bands like NIN, Radiohead, that you have mentioned who have profited from a huge marketing machine. The amount of PR and marketing that fueled those downloads was enormous. Likewise, these bands were already well-known beforehand. (known world-wide).
They will be able to fill big stadiums (and already did before they gave their music away)

Some sites like Youtube pay a royalty to musicians. So, it’s free music/film for the users and the musician’s get paid and also the participating songwriters.

One problem is that everyone is trying to put all musician’s inside the same box. All musician’s are not part of the major label debate. There are millions of musicians in the world who work on music of all genres. Songwriters are hurt most by this downloading because they can only be paid
if there is a royalty structure.

I think in this case the bully is The pirate Bay. If The Pirate Bay is beginning to bully independent musicians who want to be able to chose where they will share their music, then, they are going after the wrong people. Myspace is also in negotiations about paying a royalty to musicians. Last FM is paying a royalty to musicians for their streams. The Pirate Bay claim to be some sort of “Titantic”. They are flagrant about a lack of respect to the artistic community.

As an independent film maker, I see a real crunch going on. It is getting much harder now than ever for independents to find funding. This is because investors will want a return on their investment and if films are being given away for free the day after release, who is going to pay?
Creativity at the level that people have come to enjoy is being destroyed unless these sites make a decision to help fund creativity by sharing in revenues. I don’t see how we will be able to survive. Everyone is tired of seeing the same films without any new great story’s. Same with TV. But, how do we independents get to break through now? I think it is great to have our work popularised by internet. But, I don’t see how we will be able to continue making these interesting films without still selling our automobiles and going into debt because nobody will invest at that big risk.

I think Indiana has produced a solid argument. I think she has been rhetorical and provocative. I think if I was being attacked by The Pirate Bay and if they started to publish my emails and begin to bully me, I would do the same and respond. I respect that a lot. I hope many more independent creators do the same.

Thank you,

Art

No. Not that I have ever heard of. Maybe if you worked for a telco, but even then, why?
Also, I have to agree with your comment here…

“4. The artists that HAVE released their music FREE online have seen MASSIVE sales figures recorded. The best example of this is TRENT REZNOR /NIN? and Radiohead’s In Rainbows. This fuels the downloaders into believing that not only is it your Labels that are ripping you off because your too lazy to take a risk and release it on your own, but people downloading free copies HELPS sales not hinders.”

My example - audioslave came out with their new album at the time, ‘out of exile’, and had the entire album on their website to listen to. I listened to the whole album and then immediately went out and bought it for two reasons - 1. they realize that your above comment is very true and don’t consider their fans to be criminals (unlike Indiana and many others), and 2. there isn’t a crap song on the whole album.
It was the first album I have bought new in probably 5 years. Most of the time, I buy them used because $15-20 is way too much for most albums (2 good songs, rest is filler). I forget what % of sale price actually gets to the artist, but i know it’s a very small fraction. Perhaps some of these artists should drop their labels and get out there on their own, and use the internet as a tool (which it is) instead of trying to litigate it out of existence (which could never happen - it’s a lost cause). What’s funny is that their album sales could drop 50% and they would make more money because they won’t be giving all the profit to a label.

1. There are no internet police. Due to the nature of the internet being global and countries having different laws it makes this very difficult. It’s like international waters, you have casino ships that are run from coastal states of america that forbid gambling, these are not able to be stopped as they in fact do not commit crimes in the country itself.

2. You claim that violation of copyright is stealing, and that those that copy music don’t pay for it. Well in the case of the pirate bay there is actually a levy on all cd and dvd media that is paid to music publishers, so they do in fact pay your tribute in this country, even if they don’t download copyrighted material EVERYONE pays you guys. In Russia as well many of the most popular sites that commercialise MP3 downloads pay their subscriptions to your music associations.

3. When lawsuits are brought against downloaders for copyright violation the artists don’t receive any of the remuneration. You as an artist have given that right away anyway. Your contracts and remaining rights suck. This only fuels the argument that artists are not being robbed.

4. The artists that HAVE released their music FREE online have seen MASSIVE sales figures recorded. The best example of this is TRENT REZNOR /NIN? and Radiohead’s In Rainbows. This fuels the downloaders into believing that not only is it your Labels that are ripping you off because your too lazy to take a risk and release it on your own, but people downloading free copies HELPS sales not hinders.

I would argue that the internet was shunned by the labels as a distribution method as their control is not as solid on this platform, this has bit them in the bottom as it is inevitable that superior technology replaces obselete technology. itunes embraced this platform, need I say more?

5. Indiana is only a popular artist because she gave away her songs for FREE on myspace. Myspace, Youtube, and Google Video, the list is endless. These sites give away copyrighted material ALL THE TIME to more people than the pirate bay. They don’t get pursued by the copyright holders because they have Big companies backing them that can defend themselves. Its only the small fry that get savaged by bullies.

Theres my $0.02.

And yet, the software industry managed to boom, authors still have best sellers, movies still bring in recor numbers to
the box office ,, etc ..

Downloading has had no impact at all on the health of those industries.
There must be sime other factor that hurts them .. what could it be .. i wonder ?

Why would someone steal an ip address? Is that even possible? If someone gets an unauthorized copy of my home address, have they stolen it? Do I no longer own my own address? In short, HUH???

Still, she does have one thing right. Before the internet, no one ever hacked software, stole music, books, films, television shows, credit card numbers, ETC. Dirty internet! It has corrupted our society. We lived in a utopia before the net came along and ruined it all.

I don’t know where the hell she gets that 250,000 figure from. Must
be numbers pulled out of her a** just like all MAFIAA piracy statistics are.

http://stashbox.org/v/151705/madeworseincanada.mp3

Made Worse in Canada (feat. Jim Prentice)
by Upset Canadian

This clip is about the controversial Canadian Copyright Bill C-61, recently tabled in the House of Commons. Starring: Jim Prentice (Minister of Industry, Conservative), Colin Carrie (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry, Conservative), Charlie Angus (NDP), Bill Siksay (NDP), Howard Knopf (Excess Copyright), David Fewer (CIPPIC), Safwan Javed (Wide Mouth Mason band). Based on “Below the Arctic Ocean” by Azhrak. Licensed to the public under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ verify at http://www.jamendo.com/album/22408/ . Cover picture by p2pnet.net.

A remix should be made featuring Indiana Gregg and other RIAA shills (Paul McGuinness), to ridicule her worldwide.

But this can’t possibly have anything to do with why she is going ‘broke’ at all, right ?

Well, in her case, downloading IS probably hurting her.

Without downloading, her CD may have been purchased for a short while until word got around that
except for the one song that got constant airplay, the rest was crap.
All of those folks would have been out of luck since the policy of most retailers is a no return on
CD’s once the shrinkwrap has been broken, except for a replacement copy due to damage.
Filthy pirates you, know, buying, ripping and returning the CD.

With downloading, those who hear the one song, but want to be smart about who they support
with their hard earned dollar, the album gets previewed, is found to be crap, and is thus not
purchased, saving the customer from having yet another fine drink coaster in their non-returnable
collection. So, I guess, yes, from the standpoint of the mediocre, pretty much all the Labels try to
foist on us, downloading hurts.

Screw them.

Still boycotting
not downloading, not buying.

If I have to have it, it will come from a second hand
CD shop.

(2) The internet should be policed.
Rebuttal:
It already is, and if you wish to be party to it, by all means move to china, or another equally communist state of your choosing. O, wait, wont your capitalist ideals conflict with a communist state?
Regulation of the internet inevitably begets further rescindment of privacy rights, freedom of speech, and other essential liberties. The freedoms you enjoy today are in part because of the neutrality of the internet.

One author, in fact, when asked about it said something like: “are you asking me what I would do if I found out that there were a million copies of my latest book being downloaded on the Internet? I’d tell my agent to make plans to throw a big party on the yacht I’d be buying real soon from all the new book sales I’d be getting.”

The economic model people like Ms. Gregg use assumes something called “market transparency”, i.e. that buyers are aware of what is “out there”. The problem from the point of view of MOST of the providers in the business is just the opposite: market opacity. They’ve got to use everything they can, including P2P distribution on the internet, just to try to get noticed. This is not because they’re not talented; some of them are VERY good. It’s just a matter of “breaks”.