Sam I Am: ‘desperate plight of digital artists’
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- “Hello Jon, Long time.”
That’s Sam I Am. And Yes, it has been a while. Good to hear from you. 
“I still read you on occasion although now that folks like Ermich and CHRoNoss and Crosbie Fitch (lol) grace your page, I’m more intermittent in posting,” he says, going on »»»
Compared to the folks really thinking this through, those three are comic relief. Seriously. I’d be all in favor of you taking a far more rigorous editorial approach and requiring at least a minimum standard of thought, intelligence and articulation based in the real world and upon your judgment. Your standards of freedom of speech are not inhibited by simply cutting back on the drool.
Since attending the Future of Music Coalition Seminar here in New York back on October 6th, I’ve refocused my energies and gotten much more serious about this. We are very concerned about the controls and limitations on the network that are growing inevitable if the fraud, deception and IP ransacking doesn’t stop. You and I remember the network in the early 90’s. None of these actions were desired or even contemplated back then. To be historically accurate, these pending controls are RE actions to piracy, not initiatives anyone wanted.
I understood your readership was taking without paying all along, but a 14 hour day last Fall of real-life piracy-related horror stories by songwriters, bands, opera singers, Broadway musicians and related personnel really brought me to my senses. The cruelty you cheerlead is ugly and insane, Jon. Property remains property regardless of format, whether it’s entertainment, credit card info or healthcare data. Even you squealed – and openly wished for legal action lol – when it was your ox being gored. It’s a human instinct, based in a shared sense of justice and you were not wrong, so I thought education might be the answer. I invested my time with your readers in good faith, Jon, whether you actually believe this or not.
But I’m concluding that taking-without-paying anonymously requires no courage and anarchists are destruction-addicts who don’t wish to learn. Artists everywhere are still waiting for a well reasoned explanation why a stolen format should influence marketplace value; i.e. “Yer f*cked if you work in digital.” And if digital really turns out to mean “free”, who works in digital anymore? We’ll all go back to analog to make a living, and unauthorized digitizing becomes a very, very serious crime. But who wants that? This is no digital future, Jon. It’s time for a different tack.
I’ve been very plain of my disdain for the recording industry and their reps, and how they exploit musicians and me, too, everytime I want to license a song or two for a new show. The RIAA sucks and we all know it, but they remain a lot closer to “right” than piracy which is why the wind remains at their backs. The sad truth is that your fanboys regard this on such an unsophisticated level of experience and comprehension that I’m always a “shill”; they equate anti-infringement with pro-RIAA, and this is not inherently the case. Never was. Consistently, your readership reveals how little they understand or have experienced about investing in musicians, touring, recording, or return on investment. Lawbreaking just hands your cause to the other party, Jon. In the boardrooms, your readers come off as poorly informed, sticky-fingered, selfish little malcontents, and it’s a shame. The potential of P2Pnet deserved far better than that.
I knew that piracy would never grow to majority respectability, nor have I ever thought it was ethically right or even accurate that pirates cast themselves as “customers” when they bring only no-fee disappointment to artists who hope to sell. After almost 9 years, the number of new acts who have made a viral splash and are earning a livable wage still can be counted on one hand, with fingers left over for Reznor and Radiohead, who piggy-backed the industry. If “exposure” but no cash is so great for our artists, where are the thousands or tens of thousands of established artists making their name online and earning a living from it? They still don’t exist. Piracy has gutted a longstanding artistic livelihood and the seminar I attended was a very sad day of evidence. This is just a fact, Jon. Songwriters don’t sell T-shirts, apparel vendors do that.
I had the pleasure of meeting and talking with Mr. Rick Carnes of the Songwriter’s Guild after the music seminar last Fall, and his lessons coincided with many things I heard and learned in Sydney last Spring and in Munich late last Summer. For the record, Andrew Cuomo and I here in New York go back to the mid 1970’s when his Father hired me as a “Theatre degree w/Construction Experience” consultant to the New York State Redevelopment Authority’s Theatre Row on 42nd Street. If you think I’m serious, Jon, you should hear what Andrew is working on.
I have meetings set up in London on this subject third week of this month. I leave on the 17th and we are meeting with some pretty high level people. Much is hard to predict, but a few things are appearing likely. Enforcement will continue to tighten under Obama/Biden; also Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and the EU directives in general, and piracy will gather far higher punishments with time. No one – one of us – wants an online police state and technical solutions aren’t worth the damage to the network. But encryption will likely become licensed as it facilitates crime and criminalizing infringement with significant penalties will help refocus hearts and minds, or at least result in one less pirate each time.
The way we see it Jon, the future of the network as a viable business and private information platform is at stake. As healthcare data, IP, credit card information, anything digital is exploited or control centers are hacked, our grand “digital future” may well be lost to the baser instincts of humankind. There was a time not all that long ago when better people simply did not touch what was not theirs. Not anymore. This much is not debatable: No one has a right to lawlessness in any domain. All countries are agreeing on this much. We’ll see what turns out to be collectively important over time.
So I hope you take a moment and read this interview, (link below) because it illustrates the common ground you and I and Rick Carnes all share. It’s simple, but heartfelt and beautifully expressed. I believed I felt passionately for the desperate plight of digital artists due to your fans and the destruction they cause. Then I met Rick Carnes and I found my real stride.
And by the way, you and I both love creativity and so I felt for your outraged humanity – sincerely – when ARES was nicking your stuff. And when you call for legal action?….. against those who take and distribute your stuff without permission? You rock! (laughing) I’ll do what I can in London.
Good things to you and yours, Jon, take care, don’t abandon your site and all the best.
Sam I Am
NYC
http://music-tech-policy.blogspot.com/2009/01/inconvenient-truth-rick-carnes-talks.html
By way of a footnote, Ares was using p2pnet material without saying where it came from, and I complained.
I wasn’t looking for money; merely an acknowledgement that the posts were from p2pnet and weren’t material copyrighted by Ares, which it’d claimed they were.
As a result, Ares corrected things and as far as I know, is still freely (in every sense of the word) using p2pnet stories.
Jon Newton – p2pnet
February , 2009
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February 5th, 2009 at 9:58 am
sounds like you know very little about the recording industry tactics and absolutely nothing about the file-sharing community. File-sharing doesn’t hurt legitimate sales, this fact has been proven by at least 4 studies, and one Circuit Court ruling. What you describe as ‘thievery’ is only an aloof imagined hurt, there isn’t even a law against this, so step down from your high horse and start demanding proper representation from your ‘handlers’ at the MAFIAA.
Honestly, you shouldn’t have to worry that much about ‘copyright infringement’, or your ‘digital plight’, typically the file-sharing community distributes quality music, not ‘corporate product’, so you should be fine. You didn’t seem to complain 10 years ago when we began file-sharing, oh thats right, you probably had no clue back then.
-surfer
(‘avid’ file-sharing corporate destructor of industries, with 250 million in potential fineable ‘copyrighted’ material (35,000 music albums, 1500 full length movies, and over 123 full television seasons) on 5tb of storage, distributing @ 250gb/mo.)
share the wealth
February 5th, 2009 at 10:58 am
Regular readers of P2Pnet know me as a guy in Manhattan running a multi-employee design firm Iâve built by myself from the ground up, beginning with a Theatre degree and 75 bucks back in the mid 1970âs. Today, we conceive, write and stage live events for theatre and dance, music touring, televised fashion, satellite industrial shows and product launches, the entertainment industry in general and we do it in capital cities all over the world. I have no connection to the RIAA nor the MPAA other than the deals we cut to legally use their stuff. Our client roster is a whoâs who of international companies, creators and global marketing specialists. I go to the music seminars, serve on panels, meet with industry leaders all over the world. You are entitled to believe I know nothing about this if you want to.
I had my first digital file, a lighting show I had written to cd, pilfered by a Las Vegas casino and used over and over without permission or payment back in the late 90âs, about 2 years before Napster and before Surfer had any idea. But we saw right away that as broadband grew, we couldnât work in digital. Like the rest of our industry, we went back to analog and weâve worked analog or heavy DRM ever since and weâll stay there until piracy is better contained.
Itâs ironic that illegal downloaders claim to be the digital future. I wonder how many of Jonâs readers have any idea of the staggering, absolutely mind boggling amount of potentially digitized product– in every form of industry in countries from all over the world–backlogged and waiting to be digitized for the network because of online piracy. We all want to take full advantage of the cost savings and ecological advances of digital distribution but in the most literal sense, piracy has never represented the digital future, it is actually what has slammed the brakes on it instead.
As for the Surfer boy up there, I likely know more about the recording and motion picture industries, touring music, IP licensing and distribution deals after 30 years of hands-on practice that youâll ever get to learn from behind your little keyboard.
Surfer manages to sum up two of the great hypocritical inconsistencies of piracy in just his two short paragraphs. He takes a swipe at the quality of corporate product, but ironically itâs the very same product he illegally distributes and everyone wants free copies of.
But more importantly, he states with smug certainty that âFilesharing doesnât hurtâ while he styles himself the âCorporate Destructor of Industries.â (chuckle) Whatever you say, Surfer. Itâs a good thing intelligent adults who actually know something and think clearly are trying to sort this out. The writing is on the wall, and with time, we will.
Thanks for posting me, Jon. Be well.
February 5th, 2009 at 11:23 am
writing on the wall…
Movie Industry Doomed
don’t hate the player Sam, and good luck with the record deal.
February 5th, 2009 at 11:27 am
” Itâs a good thing intelligent adults who actually know something and think clearly are trying to sort this out. ”
Yes, that’s true.
Like the Judge that declared a downloaded file does not equal a lost sale.
Like the Judge throwing out boilerplate joined claims with no eveidence backing them.
Like the fine fellows who make up Monty Python, who found that Free downloads equal
2300 percent increase in sales.
Like NiN selling out of their box set after giving away all of the tracks for free on the net.
I could go on. But you get the point.
Well, some people will anyway.
Sometimes it takes intelligent adults some time to come around, but they do.
The RIAA is finding that out the hard way.
February 5th, 2009 at 11:38 am
“tâs a good thing intelligent adults who actually know something and think clearly are trying to sort this out.”
and whom might that be? Cara Duckworth, Dan ‘The Joker’ Glickman, Donald Verrilli, Matthew Oppenheimer, Joe Biden?
or the truth, p2pnet.net, Ray Beckerman, Charles Nesson?
and I can go back even further than 1970. remember William Shakespeare? His plays were infringed upon more times than there are files on the internet. how about Davinci, and Van Gogh, all had their ‘intellectual property’ infringed upon, and you didn’t see them suing their audience.
Read this article. Copyright infringement is a civil infraction, this article links to LAW.
its inspiring when a mind is enlightened, I too hope the intelligent adults are in place to make the right decisions when it comes to fantasy ‘intellectual property’.
February 5th, 2009 at 11:46 am
did a quick search of my server and The Pirate Bay, no Rick Carnes, nope, nada, zip, your good Ricky baby.
however, I can arrange it if you would like some free publicity, and increased sales.
(peed my pants laughing, seriously)
share the wealth
February 5th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
“Enforcement will continue to tighten under Obama/Biden; also Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and the EU directives in general, and piracy will gather far higher punishments with time. No one – one of us – wants an online police state and technical solutions arenât worth the damage to the network. But encryption will likely become licensed as it facilitates crime and criminalizing infringement with significant penalties will help refocus hearts and minds, or at least result in one less pirate each time.”
——————————————
ENCRYPTION Facilitates crime? BOLD STATEMENT. any business/ or individual looking to secure data using encryption is using it to facilitate crime?
Encryption LICENSED? Wow, ok. So everyone who decides to use open source encryption software must they be licensed to? Or anyone who uses a simple md5 or salt ?
Ridiculous. Please pull you head out of the sand.
function crypt_apr1_md5($plainpasswd) {
$salt = substr(str_shuffle(”abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789″), 0, 8);
$len = strlen($plainpasswd);
$text = $plainpasswd.’$apr1$’.$salt;
$bin = pack(”H32″, md5($plainpasswd.$salt.$plainpasswd));
for($i = $len; $i > 0; $i -= 16) { $text .= substr($bin, 0, min(16, $i)); }
for($i = $len; $i > 0; $i >>= 1) { $text .= ($i & 1) ? chr(0) : $plainpasswd{0}; }
$bin = pack(”H32″, md5($text));
for($i = 0; $i
February 5th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Surfer was being sarcastic. Not everyone shares copyrighted material that is not theirs. However, everyone is be labeled a criminal. And since the 1950’s the consumers have been “forced” to pay whatever the record companies decide is “fair” and the artists have been getting the shaft as well! Want proof? Ever heard of Queen? Why is it after 3 albums the band was broke but their manager was loaded, as were the labels? Why is it Backstreet Boys left their management after raking in $300 million dollars but collectively received only $7 million? Why is it the Goo Goo Dolls had such a rough start when they “made it big” – contracts!
You want to be a musician? You have to play ball with the record companies and they USED to hold all the cards. Want to sound good but you’re not signed? Today you can, 10 years ago it was possible, 20 years ago it was not possible!
When people wanted to share their CD’s online, yes distribution was executed and no profits were made for those CD’s, they shared them. However, I noticed you didn’t comment on the studies Surfer elludes to that prove filesharing does not rob “billions” of dollars from the industry! And Reznor made a LOT of money from his “free to download/pay what you want” plan. He knows some people would download for free (a very small percentage) and not buy it later. Those are the same people that will fileshare no matter what. They are also the same people that would NOT purchase the CD.
Why is it they don’t comment that the number of CD’s has also declined? Not sales, actual manufacturing of CD’s! And Jimi Hendrix is dead, God rest his soul, but why do they still charge over $20 for his albums? Because they can! If you want to hear it, back in the 90’s, you had to buy it or borrow it.
And your favoured industry cried fowl with VHS and cassettes, and yet here they are, still around and profitable as ever.
Look, I am all for supporting the artists. But I am against being overcharged on something that has only one or two songs that are good. So are a LOT of consumers. That’s why iTunes is doing so well, you don’t have to buy the album and you can sample first. Do you know how many people have purchased albums BECAUSE of filesharing? Do you know how many people have been exposed to bands because of filesharing? Do you know how many people have attended concerts because of youtube (despite ticketmaster’s obvious grab at cash – monopoly)?
And since I just mentioned ticketmaster, that’s how people view record companies, monopolistic cash cows grabbing at our pockets. With suing people, you make it even worse, because you overcharge and then alienate your customers. You cannot bully people anymore into paying what YOU think is fair. Many fileshare to get back at “the man” but most know that doesn’t really hurt “the man” in the way they want. Customers are pissed and tired of being ripped off.
And yes the quality of the corporate product IS down! How many versions of Pearl Jam does their have to be out there? And CD sales in the 90’s were ARTIFICIALLY high. In all the “sales reports” did they actually look at the demographics of the CD’s? No. No one mentioned what people were buying! We were REPLACING scratched vinyl and stretched/chewed cassette tapes. Prove that NEW music was actually on the rise before filesharing was popular! You can’t because it would lesson your argument that filesharing hurts the artists.
I agree, filesharing hurts the artists, but it hurts the labels more. You want to do something? Don’t use DRM! Don’t conform to whatever the RIAA/MPAA wants and thinks is the cure to filesharing. It isn’t. Customers won’t like it, they won’t support you because they are tired of being labeled criminals, lectured on things they don’t do (like PAYING for a DVD or movie in theatre to be lectured on filesharing – nice), and they will look for ways to circumvent the technology you use to control it.
Do you know why iTunes is doing well? Because it is available, it is an option. People are more selective and want to pick from “the quality corporate product” via selecting singles. Few “albums” are actually albums. They are a collection of a few singles and other songs, some are good, some are bad. Today, customers have NOT seen the drop in CD prices in the 90’s that they were promised and they’ve seen prices continue to go up, until recently. Before filesharing was even heard of, you were charged $22 -$25 for a CD (MusicWorld – 1992). Yes 1992! Long before Napster!
Finally someone has a brain and dropped prices. CD’s that 10yrs ago cost $22 are going for $10-$15 or are in group-discount bins (2-for-$20 or 2-for-$30). But the digital era is upon us and CD’s do not play in iPods, digital formats do! The masses do not fully understand ripping, though it is catching on. People purchase a CD with the idea that they can listen to it in their car, on their computer, or on a boombox. And now they want to listen on their MP3 player while they walk or workout.
So if you want to avoid digital, or DRM-it up the ying-yang, go ahead. But try viewing the rants of people on Youtube who PAID for their games loaded with DRM and had to use CRACKED VERSIONS to get their systems to work! Yes, they paid but NEEDED the cracked version just to play the game!
DRM is NOT the answer, control is NOT the answer. You can’t control them anymore, them being consumers. Instead be creative, offer a cheap digital solution where they can use it however they like. Don’t control, take a hands off approach. The consumer will trust you more and purchase more.
Be draconian and “That’s mine” and “you’re a criminal” and watch your losses pile up and you go under! You claim to understand the ‘horror stories’ and ‘victems’ of piracy, but have you been the consumer? Have you even read what they think about the situation? Believe it or not, they’d like to support the creators, not the spinsters who try to control them, and they would pay, but not if you’re going to treat them as the labels have since the 1950’s!
Pardon the long rant, but I’m trying to get you to see BOTH sides! I have friends who are musicians. They work for a living, very hard, regular jobs AND gigging jobs. They do not want their music stolen, but they don’t agree with the corporate companies and would rather have some of it stolen, and receive modest profits, than alienate their fans and receive nothing.
ME: “Why don’t you aspire to be a popular musician? You have so much more talent than what’s on the radio.” Dusty D’Annunzio “Because I make a living at what I do [covers in bars]. I am able to buy a house, buy a van, pay it off, write music, record it, and perform it. I’ve already won, I don’t need anything else.”
That last sentence is something that is missing and clearly not the undertone of the famous musicians who echo the “filesharing is bad” mentality.
February 5th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
hahahahah, I didn’t read that statement by Rick, omg !
so let me get this straight Rick, you think that protecting one’s privacy thru encryption is a premeditated criminal act?
I gave you much more credit that you are worthy.
Kudos to Jon for allowing all opinions to be floored. (Radically left, misinformed, ignorant (ignorance is a lack of knowledge, not a condemnation), or otherwise)
Rasberries to Rick for an incredible lack of internet knowledge, and for having such a narrow view of the digital age, you couldn’t slide a piece of paper between your eyes. (waaaaaaaaaaaaaa, ‘pirates steal my music’, sniff…)
Believe it or not, there were more file-sharers buying your music after ’stealing’ it, than the number customers that walked into WalMart and bought it w/o listening to it.
and kudos to RW above for the randomized 8 alphanumeric password generator function. (PHP?)
stw
February 5th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Anyone crying about lost sales now needs to look at the economy, which is sucking the big one. Sales of EVERYTHING are down, not just music. And in spite of the lousy economy and piracy the movie industry seems to be doing well over all, so I don’t have any sympathy for Hollywood’s whining. (I think Hollywood did well during the great depression as well, escapism sells in shitty times)
February 5th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
@ “Sam I Am”
“Sam I Am” said it right. I agree 100% with his opening quote before the story.
I may not agree 100% with the rest of it though because there needs to be a “balance”.
…and I don’t think you’re a “shill”. Keep up the good work!
February 5th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
well said To Sam I AM, well said. yes, I was being sarcastic, horribly so.. I would certainly take a lighter tone concerning the topic from someone willing to objectively debate the point, but Sam I Am came out all guns blazing, piracy is dooming the world, the cause of global warming, and aids in africa, bla, bla , bla. Sure, I file-share, ‘avidly’, AND objectively, mind you. I don’t file-share to ‘get the man’, hardly, I do it to enjoy my ‘content’ the way I want, not the MAFIAA. Last night I digitally recorded the new Lost: The Little Prince on ABC. I ripped the commercials and other crap out, compressed it, and put it up for share. I am an automated DVR for my buddies, big deal.
To Sam I AM, I have stated in articles I have written here, I actually would buy more corporate product, if it were better quality, available how I want it, and for the price I want. When that happens, I won’t need to file-share, so in the meantime, I feel wholly justified in my file-sharing activities. Out of the 100 or so movies I ‘evaluated’ this year, only 3 were any good, and I did see them in the theatre, even against my MPAA angst. File-sharing cannot replace the movie experience. (But a pirated blueray of Iron Man on a 52″ ain’t half bad !).
keep crying devastation, and I will keep crying idiot. If you step up for a good ole debate, and are willing to actually listen to proof that you are wrong, then I will discontinue being sarcastic. You, the artist should be screaming louder over the raping you get from the RIAA, than at my dumbass sharing your stupid music !
my 2 pence.
oh, and stw.
February 5th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
I do agree, there are few decent movies out there as of late (last 5yrs to be honest). There are SOME decent movies, but not in the ratio of what I would have expected. Many new films are remakes, or even remakes of remakes.
I don’t download anymore, only because there’s nothing really out there that I want that I would not pay for. I pay to support the artists I like, that’s it. I downloaded a few songs that people said were “great” from U2, and I didn’t like them, so I did not buy the album. I don’t listen to those songs, and thus do not reap benefits as Sam I Am thinks I do because I downloaded them.
I saw lots of posts on youtube of Van Halen live on their Roth-Reunion tour. I would have loved to have gone, if the tickets didn’t start at $165!
I seldom go to movies because of the price. So Tom Cruise wants $20 million for his new film? He’s being paid too much! How much do you really need? And are the payouts really worth it? Why does it cost tens of millions to make a movie? Is there any fat that can be trimmed? I think the actors are getting a lot of money and maybe they think they are worth it, but are they really doing 20 million dollars worth of entertainment?
Consumers have no say in that matter. We can only “not see it” but they’ll just say that was due to filesharing, and still pay actors more than needed. If you want to sell more, look to cut costs. If you ALL do it then none of the 10million dollar actors will have work, they’ll have to be more realistic with their price demands. Then the movie ticket costs can drop, then we’ll go more.
With this economy, you are going to see all sales drop. So if you want to stay alive, do NOT be overly greedy, and work cuts from the actors (not the guy who gets 50k or 75k to build the set). I’d like to see some of these actors “help out” by working for free or a royalty instead of money up front. If the film does well, they do well. Many do this, I know, but not for 20 million! Cut that back. Drop the ticket price to $8 instead of $13 and do NOT try to recoup costs by charging $5 instead of $3.50 for a small pop!
Make it affordable! HMV has dropped their DVD prices, so I pick up older stuff. I won’t pay $25 for a new DVD, especially without seeing it, no matter how much I like it. That’s NOT worth it!
Honestly, I don’t see how $7-$10 for CD’s 3yrs or older and $10 – $15 for CD’s new to 3yrs is unreasonable. DVD’s could easily be $10 for older movies (except for $4/6/8 discount racks) and $15 for the latest release. Blu-Ray is still new technology but even their older movies are $25. How about $17 for them and $22 for the latest releases?
Drop the costs and you’ll see more people buying! Oh and the “loss” in revenue should NOT be passed down to the artists! Force your advertising people to cut costs, force the recording studios to not charge $500/hr (see Eminem’s The Eminem Show for some kid on MTV who got to be Eminem for a day), and offer more digital.
A really cool idea is also to provide digital formats for people. Imagine, you pay $15 for a movie in digital format, BUT it INCLUDES all deleted scenes, alternate endings, and bonus features. Then the person who paid $15 could pay a ONE TIME fee of $50 for software that lets them CUSTOMIZE the movie they made any way they like (ie put in those deleted scenes, reorder the film segments – not change score or music or video, just cut/copy/paste/reorder). Their “product” would still be owned by original copyright owners, but they have a website where they CAN POST IT FOR FREE and others can VIEW FOR FREE or modify it as well for $5.
Imagine that, instead of people doing it on youtube and being slapped with takedown notices, the RIAA/MPAA offer the opportunity for REASONABLE pricing and software (limits of course – can’t change everything) and then the ability to share their creation, with the understanding it is still owned by the original copyright owner.
NO restrictions on how they mix it, even if it changes the order and deletes scenes to the point the film takes on a whole new meaning.
This would be proactive! Many people (not all but many) would jump at the chance to do that. The $50 software would be simple to use and would export to the site accessible by any who sign up (for FREE) but if they want to build upon the work, it costs them $5. And that software works with ALL studios because they decided sharing is good for them!
Maybe in the future they can mix multiple movies together. Imagine taking the 4 DVD’s of the Godfather trilogy and shortening it to 1hr!
February 5th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Two things:
1. Sam I Am states, “The cruelty you cheerlead is ugly and insane, Jon.” This is an offensive statement, not to mention ridiculous. Jon is obviously a lot more forgiving than I would be if somebody had said this about me.
2. After reading Sam’s long diatribe, the phrase “None so blind as those who will not see” comes to mind.
February 5th, 2009 at 10:32 pm
OK I was watching this and it further enforces the importance of facts to support claims.
Sam I Am – watch part 6 in particular where Prof. Peter Jaszi says that there were a lot of “possible scenarios” of fear and terror towards new technology used to push the DMCA through Congress. Can you provide actual proof of your claims of horror stories? Tell of actual cases where people were actually hurt by filesharing. Illustrate bands that were making ends meat, and then because of filesharing their CD sales plummeted and because of youtube their concert seat sales plummeted and now they are starving.
These are the claims made by the RIAA/MPAA. They claim losses has hurt tens of thousands of jobs and people are starving and others are already dead because of filesharing. Back up these claims if you want to actually win people over, at least filesharers on this site back up their claims with some sort of detail hinting at some sort of fact!
Otherwise you are repeating rhetoric of organizations to large to adapt even though they have had over 13 years (since start of DMCA creation, not actual legislation). Consumers are tired of being pushed around and told what they will listen to. Consumers are fed up with restrictions and parallels (circumvention) that hinder their ability to enjoy entertainment as they always have (legally)! So yeah, hardcore filesharers that would never purchase anyway are getting support of many consumers because they are not accepting of the “alternatives” because they are not as viable.
Times are changing and consumers are moving towards iTunes and the like, but it won’t be over night. iTunes is rocking the sales which is great, but that does not mean that consumers are pissed about the stories, the lawsuits, the accusations, the same rhetoric without proof!
Please back it up with actual proof!
February 5th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
Oops, here the link http://www.publicknowledge.org/issues/dmca
February 6th, 2009 at 6:04 am
The RIAA has been clever all along. They’ve got some artists really believing the money they are not getting is because of piracy. So much so the artists are screaming loudly right along with the fat cats.
All the ammo is on the legislation side as far as making laws. From Obama’s office picks we’ll have more of the same that we had with Bush. The handwriting is on the wall for how that is going to run. The public won’t be asked. Nor will there be any consideration for fair use. Why is it fair use was dropped with digital? Because it was uncomfortable for the labels thinking they were missing a dime.
You ever notice you can’t hear new artists, new works, nor anything beyond replay city on the FM? Why do you think AM cratered and went to the talk format? Simply what happened to FM had happened earlier to AM and the listeners left. Now you have the same scenario on FM and the listeners are again leaving. No one wants to hear the same tunes replayed hour after hour. So combine that with a large percentage of commercials that people hate, despite all the claiming to the contrary that the advertising houses would have you believe and you have radio becoming a wasteland that no one is listening to other than the commuter headed to or from work and many of those are choosing to play their own music rather than put up with it.
So now you have less and less places to hear new music that might bring you into a store to buy it. You also have less places to buy music other than on line. Most of the on line places want a credit card. For one I won’t deal with credit cards. For another it is far to risky to do business on line with credit cards. You read near every month where so many million customers had their data stolen and it makes you wonder how many more you don’t hear.
If you as an artist want more money, get it from the rich cats, the labels. As you have seen in the above posts by others, the customer across the board, is not willing to pay the inflated prices for very little quality. I’m certainly not willing.
Truth of it is, there are far less of the pie available to the label because people have given up because of high prices and the negative publicity the RIAA and labels have earned themselves. They have went on to games and other things and pretty much dropped music as an entertainment field.
Talking about ads again, have you noticed by chance that almost all publications, all broadcasters, and many many of the other businesses that communicate and use the commercial are losing their readership? You think that is by chance? People are fed up with being bombarded with the ad. I quit watching tv some years ago no. I had not realized just how bad an irritation the commercial was till it was no longer bombarding me day and night. Now when I hear a commercial my first instinct is to turn the annoyance off.
Music from the big labels have become that same annoyance factor. Artists with no talent being pushed to the forefront, lipsyncing because they are expected to entertain with dance moves because they really lack the talent to do the music skillfully. Music that has become homogeneous, all sounding very much similar. A lack of originality that has lead to the cover being a major music theme. If I want to hear a song, I don’t want to hear the cover done by someone else.
In all this wandering of this post, I’m not alone in my feelings about all this. I hear it every day from others. You fix all of that and you’ll make money again. Otherwise the corporation is going to steal you as blind as they steal from the customer and the customer has become tired of it.
February 6th, 2009 at 11:21 am
Well said, except one point: Online credit card theft has little to do with it being online. The medium is not the issue. People who work for those companies, the banks, department stores, are lured with cash from the crooks to scan your card. The security personnel are good at catching card fraud in their own country so now the crooks take US cards and use them in the UK, and visa versa.
In terms of security in general, 90% of the money goes to keeping people out (from firewalls to safes) and 90% of the theft occurs on the inside! People carrying HDD’s to/from data centres are not highly trained security personnel, they would cost to much. That’s a vulnerability a banking IT guy explained to me at a conference. Very scary!
HDD manufacturers and storage providers are now working on (slow process of releasing it) encryption so even if you take a HDD you can’t read it. If you take the entire server you can’t read it. That’s the goal anyhow. I didn’t have the luxury of working on the encryption for the chip my former employer designed, but my coworker/acquaintance did and I followed the progress, somewhat.