US Shuts Down Megaupload - More File Share Sites Fall

[Keith Jordan]

I accept your fact that there are no production costs involved. But you miss the point that it is the lost revenues from people that would otherwise have paid for stuff that stop these content producers from being able to finance future works.

[PooF]

I accept your fact that there are no production costs involved. But you miss the point that it is the lost revenues from people that would otherwise have paid for stuff that stop these content producers from being able to finance future works.

It is far from clear or obvious that they would have otherwise paid.

[Keith Jordan]

The inaccuracy of measurement is no excuse for theft. Allow me to illustrate with a little story....

Man on Allotment phones the police....

Allotment Man: Hi there, I would like to report a theft please. Somebody has come down to my allotment and stolen all of the potatoes I was growing. I know who they are and have their address.

Police: Are you able to tell me exactly how many potatoes were stolen?

Allotment Man: No.

Police: Well then no crime has been committed and what has happened is morally ok. Goodbye...

Allotment Man: What the fuck....... ?



Just to give a more balanced view of my own opinion, I may or may not have downloaded things via the likes of isohunt etc. These are things I would not have purchased if the internet did not exist. Hence no harm done.

[moom]

If people are just going to steal without paying, then where does the money come from to finance the next film, the next band, the next book or whatever.

Theft is theft. However, these two new bills are not necessary.

I understand your point. But having to pay for all the stuff will lead us to being broke. Besides, 20 euros for a CD? 50 euros for a game? And what if it's not enjoyable for us? Wasted money. That's an even bigger theft. And if them corporations only make some 500,000 bucks profit instead of 1,000,000 they'll be fine and should stop whining, them greedy snobby bastards. Or better yet, find some sponsorship, - there surely will be lots of enthusiastic billionaires. Us, average Joes, such expenses will lead to being broke. And, for example, our government here, in Estonia, is already making us broke. And what about even poorer countries?
It's a moral question, though also of economy to an extent.
Besides, what happened to the "free art" idea? (This is rather a joke, lighten up )

[Keith Jordan]

Well if they spend £20,000,000 on making a film and only make £500,000 profit that is only a return of 2.5%. You would make more money from investing the money in a regular savings account thus making the film would lose you money.

Profit is important commercially. Making all this nice content for us to enjoy costs a lot of money. Excusing your theft with these arguments is no so good.

[moom]

Well if they spend £20,000,000 on making a film and only make £500,000 profit that is only a return of 2.5%.

That's what exactly what I call greed. For no real need. Ooh, such a good rhyme there...
So what if they don't make more profit? So far they've been fine, because filesharing has been going on for well over a decade. And nope, they their money hasn't vanished yet.

[Keith Jordan]

Well you are clearly a Commie, m'lad.

If I got you to come round to my house and sort my back garden out and the materials cost you £500 and you added on on another £500 "profit margin" from which to pay your income and other expenses, what you you think if I decided only to pay you £0 after you completed the work?

[moom]

That was kinda weird thing to say I'm not a Commie who kills good citizens and stuff. You have to admit not all of Commie ideas were bad. The world isn't all black and white

Besides, wrong example. I'm not a company that earns billions. And that's not how their incomes/costs go. What I'm saying, if I earned - and I want to earn - less than a billion, I wouldn't whine about it. As a person, who I have lots of respect, says: "Don't earn for the sake of earning - earn for the sake of having enough to be happy."
Or, a Russian rocker (the kind that certainly wasn't communist): "I'm ashamed of taking money from where there isn't any of it." (And the song's about performing for free on flat's - a common thing for rockers in USSR, they usually performed acoustic concerts there).

[Stephen]

Personally I have no objection to artists getting paid for what they produce, they make they world a nicer place to live in after all. However is this not as much about the greed of record/film company execs who have been on the gravy train for so long that they don't want to be thrown off it? Rather than this all out attack they should be thinking of ways to encompass technology . I've seen videos taken from Youtube because 'they infringe the artist rights' - I seem to remember that The Orb/ David Gilmour was a case in point but I could be mistaken, although the same applies for other clips. I'm sure that more people bought that album because the clip was shown there and liked what they heard, so it is free advertising, something that every artist would like to have. As Danielcaux said, I've also downloaded albums that were either never available on CD or have since been deleted and that only sold a handful of copies back in the 70's, and would never have even known of their existence if it hadn't been for music blogs.If the artists are around today and still producing music then it could very well inspire me to purchase their later releases, again free advertising. A more enlightened view needs taking rather than these draconian measures, something I feel very strongly about with regard to bootlegs. I would think that the majority of people on here have at least some Floyd bootlegs but it hasn't stopped them from buying the albums, and artists should be again realising that bootlegs, of concerts rather than albums, are yet another way of keeping their name alive, as long as they are freely distributed of course.

[moom]

I don't mind paying either. But I want to pay for things that I know. There was good idea voiced not so long ago - to pay artists AFTER a concert, AFTER purchasing a CD. Or like Radiohead - see, their own way they even made bigger profit, and people who wanted to get In Rainbows for free still got to do it (though just one half of it).

[snifferdog]

But let's say you listen to something new, you like it and then go "Naaah. I won't bother buying the album. I've got the mp3s". What then?

[moom]

You should say, if I LOVE it. I'm going to a performance of theirs or get the album for a GOOD price. As long as the prices are overly high, I refuse. Because that is a true rip-off. And because there's just a handful of albums that I love, which equals to wanting them in my collection, I own most of them. For good prices. Pink Floyd, for example, should sleep in peace.

[my breakfast.]

What about Rapidshare or the multitude of other free uploader sites? Its a shame Megaupload got hit either way. I guess it is collateral for the fact that SOPA didn't get passed. Might as well smack something hard, somewhere. The way I see it, the US are scared about the scale and scope of the Internet, and want to control it far more than it currently does. Online Piracy is just a convenient way of attacking freedom of information on the internet by trying to appeal to older moral principles. I read that CNN is showing advertisements that encourage viewers to write to congress encouraging them to pass anti-piracy laws.

[oldhippy]

Filesonic has now closed. This is the message you get when trying to download.

All sharing functionality on FileSonic is now disabled. Our service can only be used to upload and retrieve files that you have uploaded personally.

If this file belongs to you, please login to download it directly from your file manager.

[cwta eugene]

So this is how I get most of my music these days...

1) I purchased a Rhapsody account for $12 a month.

2) I purchased Total Recorder for $30. It records everything that comes through my sound card in a host of different formats.

I either transfer that music to my mp3 player or burn a copy on CD. I don't see how this is any different than a person having a song available to them at any time, anywhere,via computer or on a smart phone, other than the fact that the song on the computer or smart phone is not permanent, meaning it is gone once I cancel my subscription to Rhapsody. I told my wife, who had a moral objection to how I obtain my music, that I will permanently destroy or delete my copied files if I ever cancel my Rhapsody account. She seemed okay with that compromise as long as I never distributed or made a profit from any of my copies. I don't plan on it. Is this so wrong?

P.S. I have over 500 CD's and 16 years worth of ticket stubs ( I even saw Tool last weekend) to prove that I've done my part stuffing the music industry's mattresses so they can sleep a little better at night.