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ABigSmall wrote:

What exactly are you arguing?

The short symbolic version is Apple is acting like a selfish little brat these days, too smug and being very selfish with its toys.

Perhaps its growing pains.

I hope they grow out of it, or I hope Amazon gives them a little beat down and a good smack in the wallet and it brings them to their senses.

Last edited by iThinkIam (2007-10-04 1:13 am)

HackerJax wrote:

iThinkIam wrote:

I also find comparing the 32mb Rio to the current generation of iPod and iTunes...

well...

almost like comparing Apples to Oranges.  Pun intended.

The iPod is a hell of a lot closer to the 32mb Rio then it is to a CD which is the comparison you have tried to make in numerous posts.

No, I compared the iPod to a huge Walkman recorder with a freaking huge cassette tape in it.  My only point about the CD is its a container for what really matters, the music.  CDs don't record and let you put the content on them.

But apparently the iPod is a very special container that is more important than the music and those who create, distribute, and promote it.

I am starting to understand why a lot of corporations have found Apple hard to work with, you guys share a similar mindset and I thank you for giving me a glimpse at it.  In the end, I now think its the corporate personification of child-like selfishness.

And I would imagine this is part of the genius that is Steve Jobs, and his ego.

iThinkIam wrote:

[snip]
Based on the notion of "rights," all files in Apple's player should then only work if the rights are owned.  All files should have DRM right in them, in your "rights" based argument.
[snip]

Bringing up this post from waaay back on page 11 to ask this question: you are aware that the Amazon store will be selling their MP3s without DRM at all, right?

The people who create, distribute and promote music make money when people buy the product, why should they get a cut of the iPod as well? Should vintners get a cut of stemware sales? I mean, the glass is worthless without the wine that goes in it, it's just a container.

What sort of criteria would you use to decide who gets a cut and how much? There are loads of artists I don't want to support because I think their work is crap.

I think we'll start to see record companies decline. The middleman isn't as necessary anymore. Artists can sell directly to their fans, or sell directly to Amazon or Apple without signing a deal with the devil (the record companies) and keep more of the profits from the music they sell. The internet has empowered a lot of small businesses and now has the potential to do the same for artists as well. Expensive studio equipment isn't as necessary as the cost of equipment and software has gone down (thanks Apple), more people can buy their own, record their own tracks, edit, mix and now distribute. Internet advertising (Google) has become less costly. It isn't all gloom and doom.

robco wrote:

The people who create, distribute and promote music make money when people buy the product, why should they get a cut of the iPod as well? Should vintners get a cut of stemware sales? I mean, the glass is worthless without the wine that goes in it, it's just a container.

What sort of criteria would you use to decide who gets a cut and how much? There are loads of artists I don't want to support because I think their work is crap.

This is a long-held mentality of the recording industry, and one that they've been quite successful with thanks to a powerful lobbying force (much more successful in other countries, even--just look at all the money they suck out of other product sales in Canada--it's absurd).  In what other situation would you have someone suggesting, with a straight face, that entity A owes money to entity B because consumers are spending money on entity A's product that they might have instead spent on entity B's product?

Here, we're getting pleas for "fairness" from someone who associates with people in corporate music--individuals who have made a career out of ripping off musicians and pleading poverty to Congress....when they're not suing consumers or trying to stifle innovation through lawsuits.

It's pathetic....but remember, it's all about "fairness!"

robco wrote:

Well, and as the good Lt. Uhura said, "Be careful what you wish for, you may get it."

LMFAO. That solidifies the points that everyone has been making in this post, that people should only have to pay for music ONCE. So, either let us pay for each song or album at the time we decide we want to listen to that particular song or album OR we pay up front by giving part of the cost of our iPod to the artists and we never have to pay for music again, as long as we are playing it on that iPod.

This is soooooooo hilarious that this is backfiring EXACTLY in the manner that was stated in this forum.

Frank

iThinkIam wrote:

I hope they grow out of it, or I hope Amazon gives them a little beat down and a good smack in the wallet and it brings them to their senses.

And it won't hurt them in the wallet, because they make very little off music sales.  It will create the distribution of DRM-free music, which makes it easier to share, which hurts the labels, and will move more iPods.  So I say, bring it on.

Also, I noticed that you ignored all the posts I made about why the industry did not adopt the Sony Atrax format, the need to embrace new business models that aligns the labels with their customers instead of making them their enemies, the need for companies to evolve in the face of a changing business climate, the overwhelmingly correct posts about your trampling on fair use rights, and whether you consider ripping CDs to mp3 to be "stealing". 

You just keep diverting from these, onto other tangential tantrum topics.  These ignored points are the places where your view breaks right down like a turd spinning around the toilet.  You make yourself look foolish, childish and selfish (using your own words here), when you dodge the points that you know have the tought questions in them.

Alien wrote:

bratboy wrote:

Nice to see that it's beginning to backfire on them.  For $75 an iPod, of course all p2p sharing should be legal!

We have the same levies in Holland, and while it doesn't make P2P sharing legal (because it is still illegal to distribute copyrighted works in any manner not explicitly allowed by the copyright holder), it does make downloading copyrighted works legal, provided that they are for personal use only and are not redistributed.

,xtG
.tsooJ

didn't Universal launch a legal filesharing thing in France, recently, where people have a few euros added to their broadband bill?

it's like an all you can eat music service and you just add on a few quid a month to your phone bill. can't remember where I saw it, but, a quick google might turn it up.

Most of us agree that if if the record companies put out a good product without trying to rape us (and/or the artist) they should thrive. Otherwise we don't give a damn whether they fail. They should just fail naturally and not force us to forestall the process. That is fair. That is truly fair.

ScifiterX wrote:

Most of us agree that if if the record companies put out a good product without trying to rape us (and/or the artist) they should thrive. Otherwise we don't give a damn whether they fail. They should just fail naturally and not force us to forestall the process.

I don't think the quality of the product is worth discussing. The fact that American Idol made it more than 1 season is proof that "a good product" doesn't have to be part of the equation.

iThinkIam wrote:

Really, between this thread and some other threads most of you sound like 12 years kids while you keep referring to the "major labels" as if they were evil incarnate.

It's frankly quite stupid and intensely immature, imho.

What I don't find terribly "classy" is shilling for an industry that quite obviously is not set up in the interests of the musicians whose creations brings in the cash....all the while claiming that you're speaking in their defense, or in the defense of "fairness."

There's a reason you don't find many recording artists lamenting over the plight of the labels, demanding a surcharge on iPod sales, or suggesting that use of tracks ripped from a purchased CD is "infringement."  For them, the labels chucked 'fairness' out the door a long time ago.

Either your friends in "corporate music" have conned you into believing they are morally entitled to confiscate the profits of others, or you've been speaking out of self interest this whole time.  The argument that cash spent on an iPod might have instead been spent on music really takes the cake.  That you can't realize such diversion happens in countless product relationships on a daily basis--all without the 'sharing' (read: taking) of profits--is quite telling.

IthinkIam is just a shill for the music industry corporate types. Corporations by their very nature and charter are absolutely amoral. It is up to individual executives within a corporation to bring ethics to their business dealings and public image. Currently, it would seem that ethics are not on the music industry's business agenda! Except of course when it comes to citizens the RIAA has declared as thieves.

We must drive the point home to the executives running these businesses that if they expect their customers to respect property rights, they must respect the rights and needs of their customers or potential customers.

I too am against theft of copyrighted material. I believe that those who have stolen property should be punished. However, we also need clarity of the definition of theft for copyrighted material. My understanding is that what the copyright laws protect is CONTENT. So, regardless of the container or medium that a song is delivered on, what is protected is the song. This would mean when the item is purchased, what is purchased is the right to listen to the song. So long as I don't duplicate the song for sale to others or give it away freely, I can put that song on any medium that is convenient for me to listen to or store that song.

So, what the RIAA battle is all about is that the greedy corporate music moguls want to have the exclusive right to sell you that same song on any and every transport/play medium conceivable without you the consumer having the right to transfer the song to a new medium. This is also true for the Movie and the book industries.  All they can see is billions of dollars piling up by selling you the same product over and over and over again as new transport/play devices are developed.  This was fairly possible pre-electronic medium era. Prior to desktop / laptop computers becoming ubiquitous, the entertainment industry got away with repackaging the same product (in this case music, movies, books) over and over as new devices for using that product came along, i.e. Wax cylinder -> Victrola -> Vinyl records -> magnetic tape -> CD's. The entertainment industry wants this to go on ad infinitum. Don't let them!

The natural outgrowth of personal computers is electronic data everywhere, instantly available and duplication of that data with few if any technical restrictions. This harks the dawn of a completely new communication era. People all around the globe communicate freely and instantly. The battle is on. New norms will eventually be established. Harsh regimes who suppress the voice of their citizens are continually being exposed. This will lead to greater democracy world wide. This is a snowball rolling downhill much faster then the RIAA can file civil lawsuits.

To save themselves from extinction, the entertainment industry will have to reinvent themselves. Some forward thinking musicians have already begun by embarking on web based music sales and or free music delivery. This allows the artist to introduce themselves, cuts way down on cost of product delivery, allows the artist to receive a greater share of the profits and has the potential of gaining wider audience exceptance. This also allows artists to explore other forms of their art at low expense.

The RIAA is dead! Long live the artists whom make great music.

Last edited by caoimhin (2007-10-06 3:55 pm)

Czachorski wrote:

Where does the word fair even belong in business (or in life, for that matter)?

That's what's so stupid about the whole thing.  No one pays these ridiculous levies out of a sense of "fairness."