Whats the best internet music file sharing thingy....?

by ScoobySnax 118 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  ignored_one

  Personally I wouldn't have heard of a lot of great bands if it hadn't been for file sharing.

  I usually download stuff I have on tape or old dance records that were only available on vinyl (usually extremely rare nowadays).

  If I buy cds it's usually from the cheapest vendor if possible, I don't think £16 for a cd is cheap, if I can get it for £9 then i'll buy it from there.

  Oh and if you're after older albums try www.101cd.com. They have a big selection of cds from £4.99 (decent ones).

  Ignored One.
• 

  hillary_step

  Is there a "law" that says you can't download music???

  Yes.

  It's funny how some get disturbed over copyright infringements over music but not over the Watchtower Society's publications.

  The copyright where written material is concerned is far less defined legally than that applying to music, for example, you may quote written material but may not reproduce it in large measure without the publishers permission. In the main part what happens here with quotations of WTS literature is not illegal. Scanned copies would be and you will note when Stephanus scanned KM's, the WTS moved to stop him, but they could not do this if he were to have quoted parts of it.

  As you can see, there is little gained from comparing the thievery of works of art with the written word and that is why shared and transcribed sheet music does not ire any musicians that I know.

  Best regards - HS
• 

  be wise

  the greed of the artist

  Francois, are you kidding. The artist get's 2 - 3p out of every pound, if he is lucky. If he is not lucky in selling his music, as most aren't, he'll spend a long time to come remaining in debt to his record company.
• 

  ballistic

  What's funny about this thread is that most of the US posters are simply not seeing the pound sign (£) in this thread in front of our UK prices. A cheap bottle of wine here is £3.50. A CD can cost around £15.00 (POUNDS not dollars - today the US dollar is exactly £1.50).

  Does this now shed a different light on it? Can you see why people in Britain are angry about this situation, some even want to kick the record companies where it hurts - in the wallet.

  Prices are at last coming down, at least if you buy online or supermarkets or buy in the sales, forced partly by people voting with their file sharing. This only proves the record companies have been creaming it all along. It is cheaper for us to buy and pay postage from US or even Japan than to buy here, even a day trip to France can save you money, so the "economies of scale" argument does not hold water.

  OK, just to make it absolutely clear, the minimum wage here at age 18 is £3.60. The average guy on this wage is going to work for over 4 hours (one eighth or ninth of his working week) to buy a CD at that price. Splash out on 10 CDs and he has spent his entire income.

  Now ask him if he cares about profits made by the artist.
• 

  hillary_step

  Does this now shed a different light on it? Can you see why people in Britain are angry about this situation, some even want to kick the record companies where it hurts - in the wallet.

  Ballistic,

  Yes, I am aware of CD costs in Britain and they are high. What UK posters do not seem to realize is that in the USA and Canada, one often pays dollar for pound for much of what one has to buy. You must do an across the board comparison. For example the equivalent cars in the USA and Canada are much cheaper than the UK. Should you boycott the car companies? I once bough a car in a European country that cost me 32K in pounds. I bought the same car in Canada for 32K in Dollars. Most things, including untilities are generally cheaper in North America and that includes CD's. Another example, I saw the Royal Philharmonic perfom in the US I had the best tickets in a very plush theatre. They cost me $115.00 each. A few months earlier I saw the same Orchestra in London at the Queen E. The equivalent seats were 120 POUNDS.

  What I am puzzled with is how some posters seem to feel justified in stealing what is not theirs because it easy to obtain, and yet do not seem to feel the same way about things that are not as easy to obtain.Do you not see double standards and a brazen self-justification here?

  The bottom line is this, is the greed of Corporations justification to steal from them?

  HS
• 

  be wise

  YES, I STILL SLEEP AT NIGHT
• 

  hillary_step

  YES, I STILL SLEEP AT NIGHT

  lol...Which shows as much about your ethics than it does those of the greedy corporations.

  HS
• 

  ballistic

  It's interesting you mention fuel, a couple of years ago, we blocked all the fuel depots exits and brought the whole country to a stand still for 2 weeks. So yes, we will do it to any industry, in whatever means possible. With fuel we did it by preventing them selling fuel rather than walking into petrol stations and stealing it.

  Not sure about the bottom line, I would ask what is their justification for ripping people off while pricing themselves out of the market.
• 

  be wise

  I have ethics, but when it comes down to this sort of thing, who's it hurting really ...greedy rich peddlers of music. I also believe in using a bit of my common sense as well as my emotional concience.

  I'm a student I can't afford to buy CD's at this price and I do a Music Tech course, so it's very important that I have good music CD's. I usually hire them [about a pound each] from the library and then burn them would you consider that to be a bad thing. I'm poor and I can tell you this, I wouldn't have a chance of a career in music if there wasn't file sharing. This is the real world I live in.
• 

  hillary_step

  Most performers receive around $2.00 per CD sold. From this they must pay back the promotional investment made on their behalf by the record companies who sign them. Several hundred thousand sales, into which category many if not most musicians fall, is usually the break even for them. Many live on the advances given to them by the companies who by now own them as the circle of charges turn. They are often perpetually in debt and most only make money from their live performances. Many are understandably turning their backs on the companies in a bid for self-promotion.

  As one guitarist told me recently, "I am finally getting out of the music business and into the J*** T*** ( name of the player ) business’. No-one in the business is naive about the industry, as Hunter Thompson said, "The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side". But despite the disgust that he feels about the industry this guitarist rails just as ferociously against the thieves who continue this abuse by stealing his music. And so do I.

  HS