Hi Everybody!

Enclosed are links to two articles:

Number one is the ruling about downloading MP3's from sites such as KaZaA. Number two is about copyright protection.

Those subpoenas and lawsuits against individuals, from my reading, were illegal!

1. http://apnews.myway.com/article/20031219/D7VHI7400.html

2. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/ar...TICLE_ID=35962

Happy Holidays!

Man, sara that is deep in both directions. I would reccomend anyone interested in the RIAA to read these articles. Nice find.

Quote: Originally Posted by Lokie Man, sara that is deep in both directions. I would reccomend anyone interested in the RIAA to read these articles. Nice find.

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It was my husband who found both articles. He knows I'm interested in this subject and looks out for me to find out what people are writing about it.

He and I are of the same opinion: None of this would be happening if they didn't charge so much for a CD that has only one or two songs tops, that people are interested in. They make you pay $22.00 for a CD that only costs them $5.99 to produce at most! It's 35 cents per CD and the rest is marketing, packaging and advertising. But the artist may have only one or two songs at most that you like while the rest is filler and garbage. Frankly, I don't feel like wasting that much money on filler. Their profit margin on CD's is higher or right up there with jewelry and in the end you are not even getting a diamond!

There is going to be a big revolt when they try to regulate the internet.

On a related subject, President Bush is trying to pass a new federal law against Spam. I don't see how he is going to be able to do it because doesn't that go against the first amendment? I don't like spam anymore than anyone else, but you can't go against the first amendment because that's our most basic and primary right and once the government takes that away or even infringes upon it, then they can get away with taking away all the rest of our rights under the Constitution!

To protect copyrights maybe they should charge a minimum amount like Apple music? does. I understand that their site charges 99 cents per song. To me that's still a bit high, but it's better than paying $22.00 for a bunch of junk!

In (here I'm going to "date" myself) but when I was in high school the record industry was producing albums on LP (vinyl). These were great because they had fantastic artwork on the covers, some came with posters or even actual books on the inside, they had sometimes signed posters or photo papers, and the albums were great to listen to and you ended up liking mostly every song on there-even on both sides of the record.

Now-a-days, I don't like the songs on the CD's except like I mentioned above I may really like one or two songs on there, but the rest I don't care for.

It's a better deal when you can have CD's with the songs you like from that particular artist. So what the record industry wants you to do is buy a whole truck load of CD's so you can listen to 10 songs? Come on! They need to wake up and get real. People aren't going to put up with that, and haven't, when all they want to do is listen to commercial free music. They don't want to pay $39.99 per month or whatever Xradio charges to do it either! That's rediculous. Most radio stations won't play what people want to listen to either because they have to play what the industry tells them to - not even what the DJ wants to hear either!

Sorry for the long rant, but I am passionate about this subject - it's a real sore spot to us.



See ya!
sara24

Good linkage Sara. Good to see you posting as well.

Those articles, though not as enlightening as I thought they would be, were interesting. Verizon's solution to the subpeonas is clever and devious, yet I think others will adopt this way of interpreting the law.

sara, XM satellite radio isnt as bad as you make it out to be. It is only roughtly 10 dollars a month. IT has introduced me to a plethora of new music and songs that I would have otherwise never have known. However, I know how worked up you can get in a rant;getting angry about anything that comes to mind.

Brandon Cisneros

Just a quick read through them. Nice links. Here in Canada, its legal to download mp3s, but illegal to upload them. Strange.

Also, new release CD's up here are around $14 CDN. So, you guys pay $22 US for a CD?? omfg...

yah, cuz a lot have "DVD BONUS FEATURES" that suck. I always thought the rules were like what they are in Canada, its ok to DL but not to UL. Whatever though, the RIAA has done one the thing that has annoyed me, they put millons of copies of songs on KaZaA that after 30 secs of play it makes a weird sound.

I didn't realize that the songs make a funny noise? Is that true for everybody?

It was illegal to upload songs, but if no one uploads or "shares" any songs, how are songs going to be available for download?

Some CD's are as high as $22.00. $14.00 U.S. would still be too high because it doesn't cost them near that much to manufacture the CD's. I'm not sure how much $14.00 in Canadian is, I know it's a lower amount.

I don't know much at all about the Xradio. If it's $10.00 a month, I guess that's not too bad, but how much did the equipment cost and how much is the installation fee? What about various taxes and FCC taxes or whatever?

Maybe later on, now that the subpoenas have been challenged and Verizon won, the other internet providers will follow suit - no pun intended - and after that, it may be safe to actually use KaZaA the way it originally was used.

I don't see why you would want to bust individuals because it is individuals who buy the CD's. If not for us, they would have no sales at all! They should work with the public, not against them.

Apple may be on the right track - charging you for the individual songs and then you can be free to make your own CD's, but I don't know, to me 99 cents per song is still a little high because the CD's to the Record Corp. only cost 35 cents to make. You are already paying for the internet use/subscription.

I kind of skimmed through the articles too. My husband likes to read the news from various websites and he finds a lot of interesting stories that are never going to appear in your local or national newspapers and rarely, if at all, in the news broadcasts. Me I like to do a lot of searching and window shopping.

Merry Christmas!
sara24

Ooooh I love this subject!

Sarah, perhaps the problem is in the fact that you like two songs. I'm not suggesting that, you're not open minded or anything, what I mean is that most of modern pop is oriented towards the single, for radio play. So when my pop-listening sister hears a song on the radio, she still doesn't really give a crap about the CD because she only likes that song. And of course, why buy the album then? So she downloads it without a second thought. She probably wouldn't have bouught the album if file-sharing never existed, but now owning it is a great luxury. That's why iTunes is so successful. It deals particularly with the single, and that's all you have to buy.

Perhaps the pop scene should jump away from the single and move towards the cohesive CD. Music is still way too overpriced (I should know, I tend to buy at least one album every week, despite my monetary situation. It's now an addiction) but I am much more willing to spend that money if it's an album that will really move me -- and no single-oriented album will ever do that. I think that's the reason that indie labels have actually enjoyed some wealth after file-sharing while major labels have been feeling a slump (though the economy doesn't help either).

The RIAA should realize that file-sharing can actually help them. I honestly think that if Napster didn't hit, I wouldn't be a music nut today, because it's a great way to find music. Heard of a band a lot but never heard their music? Download a few songs! Like them? Buy the album! Sure, a lot of people aren't as ethical as me, but I'm sure they could take advantage of this. Perhaps they should have their own legal service, like the new n*pster (Roxio sullied its good name) only release just a few songs and be able to use it for free. But no, I think they'd rather sue you infinity billion dollars

ONE MORE THING:
I'm not entirely sure if charging 35 cents is fair. After all, what store DOES charge the manufacturing price? Only a few charge wholesale! Of course, they should have the marketing might to figure out what price people WILL buy, and it looks like people are buying songs pretty readily for 99 cents.

Thanks for Bringing this up

ONE MORE THING:
I'm not entirely sure if charging 35 cents is fair. After all, what store DOES charge the manufacturing price? Only a few charge wholesale! Of course, they should have the marketing might to figure out what price people WILL buy, and it looks like people are buying songs pretty readily for 99 cents.

Thanks for Bringing this up[/QUOTE]
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That's probably true - the market price right now is probably 99 cents per song. See, those websites are catering to what people want. The RIAA isn't. They are just trying to sell billions of CD's or suing individuals for billions of dollars and they don't really give a crap what is actually on the CD or whether people want to hear it or not.

Individual artists do care about just those things plus earning some money too along the way. I don't have a problem with that. I have a problem with big corporations charging the hell out of us or suing us just to make a larger and larger profit on a thing that can be manufactured for 35 cents per CD! That's what I have a problem with. If they would charge say $4.00 or $6.00 for a CD I would consider running out and buying a person's CD when I heard the one song on the radio or the TV.

We have a large collection of CD's from older artists and these are usually "The Best of" type collections. There are a few dud songs here and there but the majority of the songs on "The Best of" whoever are good and you are able to listen to them.

I miss my MTV. Now we only get the 3 channels due to financial lack, but I used to watch MTV for the interesting and cool videos plus I would hear new music on there. I also missed the shows they used to have on MTV like: Beavis and Butthead, The Oddities, Eon Flux, etc. The good thing about the Beavis and Butthead show was they highlighted some good tunes.

The websites that are charging 99 cents per song are on the right track - no pun intended, but I think that somehow more could be done.

There is a wide range of music that I like to listen to, but I have no idea what kind of music is playing the most right now as I've kind of dropped out of the listening and, without MTV, I really have no way of listening to up and coming music and don't seem to have enough time to watch TV and listen to the radio much any more.

My husband likes to listen to the radio talk shows and hardly ever turns on music. We really aren't listening to the CD player either.

We recently bought a Victrola, but there is no dishwasher, except for me, and in order to clean the records I need to wash them in the sink and put them in the drainer thing, but it's usually full of dishes. That means that the records aren't clean so I can't listen to them on the old-fashioned windup Victrola record player either as I want the records to be clean in order for them to sound the best that they can given the carbon and shellac media they were recorded onto.

I used to belong to the Columbia House CD club. We bought a lot of CD's through them, but then it just got to be too expensive and I hated it when they sent a CD to you anyway and then expected you to buy that CD at full price.

See ya!
sara24

I agree with sara, Essentially what the Riaa is doin is making it so we have no choice but to pay thier rediculous prices for music. Its totally thier fault this happened, and now instead of trying to make it right they are biteing the hand that feeds them.

I would love to see everyone in the world revolt and not buy a single cd, then maybe they would see the mistakes they made, once thier wallets take a hit. It all comes down to greed, "how much money can we milk from our customers" thats bad business.

I think itunes is on the right track, but charging 99cents is still to much for my taste.

I agree with Joey on itunes. Although its not available in Canada it is to pricey when you have 3000+ @ 1.32$(after exchange rate) is way to much. I think p2p was deemed legal in Canada like a week ago, i suppose they figure they cant sue everyone. I bittorrent my stuff anyways.

Quote: Originally Posted by Joey I agree with sara, Essentially what the Riaa is doin is making it so we have no choice but to pay thier rediculous prices for music. Its totally thier fault this happened, and now instead of trying to make it right they are biteing the hand that feeds them. I would love to see everyone in the world revolt and not buy a single cd, then maybe they would see the mistakes they made, once thier wallets take a hit. It all comes down to greed, "how much money can we milk from our customers" thats bad business. I think itunes is on the right track, but charging 99cents is still to much for my taste.

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I totally agree with you. I think 99 cents per song is a bit much too. A whole record album used to cost 99 cents and you had 2 sides and about 10 songs or so. Maybe 10 songs for 99 cents. 20 songs is a whole CD. But most CD's have, on average, around 13 or 14 songs - not 20 songs.

We've stopped buying CD's for that reason as well as lack of money. Another type of CD I'm interested in are soundtracks from movies. The selections of soundtracks in record stores is very low. We wanted to find the CD soundtrack or rather songs from the movie L.A. Confidential, for example, but no one seems to have it...

sara24

Quote: Originally Posted by TYCOON I think p2p was deemed legal in Canada like a week ago, i suppose they figure they cant sue everyone. I bittorrent my stuff anyways.

What does bittorent mean?
Thanks,
sara

http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/introduction.html Thats there website, to my knowlege(wich is very little) it connects your computer to others throw a website link. PM me if you want some "links"