JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum Petition to stop P2P-users abuses

Hmmmm...

"if rape is inevitable, you might as well sit back and enjoy it" -Slightly paraphrased quote from Bobby Knight.

To address Kit, #1 and #2 points you made are already available in large quantities. #3 to a lesser degree.. Listen.com serves Windows machines. When iMac launches for Windows, we won't see an end to illegal file sharing though.

I've been writing about the solution (similar to some of your points) for 4 years. None of it is brain surgery. But there really are 2 separate issues. If someone who sells expensive sports cars refuses to sell them for reasonable prices, I don't believe we should force them to do otherwise by stealing the cars instead. The same logic applies to music theft. Most file sharers see the problem with stealing the CD's directly from a record store, but the damage is only marginally less when you steal the album via file sharing. After all, the cost of making you aware that music exists, and the cost of recording that music in the studio is what makes up the majority of the cost of the CD being sold in a store. The piece of plastic is a tiny part of it. So the loss when an album is file-stolen is probably far less than a dollar different than when you steal it right out of a store. In the case of store shoplifting, the retailer bears the brunt of the loss.. in the case of file stealing, the artists, writers and labels bear the brunt. But the actual losses are nearly the same. This is a point people refuse to acknowlege.

There is no shortage to free music on the net. There is no lack of songs that artists will be happy to let you download for free and do anything you want to them. Why is it that file sharers are too lazy to find music on their own and download it free? By downloading the music that companies have spend millions of dollars marketing and bringing to their attention, they are having their cake and stealing it too. The reason CD's cost so much money is not the cost of the product, just like the happy meal at McDonalds doesn't cost the price they sell it for. It's the marketing, product development (or recording/artists development cost) and the cost of signing that artist that raises CD prices. Add to that the cost of shipping, in store payola..er.. display... (do you think those record stores put certain CD's on the endcaps and listening stations for you to check out for free because they like them?).

The greatest irony to me is that little kiddies want to steal..er download the songs by their favorite famous artists who they only learned about because of the marketing machine needed to bring it to their attention.. without the label system, ALL music would be obscure like all those FREE tracks they could already get legally and without any negative ramifications.. but they don't want any of those artists.. they want to suck the the tit of the corporate marketing machine.. and they clearly don't want to buy the cow to get their milk for free.

I wish we could magically snap our collective fingers and ALL marketing would disappear. THEN.. when there was no info to be found about music, things would truly be equal and fair. Then no one would really care as much about file sharing. Then people wouldn't need to recoup signing advances, radio and TV payola, retail store payola, outrageous video costs, etc. But then what would all these little kiddies do when there were no longer force fed pop stars for them to consume? They'd be forced to go out and find music they liked on their own. And guess what? They can do that now and choose not to.

Ironic isn't it?

Brian