I really appreciate that he doesn’t say it’s okay for people to download his music, but understands it’s going to happen regardless of his feelings. He’s putting the onus on the fan to choose to support him, or not. I truly believe most fans will support the artists they like.

“In these debates (no matter what venue) the artist almost always seems to be treated/viewed as a child. Either we don’t understand what’s good for us, can’t control what’s happening to us, can’t comprehend what’s bad for us or we are not wise enough to be grateful for what we are handed.”

How true, and it’s always been that way – reminds me of those old black and white clips from the early 60s of John Lennon and the other Beatles being interviewed, and the condescending way in which the reporters would speak to them – as though they were children.

They don’t run in shifts, they run in shits!

Oh, and look up the definition of strawman. Saying there’s nobody on the side against ours rooting for our side is an ultimate strawman.

Sorry, the only fail here is you flat out assuming that people who download stuff don’t buy shit at all.

His friends (who ever they are) pay him for his music.
I don’t know where to start, phew.
This idea that generations of intelligent, articulate and independent thinking musicians ALL signed ‘abusive’ contracts is beyond demeaning. I wouldn’t mind quite so much if I thought the majority of people who parroted this crap had ever had ANY experience of a record label. You believe the crap about abuse because it makes you feel better when you rip off ordinary musicians like EI-P.

In the end, the whole debacle is about freedom of choice.
If EI-P is ok with fans downloading his music before it’s released, that’s absolutely fine. If I’m not OK with that, you should respect my choice to continue to sell my music. If you don’t want to buy it, don’t take it against my wishes.

not true. prove it.

Okay, 1) Why are you implying that in the act of accepting a leak, he’s not selling his music?

2) Piracy isn’t all black and white. Take this for example. I’d never heard of the band Nightwish before. I downloaded ((re: Pirated)) their latest album, Imaginaerum, to give it a listen. The next day, I went out and brought the 2-CD physical album, having to take busses all over town to find who had it in stock.

3) Anyone who signs with the RIAA or associated labels is in an abusive contract. If you don’t believe me, then point out ways I’m wrong, give citations.

4) I have never heard of El-P before now. If his album hadn’t leaked, I wouldn’t have even heard of him. Now I know he’s out there, and I feel like taking a look at some of his stuff, and maybe buying an album if I like it.

5) I respect both of your opinions, but I also have my own. Don’t knock it.

“3) Anyone who signs with the RIAA or associated labels is in an abusive contract. If you don’t believe me, then point out ways I’m wrong, give citations.”

here ya go:
http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/2012/04/15/meet-the-new-boss-worse-than-the-old-boss-full-post/

actually they do buy stuff, they buy video games which are harder to pirate, but not much music, which they can get for free. if there were any truth to your argument we would not be having this conversation.

Way to reply to only one of my points.

Just because one isn’t as bad as the other, doesn’t mean it isn’t abusive.

And now, digging through the techdirt archives, here’s the reasons for my arguments.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120307/16295418031/kid-cudis-wzrd-debuts-no-3-despite-being-swept-under-rug-universal.shtml

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120302/03503317944/emi-sneakily-trying-to-pretend-many-its-artists-cant-reclaim-their-copyrights.shtml

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120228/17592017904/if-major-labels-are-all-about-helping-artists-why-do-we-keep-seeing-artists-calling-out-their-labels-screwing-them.shtml

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120209/17243617721/tunecore-riaa-has-become-part-problem-artists.shtml

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120208/01453517694/riaa-totally-out-touch-lashes-out-google-wikipedia-everyone-who-protested-sopapipa.shtml ((Bad for everyone, not just artists))

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120120/15060817494/busta-rhymes-backs-megaupload-says-record-labels-are-real-criminals.shtml

I’m sure I could find more, but I think I’ve made my point.

Fantastic execution, but, still, fuck you man.

Anyone who signs with the RIAA or associated labels is in an abusive contract. If you don’t believe me, then point out ways I’m wrong, give citations.

I dunno, maybe you can post the mental health records of David Bowie, Paul McCartney, Sting, Mick Fleetwood, Bruce Springsteen proving how crazy they were to sign a major label contract time and time and time again. And how disturbed they were to come to their senses one day only to realise they’d amassed millions of dollars and several mansions around the world.

I have never heard of El-P before now. If his album hadn’t leaked, I wouldn’t have even heard of him. Now I know he’s out there, and I feel like taking a look at some of his stuff, and maybe buying an album if I like it.

It seems to me you actually found out about him because people on a blog you go to are talking about him.
This is the dumb paradox we are supposed to swallow. The internet helps artists by people downloading their work against their wishes. While apparently the internet has no power to promote artists through thousands of people talking about those artists on thousands of blogs and forums.

You fail to respond to half of my points.

Wow.

news flash, you can’t have a contract dispute without a contract… the only point you’ve made is that artists actually get contracts and payments from labels. you’ve also made the point that they can audit the label, and because they have a contract they can move to resolve disputes, in the courts if necessary.

the same mechanism that makes every link you posted above possible, is the mechanism you are arguing to take away from artists, copyrights.

so when you can show me an artist contract with a pirate site like the pirate bay (and others), that offers better terms than labels, and pays on those terms, than you’ll have a point.

until than all you have is the usual BS…

really, could you cite that… because a 95% piracy rate still only equals a 60% drop in sales. So unless the IFPI think the business should be 20x’s bigger I think you are grossly confused on simple math.

every download does not equal a 1:1 lost sale, but every lost sale can be attributed to an illegal download. there’s a difference.

Who the fuck says I’m telling artists to make a contract with pirate sites? Are you delusional? The only BS is coming from you right now.

Try sites like kickstarter. Or, I dunno, monetize on youtube. Or, I dunno, go independent; sell your music without a third party via digital means.

I’m not saying it’s easy.

But it’s not like the record labels make it easy on you either.

Oh, and there are plenty of stories floating around about artists who don’t get paid royalties from labels. You just block ’em out of your mind because “Oh, artists can sue them. I don’t care that the labels fuck up their contracts all the time or screw with artists.”

Labels only care about two things.

Themselves.

And money.

The truth hurts, doesn’t it?

thank you. a well played concession.

No contract needed.

http://www.techdirt.com/blog/casestudies/articles/20120430/04432118703/dan-bulls-free-single-hits-charts.shtml

“Last week we wrote about Dan Bull’s experiment to release a song, “Sharing is Caring” for free via The Pirate Bay (and other sites) and to see if he could still get it to show up in various charts. As we discussed, it definitely was making its way onto the lists of Amazon UK’s top hip hop sales. And, on Sunday, the official UK charts came out — with Sharing is Caring coming in at number 9 on the Indie singles chart and number 35 on the RnB singles chart.”

Yer all “Pirate bay, pirate bay, PIRATE ARRR PIRATE”

You sound mightily intent that I’m somehow trying to connect this all to saying artists should go on pirate sites and allow themselves to have music shared? When I said -nothing- of the sort? You really -ARE- delusional.

Why do you hate rationality so much? Umad, bro? Or just trollin’?

of course not, Rolling Stone doesn’t provide contracts when promoting artists, but then again, Rolling Stone isn’t illegally exploiting artists against their will, violating copyright, and ripping off the artist for profit, the pirate bay is… that sounds like real oppression to me.

so where are all those contracts for all of those other THOUSANDS of artists? if the pirate bay is not afraid of the way they abuse artists why don’t they let them remove their material?

the real abuse and oppression is by the pirates who profit and pay artists NOTHING, EVER, not a single penny, while they the pirates continue to get richer and richer.

Where are those contracts and payments again? Oh, they don’t exist… yup, you got nuthin but BS.

You wanna make a point, provide reference where I said anything about the pirate bay that wasn’t in direct response to your stupidity and pulling strawmen out of your ass.

Jay, incorrect. As I mentioned above, it’s a question of “if every pirated copy was a lost sale, this is the value”. There is no direct statement that every pirated copy is a lost sale – at most, it’s a lost potential sale.

The thing is, we know that the recorded music industry dropped 60% in the Napster decade. You would have to be more than slightly daft not to accept that there is some causation here.

Well, daft or Mike Masnick.

it’s all above. you can’t answer the point because you know you can’t.

there are no artists contracts with the pirate sites who profit 100% while paying the artists 0%

so are you now saying that pirate site should respect artists and remove any material the artist doesn’t want there? are you saying the pirate sites should offer contracts to artists that are more competitive than label contracts and that the pirate sites should honor those contracts?

pick a lie and stick to it already!

f you aren’t uber successful, or do something that the labels don’t like, they -will- screw you over.

And yet thousands of less than ‘uber successful’ artists work with labels all the time, releasing records, making money. I mean getting back to my original point, it’s just demeaning to the intelligence of the creative community to suggest even the majority of them (let alone all) blissfully signed abusive contracts, and so far haven’t complained other than a few well publicised moans.
You oh so want it to be true, so you just keep repeating it, hoping it will stick.
Ask any artist, any artist, almost all of them will tell you they’d prefer a record contract to widespread piracy – if it has to be a choice between the two.

I never did say a thing about solutions other than “Kickstarter, youtube monetization, or going indie and offering MP3 downloads of your album at a cost”.

You really are desperate at this point, aren’t you?

Troll harder, kthnx.

“thank you. a well played concession.”

I agree. He was short, sweet, and right to the heart of the matter.

Hahahaha!

I’ll bet you wrote that all by yourself didn’t you, freakyleakydahboatasinky.

To some extent this is because many artist’s just want to create their art and have given up control to do that. It’s only been within the last two decades that artist can interact with their fans and publish / produce their own quality material.

One way to end the copyright battle is to stop signing away management and the business side of their career. You also have to remember that many labels make all sorts promises, shiny new things, big advances that they are selling. They also have a distribution network. It can be hard to turn down.

http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.se/2009/01/riaas-download-equals-lost-sale-theory.html

“……RIAA?s request problematically assumes that every illegal download resulted in a lost sale. …..”

Tell me why it’s apparently a fact that the RIAA doesn’t abuse artists in favour of money. I’m not saying it’s in the contracts, I’m saying that it -happens-. Contracts can be devilishly worded so that they can be twisted in favour of the other party.

I never said that piracy was an alternative. I’m arguing that it’s shades of grey, and that not every pirated copy is a lost sale, which the labels seem to drive into everything. In fact, labels argue that every pirated copy is worth much, much more than a single sale, to the point where they argue billions of dollars in damages, which, in my opinion, is bullshit. And, any -successful- lawsuits, all the money goes to the lawyers and the labels. Not the artists.

The solution to piracy is not attacking it. The solution is actually offering a service that’s up to date with technology.

I’m in NZ. I can’t view netflix. I can’t view hulu, or hulu plus. Where can I watch movies online? Where is a legal way to do that?

Oh, right.

I can’t.

Arbitrary licensing restrictions placed on by the folks at the MPAA/etc.

I can’t use Google Movies. I can’t watch TV shows through iTunes or buy season passes.

The only damn thing the industry does here is provide Steam. And guess how many steam games I own? Over a hundred. Because they’re reasonably priced, and readily available, without intrusive, clunky DRM that restricts customer rights.

I want to be served. And it’s just not happening. This is meerly an example.

If they offered Netflix here, with a decent selection? HELL YES I’d pay for it.

But, why stop there? Why not go further. You see, pirates are going to pirate, whether they like it or not. What’s to stop them from offering DRM-free copies of shows that you can download and store on your hardrive in formats like AVI, MKV and MP4? People would pay through the nose to get that privilege. Instead, the entertainment industry shoves it’s foot in the idea, accusing piracy of making them unable to do it. Do they not realise that if they don’t offer content in a similar way that pirates do, only paid, people would 100% use it?

Sorry, I’ve gone off on a tangent here, but this is one of the things that really grinds my gears. They bitch about piracy so much, yet the obvious solution is right in their face, and they seem to think that suing people is a better alternative than innovating.

It’s a similar situation in the music industry. But the difference is, with stuff like iTunes? The music industry is farther along than the movie and TV industry. The web is world wide. Why can’t they take advantage of that?

Show me a Walmart site or a radio station with a contract with a muscian.

P2P is a distribution system. It’s also exposure. Radio is dead. They aren’t comparable to a record label.

Why would anyone buy something they hadn’t heard before? There is a much greater chance of selling your music after someone hears it.

This whole thing sounds anti-competitive. It used to be the radio was the gateway with apx 50 singles making a rotation. There would be one song that stood out from the rest.

Now there are thousands easily available with a handful standing out from the rest. The odds got a lot worse for musicians. As a listener, I can sample regional and foreign markets in addition to traditional national and local acts. I can also sample unsigned or hobbyist musicians. That raises the bar.

As a consumer I like to think that talent will be rewarded over marketing and promotion. I know that’s not entirely true, but I think a no label, talented musician has a much better shot of making it now than they did 20 years ago. It also means that potential fans need to do a lot of sampling in order to find them.

What Pirate Bay offers is exposure to a potential market. People buy zero of what they haven’t been exposed to.

ttp://boingboing.net/2012/04/17/pirate-bays-promo-bay-fl.html

Silly you thinking you need a contract to get paid.

The only one spewing complete BS here is you. Clearly you must work for a label because every post of yours has “contract” in it somewhere. Either that or you truly enjoy getting bent over the table for your regular flesh to flesh colonoscopy after signing away all your rights.

That just sounds like the arguments people made against radio and still you people make money.

Everybody takes from the musician apparently except the musician OMG how musicians survive?

Also explain why you are different from a fashion designer that has no protections and still manage to make a living, how are you different from a carpenter that has no protections and still manages to make a living.

That you people don’t like to talk about it because it exposes, that nonsense you call it yours, your music is the one you perform, is the one you sell to others through your merch, it is not what others enjoy for free, that is a vector and can lead to other places but you don’t like that do you, in your little world everybody should pay only you, but that is not going to happen anymore.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/01/judge-17000-illegal-downloads-dont-equal-17000-lost-sales.ars

http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2009/01/riaas-download-equals-lost-sale-theory.html

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120121/16551717500/jonathan-coulton-destroys-rationale-behind-megaupload-seizure-with-single-tweet-follows-up-with-epic-blog-post.shtml

And you are using Google assets to attack Google.
Have you paid them already?

Quote:

In a 16-page opinion, District Judge James P. Jones, sitting in the Western Disrict of Virginia, denied the RIAA’s request for restitution, holding the RIAA’s reasoning to be unsound:

http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2009/01/riaas-download-equals-lost-sale-theory.html

Happy now?

Anything digital that’s comprised of 1s and 0s can be downloaded with the same ease. The only difference is how much hard drive space it will use and the actual time of the download.

Are you aware of the Pareto’s Rule?

Liar, the RIAA frequently file lawsuits claiming that all downloads are lost sales, along with their MPAA pals Jack Valenti that may be in hell by now and Chris Dodd.

Didn’t David Bowie dump his record label exactly because he was tired of getting screwed by them?

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,623107,00.html

McCartney I believe founded his on label did he not?

If I look around I am certain I can find Sting, stinging labels too.

Of course they do, the brainwashed always will prefer the shackles instead of freedom, they don’t know how to live in a free world.

The no payments and contracts is for you to decide.

The IP laws that grant you certain monopolies is for the people to decide if they agree with it or not.

The internet will not help you with that.

But you guys don’t even want to pay once.
OK, let’s talk copyright, but you can’t negotiate copyright while you’re taking the product without paying for it.. not even once.
Everyone on your list gets paid at least once.
Are fashion items free, is coca cola free, the happy meal?
So why should records be free?

Begging for money from “fans” isn’t begging? Another Techdirt head scratcher.

Your cat needs love!

Is the Pirate Bay taking ownership of their rights? No.

Is the Pirate Bay charging them fees for distribution? No.

Is the Pirate Bay providing them with an advance which they must fully recoup otherwise the artist has to declare bankruptcy to avoid paying back the advance? No.

Is the Pirate Bay making money off of the artist and charging them for services (but not paying for said service with the money they already made)? No.

Is the Pirate Bay’s income supporting the FREE distribution mechanism for any artist to disperse (or fans or enemies or people who just want to share and do care or don’t care) via ads but charging the artists nothing more? Yes.

Is the Pirate Bay loaded with money and charging users fees, in addition to ad-revenue, and raking in the cash? No (see the damn court case – proven they ain’t got the cash IFPI said they did).

So when you have a free service, that is free to you, should you be paid in addition to being provided a free distribution service? NO!

95% to 60%? Citation needed (with actual valid math, not numbers pulled out of one’s backside, ie: IFPI).

How much did they make compared to previous label supported releases again?

Spotify is NOT replacing radio. Radio wasn’t on demand. Spotify is actually launching an internet radio service to compete with Pandora. Man, you guys don’t even understand the most basic concepts do you?

Pandora = Radio. Spotify = Retail Subscription. Pandora = Win. Spotify = Fail.

Spotify is a disaster for artists, which is why many of them are leaving the service. Spotify in a panic is now launching a Pandora like service so that 1) no one can opt out (due to it being like radio and not retail) and 2) so they can grow a subscriber base to (hopefully) migrate to the on demand (not radio) service.

Pitching Spotify’s on demand service as a replacement for radio is an outright lie. Terrestrial radio is still the #1 driver for music sales. Spotify cannibalizes music sales.

You really need to educate yourself. Actually I’m sure you already know all this, it’s just in your interest to not tell the truth.

hating on tech companies taking 100% of the money and paying the artists 0%. where are the contracts for artists to get paid from piracy?

tell you what, when google starts sharing the ad revenue with the artists they are monetizing advertising against on pirate sites you’ll have a point, until than you have the usual BS.

let’s just see how fair these artists contracts are from the pirate bay? Oh, what’s that? The pirate bay does not give artists contracts or payments? FAIL.

Radiohead could only have made more because EMI invested millions and millions of dollars into the band being “Radiohead.”

For the bands without the support of millions in corporate financing there is no upshot. More music is stolen than purchased and if every band had no label, the numbers would not grow. Ask all the hobbyists on Tunecore making an average of $277 a year. Wow, that’s a living. That will pay the rent.

FAIL.

And the price fixing had nothing to do with that.

Nor the fact that people were replacing worn out vinyl and stretched/chewed cassette tapes.

The devil is in the details and the only people will the full demographical information containing proof that new sales were dropping before Napster and people were replacing old, previous purchased formats are the labels. The same companies who won’t ever let that cat out of the bag because they know it would discredit their so-called studies. All we have are samples that prove such. No mass collection.

Want that proof? Indict the labels and subpoena their financial and data records.

no, the point is the OP in this thread asserted, “I truly believe most fans will support the artists they like.”

that is not true as 62% of Radiohead FANS paid nothing for the bands album when the band gave them a choice to pay, or not. So this argument is FALSE.

you can move the goal posts, and you can change the conversation, but the fact remains the assertion that “fans will support the artists they like” is absolutely false if given the choice to obtain the album for free, even if illegally so.

FAIL, Next…

“I wonder how many of the 62% went out and bought the physical afterward? Essentially that throws your theory out with the trash.”

no, there’s no data to support that claim. what data we do have is that 62% of the bands FANS decided not to pay the band for their album.

FAIL.

You do understand that according to observations of the real world only 20% or less would at any given time pay for it anyways right?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle

There go educate yourself so you don’t look so dumb when talking out of your ass.

“No they actually file lawsuits claiming that crap and get bitch slapped in courts all over the world.”

looks to me like it was Jaime Thomas and Joel Tenenbaum who got bitch slapped. Even a Harvard Law Prof couldn’t argue effectively against the illegal exploitation of artists work without consent or compensation.

FAIL.

Is the Pirate Bay paying artists anything. NO.

Is the Pirate Bay respecting artists. NO.

Is the Pirate Bay sharing the profit with artists. NO.

The pirate bay is NOT a free service, nor does it provide the artists with any service. The Pirate Bay is a FOR PROFIT company making 100% of the money and paying artists 0%.

If anything you are saying is true, than why not let the artists decide for themselves? Hmmm… probably because the pirate bay has no business without illegally exploiting artists and keeping 100% of the money… that number again is the pirate bay keeping 100% of the money and paying artists ZERO percent.

FAIL.

Hmmm…there is this girl called Bibber have you heard of him?
She started on the internet I believe.

There are a lot more people though that are making 6 figures just on Youtube alone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_YouTube_personalities

what’s desperate is the attempt to justify the wrong doing of the pirate bay who make 100% of the money and pay artists 0%.

that’s ZERO money paid to artists. ZERO.

That’s desperate indeed that a business model is sooooo bad, that it requires ripping off artists 100% so that they can make their MILLIONS.

Labels Pay Artists. Pirates Don’t.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charice_Pempengco

Got a gig on Glee and started on Youtube LoL

and uhm, labels actually pay the artists, and pirates actually don’t. so when it comes time to pay the rent, it’s better to get paid.

but what’s worse is, if an artist doesn’t sign to a label, they still can’t get paid from pirates (who are making 100% of the money)

so you are asking artists to not get paid, so that they can have no hope of getting paid for the consumption of their music.

asking artists to tour and sell t-shirts is an outright admission that there is no money for musicians in the online economy, and further more, it’s a step backwards of about 40-50 years… that’s how artists did it before the internet and you want them to go backwards not forwards.

of course anyone can put an album up via tunecore, but the average tunecore artist is only making $179 a year…

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/042511tunecore#dLuDbcK_0fMVeNKJf4N0QQ

The point, Marcus, is that the potential of such “DIY” services, as a replacement for label support, have been routinely overblown. If you support art and artists, then ultimately you do want some of them to have the chance to make an okay living from their work. For now, the label system is helping artists do that far more than Tunecore or the battery of “DIY” services.

and guess which gig is actually paying the bills? youtube or glee? hmmm, let me guess… Glee.

same with beiber, is youtube paying the bills or interscope records. hmmm, let me guess… Interscope Records.

pick a lie and stick to it.

you are just pointing out how youtube can’t support artists and they need to get real gigs that really pay. thanks for making the point so clear.

Oh google leaked it to drive hits to their search engine. That makes plenty of sense

wow, just wow, what a great work of delusion fiction.

pretty much everything you’ve posted is dead wrong, but here’s one biggie…

“Terrestrial radio is still the #1 driver for music sales.”
http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2011/12/active-vs-passive-fans-why-radio-tv-still-rank-tops-for-music-discovery-best-of-hypebot.html

Spotify is NOTHING like radio. Radio sells records, Spotify cannibalizes sales.

http://www.tested.com/news/news/3194-music-distributor-pulls-200-small-labels-from-spotify-and-rdio/

“A recent study conducted by NPD Group and NARM found that streaming music services like Spotify and Rdio are detrimental to the sales of individual pieces of music. “

http://digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2012/120207mccartney

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2012/120113vanhalen

http://www.vh1.com/music/tuner/2011-12-13/the-black-keys-discuss-their-controversial-spotify-decision/

Its replacing radio, just because its replacing radio does not mean it can not add more features than radio had. Pandora is radio on the internet, Spotify is the next evolution. Why is it so hard for you people to realize that technology moves forward? Also subscription is not required for spotify.

Tell you what when you understand what a search engine does we can talk because you just sound like an idiot when you say Google monetize artists and forget that Google actually monetizes everybody and it is legal to do so they broke no law, but you seem to think that indexing your shitty crap is somewhat different and should get a cut?

Blood sucking leech that is what you are.

The Pirate Bay is not a label either so why should they have the need for a contract, further since they are not the ones doing the sharing why are they responsible? because they didn’t block something you wanted it censored?

radio wasn’t on demand. radio sold records.

spotify is on demand. spotify does not sell records.

also, there’s no “discovery” on spotify. radio exposed artists, but people go to spotify to hear what they already know.

How exactly is the tech sector ripping off artists in any way?
The ones apparently doing the ripping off are artists not tech, and talking about ripping off those same artists should be more concerned with their own support platforms(i.e. labels) which are infamous for doing exactly that.

As for pirates, well I hope they continue to rip you off, from today till the end of times, because that is exactly what you people deserve.

I never got a license to rip off music from the radio was that bad?

I never got a license for listening to radio is that illegal?

I never got a license to play VEVO is the legal?

the pirate bay pays artists ZERO money. ZERO. they are illegally exploiting the artists work without consent or compensation. if they have such a great model either 1) let the artist decide to participate or not, and/or 2) pay the artist.

your right the pirate bay is not a record label. record labels PAY artists. the pirate bay keeps 100% of the money for themselves. uh, yeah, that’s fair. 100% Greed.

http://www.amptoons.com/blog/2003/09/12/how-record-labels-exploit-bands/

Hey, TPB sounds better than this:

“For instance, if the artists grosses $3 million dollars, that translates to $750,000 of profit for the record label. How much does a band member get? $4031.25.

But not really. Because the band is also $14,000 in debt to the record company. So for a deal which gave the label $750,000 profit, the band profits approximately $5,000. Put another way, after all expenses are accounted for, and everyone but the band and the label has been paid, of the remaining money 99.4% is paid to the label; the remainder is paid to the artists.”

good for you drew, you get to make choices for yourself, you don’t get to make choices for other artists. if you don’t mind me asking, how much have you gotten paid from the pirate bay, and, uhm… I don’t suppose you work a day job do you?

hmmmmm….

Further, lets be clear here – the number of albums owned by people is increasing, not decreasing (the MP3 generation) – yet the sales of recorded music are 60% lower than they were pre-MP3.

One can very easily draw a conclusion that, the arrival of MP3s and piracy have directly lead to the falling recorded music sales.

It would seem that the numbers correlate very nicely here. Denying it is pretty much admitting you don’t want to see anything that blows up your pro-piracy views.

Terrestrial radio LoL

Don’t know for who, because it certainly isn’t where I discover anything.

Now about Spotify, you crazy person the study apparently is saying all streaming services are bad for musicians and so is Pandora since it is a streaming service, what an idiot you are.

Lol, wow really?

So anyone who is a musician should have instant success?

You should really read this http://www.amptoons.com/blog/2003/09/12/how-record-labels-exploit-bands/

as it explores the awesomeness of how labels screw over artists for money.

You don’t like to read do you?

It is a court case filled by the RIAA you can go get the court records those are public.

So what?
The Pirate Bay does not exploit the artists, users do.

Monopolies end and so will copyright, boo hoo.

Lets correlate, plot the graph of digital sales along with the physical sales and see what it happens.

Also plot the piracy numbers that keep growing.
Further plot mark the dates of the “education campaign” in the US and see how well it lines up with the decline in sales.

That is the point stupid, everybody even open source gets paid and they let everybody copy it freely, so if they can why can’t you?

Correction, 62% of PEOPLE downloaded it didn’t pay.

What percentage of the 62% were fans? Citation needed.

What percentage of the 62% purchased the album physically or purchased the album by downloading it again, paying for it this time?

What percentage of the 62% purchased other material from Radiohead?

You do not have the answers and you cannot assume, because you want to produce an argument, what you have no evidence for.

And when supplied evidence from IFPI is mathematically impossible, their studies lose credibility.

“that is true as 62% of the people who downloaded a free Radiohead album paid nothing for the bands album when the band gave them a choice to pay or not. But all of their fans paid for it and they made more money then they did on any label record they released so this statement is TRUE.”

FTFY

Not to mention that each download was probably not a unique person. You also don’t know how many people that never bought a radiohead album before bought that one.

typing things in caps does not suddenly make them true. It does make you look like a moron though.

He likes other people to do the work for him, I guess he works for a label.

First thank you El for your input and thoughts, it helps to show the real people affected are the artist (and all the talk by both sides seems to leave this out).

Just so you know by doing this I have now heard of you and will check out your album, and if I like it I will purchase it, if not I wish you success (and I may still buy it to support you because you spoke out reasonably and intellengently and should be rewarded for it in a time when so few do).

“of course anyone can put an album up via tunecore, but the average tunecore artist is only making $179 a year”

Yes when anyone can put an album up the average an artist makes goes down. I can upload myself farting on a snare drum it won’t sell but it can be on there. It brings down the average of the talented acts that do make money. Also these are acts that did not have access to this revenue stream before. Going from 0 a year to 179 a year is a 80 bazillion % increase.

Also every time you say that the average goes down. At least keep your bullshit straight.

This guy has to be a troll. I can’t believe anyone can be so stupid, so bad at having a rational discussion, so horrible at following the thread of conversation and constantly reaching for strawmen without doing it on purpose.

Do people like this really exist? Is this level of pigheaded stupidity real? Even the labels know it isn’t really about piracy its about control of the market. This guy…this guy can’t be for real.

No your wrong. No one uses google search or any google product unless its to steal content from artists. Without artists to leech from they would be poor.

/sarc

2 and 5000 hell of a batting average there.. FAIL

Raise it, and people will simply find a more fan-friendly artist to listen to.

“Labels Pay Artists. Pirates Don’t.”

You realize that pirates are consumers/customers right? They are actually the only way labels or artists make money. But suing and condescending and insulting them is surely your best way to get them to support you.

Google had 0 dollars 30 years ago. The music industry made X% of money spent in America 30 years ago.

Now the music industry only makes Y% and google makes billions. Therefore any difference between y% and x% is money google steals from the record labels.

Of course ignore all the other new options for entertainment that are taking money use to spend on music. Because if people couldn’t get free music they wouldn’t buy these other things because they NEED music. The fucking NEED our content they are shitty pop music junkies. We spend millions on marketing getting them to need this content. No way someone could just play video games all the time without playing their pirated Bibier cds.

/retard

I imagine its some kind of broken logic like that. Works for any *woe is me, piracy!* industry.

posted real data, provide your real data.

citations please.

again:

“Terrestrial radio is still the #1 driver for music sales.”
http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2011/12/active-vs-passive-fans-why-radio-tv-still-rank-tops- for-music-discovery-best-of-hypebot.html

Spotify is NOTHING like radio. Radio sells records, Spotify cannibalizes sales.

http://www.tested.com/news/news/3194-music-distributor-pulls-200-small-labels-from-spotify-and-r dio/

“A recent study conducted by NPD Group and NARM found that streaming music services like Spotify and Rdio are detrimental to the sales of individual pieces of music. “

Again, even more simple:
Fees to Pirate Bay by artists or users for distribution service: 0%

Therefor, percentage of operating revenue delivered to users or artists for using the service free of charge: 0%

Hence, profits to Pirate Bay: 100%

NOTE: a company that keeps 100% of its profits does not necessarily mean they are rich, case and point, The Pirate Bay.

“evidence that suing fans and promotion of draconian laws and enforcement, along with alienation of consumers, ignorance to economics of disposable income, Maslov’s hierarchy of needs, concepts of competition, concepts of monopolistic control and price fixing” all detrimental to an even greater extent than Spotify or RDio to the sales of individual pieces of music.

None as detrimental as quality and obscurity.

And you don’t graduate from obscurity with the help of terrestrial radio, playing pre-approved play-lists (supported via payola).

BTW, citing two articles, one which refers to the second as the source of information, really doesn’t count as two separate points.

That’s the same as “John says Elvis is alive” and “Chris says John says Elvis is alive” counting as two separate sources, which they do not.

“?Committed? consumers are the youngest group, with a mean age of 32 (20 percent are age 13 to 17; 42 percent are 18 to 35). They represent 10 percent of all consumers who listened to or purchased music within the prior three months. ?Committed? consumers also account for 46 percent of per-capita spending on music, and they are the most engaged consumers in the report. While they use a variety of discovery sources ? including radio, video, streaming, and movies ? they also value ownership, and they are the most open to discovering new artists. They find their current means to discover new music is good, but still wonder if they are missing something.”

The larger groups who get their “new” music from radio, don’t buy much music and prefer “new” music from familiar bands. You are talking about old people who find out on the radio that one of the three artists they still listen to released a new album.

The smaller groups spend the majority of the money. And they do their discovery on new media. But hey skew the data and try to make it look like the sky is green and your ass is clean. Maybe you’ll even buy your own bullshit.

Oh yeah and your study was published in Nov 11. So it was being conducted as spotify was launching in the US. You mean a few month old service wans’t number 1 all ready? It must be a failure.

No because no matter how much money he makes they will say “He would have made so much more without piracy.”

Even if your claim about there being no money for artists online were true, why do you feel they are entitled to continue having X% of their income be derived from selling copies of their work (and/or selling at a particular price point)? Talk about being stuck in the past. It is not my job, as a consumer, to ensure that artist revenue sources remain within certain proportions to each other!

Are you retarded? You do know that “instant gratification” is something big corporation use to sell their products?

Why do you think we have “fast food” and Itunes, so people can get what they want right away.

The labels cater to this mentality, then when they can’t control it, they whine.

house of cards, falling:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,829124,00.html

when google releases all of their source as open let me know, in the meantime watch the patent lawsuits.

Yes and we have laws to restrain our worst impulses, when they are determined to be violating the legal rights of others. Fast food and iTunes are lawful and consensual. Labels are in business to make money for themselves and artists can partner with them or not. The labels have legal rights to what they produce (otherwise they wouldn’t garner any investment capital). Which is worse, a label with perfectly legal rights “whining” when their rights are being ignored, or a consumer who is knowingly exploiting another person’s legal rights “whining” when they are told they can’t do it as much as they would like?

You are not entitled to unlicensed content. Deal with it.

Every legitimate business controls the “ebb and flow” of the product under the law. That’s what businesses do.

No one said Itunes and fast are not lawful, but the mentality of the average consumer is when I want something, I want it now.

Why not cater to that, provide consumers what they want when they want. You may say that denotes entitlement, but…I’d feel pretty entitled if it was my money being invested into something I was unsure of.

Yes, labels do have the right to what they produce and they also have the right to whine about things. They also apparently have the right to screw their artists out of royalties when it suits their needs (http://gizmodo.com/352762/riaa-wants-to-cut-artist-royalties-to-9-apple-wants-them-at-4-artists-just-want-to-eat). And sue people. Attempt to strip copyrights from their artists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA). Sue people who did not even pirate music (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_group_efforts_against_file_sharing).

Sorry, but I could care less how piracy affects the labels considering that they take most of the earnings of the artists.

there are 45% less professional musicians from 2001 to 2011 according to the US Bureau Of Labor Statistics.

that makes for more hobbyists, not more professional musicians.

is this the source of your favorite bands?
http://www.soundclick.com

which ones?

Beyond gigging, CD’s, Tshirts, which you no longer do, and licensing, what other means have you tried to earn income from your work?

Have you partnered with any performance artists, beyond T’s and seats, for such things at Kickstarter? For example, say you partner with performance artist X and you both work out a deal to share the proportions of the Kickstarter album record/tour promo funds.

Is this possible? There are other ideas, such as getting noticed by having your performers advertise who you are, the writer, the creative brain. Then fans can connect with you, you don’t expect much, but a few fans connecting and you be open and honest, could result in new offerings. Such as your own kickstarter fund and you license your work to other performance artists.

Yes I am brainstorming, but that’s what needs to happen. Try it, if it does not work are you any worse off? No. But you could be better off if you do try. Gone are the days when you had to rely on ASCAP or SOCAN and labels to license your work.

With regards to the popular stuff being shared being major releases, well that makes total sense doesn’t it, if you take someone unheard of and spend millions advertising on them, they too will be popular on the networks. People checking it out. Of course if the material is not what they want, well it doesn’t get bought. That happens even without filesharing.

Regardless of how hated they are, people fileshare what they know, hence why obscurity is far worse than piracy.

And I guess some feel that by filesharing, even if they hate the labels or the artist, they are somehow “sticking it to the man” despite the fact that those particular individuals would not have purchased anyway.

Of course some would have purchased but because they have it for free won’t bother. Others get it for free and make purchases anyway. And still others don’t bother getting it for free and just purchase. It’s about pricing and perceived value. It isn’t just “well it is free, so who would pay for it” because if that were true, no one would be renting movies (which many still are) or going to cinemas or buying music (CD or download).

Think of the whole situation as a multi-variable control system with many feedback loops, each with their own gain values, that change dynamically and are not predictable (especially to major labels). You have so many inputs, so much complex processing with multiple stages and internal feedback loops, the outputs are virtually impossible to predict with any real certainty.

Rather than bash the labels or whine and complain about the “state the industry is in” I am urging you to open the discussion of things to try.

And actually try them, really do, remember if you do a half-assed job you get half-assed results. Put your heart into it like you do your craft and you will get results, especially if you are on the tops of the song lists.

Cheers, Writeem, and don’t be discouraged. I am not saying living in a dream world and say “all will be OK” either, just try and be open to suggestions, especially new and different things.

Take a look at the horse whip and harness industry when the automobile came about for a historical example of what legal rights when society changes means.

Wouldn’t it be painful if he turned out to be one of your favorite musicians?

pirate bay = no payments to artists ever.

FAIL.

Lo, we know…you said it about 50 times, then proceeded to say someone else was talking in circles

That is…until the RIAA goes under.

Hopefully soon because then artists will have true freedom.

Lol “Millions”

” In an investigation in 2006, the police concluded that The Pirate Bay brings in 1.2 million SEK (US$168,885.60) per year from advertisements.[39] The prosecution estimated in the 2009 trial from emails and screenshots that the advertisements pay over 10 million SEK (US$1.40738M) a year,[40] but in the indictment used the estimate from the police investigation.[41] The lawyers of the site’s administrators counted the 2006 revenue closer to 725,000 SEK (US$102,035.05).[42] The verdict of the trial however quoted the estimate from the preliminary investigation.[43]”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pirate_Bay

I don’t think you realize that by lying you’re not convincing anyone otherwise.

the majority of the bands fans downloaded the album without paying. who do you think went to get it for free, beiber fans? the amount of magical thinking you can come up with is amazing.

FAIL.

the pirate bay exploits artists, users did not create the pirate bay.

I agree! And so is copyright.

No, you are wrong and need to learn how to read, please go back to school. 5,000 singed up… so far probably less than 10 have been featured, and over those 10 only ONE in a meaningful way…

try again… FAIL.
http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/2012/04/07/smells-like-pirate-desperation/

artist will have true freedom when people like you stop defending tech companies like the pirate bay stealing 100% of the artists money and giving them 0%.

the pirate bay makes the RIAA look like saints. the RIAA also has nothing to do with artists rights. the RIAA is looking out for labels not artists.

so your solution to one injustice is the support an even GREATER injustice. wow, you’re a real genius there with that logic.

so you have no substantive reply than… figures… you’re out of argument.

FAIL.

Are you under the assumption that all filesharing sites make loads of money? If that were true then The Pirate Bay’s accounts would have proven and it would be public knowledge that they have oodles of $$$. Megaupload was such a site, but they collected money from users, not just ad revenue.

It would be interesting to see their balance sheet so you can see just how much money can be made from hosting a filesharing site.

Why is P2P illegal? It simply made CD’s semi-obsolete because it is more efficient and that’s what customers want. Same with the automobile, it’s what customers wanted because it was more efficient to get from one point to the next.

You make it sound, and maybe that’s what you believe and if you have proof that would be great, that all filesharing is like ads for beer using your music. Your song generates people’s desire to want beer (hypothetical here – bear with me) and the beer company makes millions off of you, but paid you a small license, say in dollars, so they made 1-million times your license agreement. And now you’re unhappy (this is actually true in many cases, artists were shafted by advertisers whose products flourished because of a groovy song — and vice versa, like Baltimora’s Tarzan Boy thanks to Listerine).

But most filesharing sites (The Pirate Bay included) make just enough for the operators to earn a living, IF that, and pay for bandwidth and hardware costs (upgrades and capital costs). They are not rolling in the cash like you think. If I am wrong, please point me to a non-IFPI “study” but instead indictment information that shows real data proving that these sites are making mega dollars off of your hard work.

Also note that you’re not paying for the distribution they provide, so if they make $1 off of you, is that worth fighting for? Imagine said sites decided to remove your works, now no one can hear unless there is a provider who can arrange payola to terrestrial radio, license and distribute to the remaining stores, delivery to places where the infrastructure isn’t like most major US cities, etc… Imagine the cost, I know the costs are high, look at import prices for music.

Do they have to be? Will you, as a potential paying customer, purchase that import? Will you even know about it because of the lack of promotion?

Switch back to your songwriting self, will you even earn anything after the promo and licenses are dealt with, plus delivery costs, to distribute your work to potential paying customers?

There are no fees with filesharing. Licensing needs some revamping. Labels ARE negotiating with various sites and most are bankrupt because of the labels. Yes that’s true, search P2PNet.Net and TechDirt.com for examples (they have a descent search feature) on companies that have started up and planned to give greater share to artists only to be bullied out of existence or into giving the lion’s share to the label, who in turn gives pittance to the artist and songwriter.

If you have documentation otherwise, please share it, but this is what I’ve read.

It really sounds like you feel everyone is making money off of your work, and therefore they must be hugely rich, which is not necessarily the case.

One artist blogged a very long 5-article rant against iTunes (among other things) because iTunes takes 30% of the sale. Labels don’t do that, so the person says, and labels provide so much more (not from my reliable sources — ie: UMG does NOT provide fuck-all to a popular Canadian artist, no A&R men/women, nothing, no promotion, just use the guy as a cash-cow) than iTunes.

Not quite, iTunes a) centralizes the music b) makes it EASY to acquire it and c) made it affordable and even d) gave consumers the option of choosing what they wanted (ie just the songs they wanted – no force on album purchase).

iTunes prices were pushed by the labels, no shock there, even the mighty Apple was pushed around by the media giants of Warner/Sony/etc..

Rapidshare was crippled because of the labels. So who’s profiting off our your back? It isn’t the majority of the filesharing community or the people who operate/develop the networks and hardware to support the protocols.

It’s the labels dude, seriously, and their lawyers.

Have you tried looking into other ideas beyond licensing? Other avenues?

not really, you guys have the same talking points repeated over and over, how’s it feel? … so tell me, do you support the pirate bay ripping off artists and paying them nothing? what’s your stand on that?

when the pirate bay offers contracts and compensation to artists let me know, until then they are ripping off artists and keeping 100% of the money… isn’t that your rant against labels? well guess what, the pirate bay is worse than all the labels and the RIAA… the pirate bay pays artists 0% and keeps 100% for the profit for themselves, yeah, that’s progress.

Hey dumbshit don’t tell us to wake up when you refuse to see how labels are just as bad criminals as pirates.

If the 99% are dependent upon the labels, who would rather cut your income than reduce their profits, then yes you’d lose by filesharing as that cuts the labels’ income.

How much time have you spent on this site?

The income that the filesharing sites earns goes straight into bandwidth, infrastructure, and a little for a few people running (not thousands, there were 3 for the Pirate Bay). And let’s not forget someone already posted the proof provided by the indictment, ad revenues for the Pirate Bay were $106k US. Consider the bandwidth costs and hardware upkeep costs, split the remainder 3 ways and that’s their income.

Are you certain that the income stream is severely diverted to infringers and enablers? You remember the works for hire law that took some 3yrs to be repealed? The labels did that dude.

People are NOT profiting off your back like you think they are, at least not the filesharing crowd.

Have you and the engineers/producers/songwriters, the 99% basically, considered other means of income? No, not day jobs, but instead a) charge artist x dollars for mixing or recording, or for your song b) write new songs and sell to other artists or mix their work or add them to your promotional list.

Think of the painter, if he/she wants more $$, they paint more. It’s different from the license, which you don’t have to dismiss, but let’s face it, the public has a difficult time with being paid for the duration of copyright terms. It isn’t much, no, but I’ve heard the “my kids, my estate” complaints too. Okay, why again am I supposed to pay for the estate of someone’s family because they created a piece of work?

I write code and design systems. I don’t get paid each time the system is used, so if I want more income, I have to develop more systems and write more code.

Perhaps the “royalty” model is failing to keep up with the times. It worked “well” under the false-scarcity of copies world, but we’re beyond that.

If you are a great engineer, you’ll get more bands for you to record, they’ll pay you $x. Want more $$, you’ll have to work with more bands, promoting yourself.

Same goes for songs. If you are that great of a writer, can you consider not licensing and instead breaking the mold and selling the right to perform for a fixed cost.

I realize it isn’t the same and that’s now how it is done, but the means of distribution isn’t the same either. There’s more than just radio. And there’s far more people writing than before as they now have a chance.

You have to compete with that, but you can’t say “I’m getting free distribution but they make tonnes off of me so they shouldn’t.”

What if we started charging all artists and users for content shared on the network. That would be like… if Napster was purchased by UMG in 1998/9. All users had to pay money to upload and download. All artists had to give up a portion of their royalties for covering the costs of exposure and ability to be shared.

That’s the monetized version of filesharing. That’s not what filesharing is about and those profits under that imaginary system (assuming any competition was killed) would be real profits, much like the Pirate Bay was accused of.

That world would be far worse for EVERYONE, songwriters included, you’d get even less than you do now. You could still argue the operators of Nap$ter are profiting off of your work, but you’d be actually correct. The labels would have much more $$ and total control.

Hell, if they didn’t like your work or figured it wasn’t valuable enough financially, they’d just drop you and you’d get nothing. You’d have no where to go, no Pirate Bay, no BitTorrent, not P2P, nothing. Your songs would not be on any list, anywhere.

That’s what it could be like and if the execs at UMG and the like had their way, that’s what it would be like. No competition from pesky indie artists. Nothing. Just fake “indie” labels owned by the majors, with 2% royalties, and unrecouped artists. That’s where the unrecouped artists go.

“If I go cold I won’t get sold, I’ll be put in the back, on the discount rack, like another can of beans.” Billy Joel, the Entertainer.

The future is open for you right now and the other 99%, but not if you hold hope into the old ways. Or worse, if the labels buy their laws and kill all competition, you’d be totally screwed as there will be really no where to go.

I agree, I don’t know why people here support the pirate bay ripping off artists and keeping 100% of the artists money. It’s disgusting to see people advocating that the solution to one injustice is to support and promote an even GREATER injustice that pays artists NOTHING.

Okay, that’s it. I’m going to punch a baby for each post with the word “FAIL” in it.

utter BS – IF “It’s not all “let’s rip off the artists” then tell me if you support the pirate bay ripping off artists and keeping 100% of the artists money, and paying the artists $0 dollars!

show me leigh and mike saying they don’t support the pirate bay ripping off artists (citation please) c’mon show me where mike and leigh say that they don’t support the pirate bay ripping off artists… show it to me … LOL. c’mon, we can get to single character width! spoofin…

I support artists getting paid, I do not support labels ripping off artist. I do not support labels ripping artists off.

ok, now that we’re clear, show me where mike and leigh say they don’t support the pirate bay ripping off artists …

if you dont like your pay model, maby you should work to change it.

get paid up front for your work rather then working on a % basis or per play/sale basis.

I’m happy with the current pay model. You seem unhappy with royalty payments for musicians, so I’m just pointing out the flaw in unauthorized downloading is that we the artist doesn’t even get paid once.
Another flaw in the general opinion here at Techdirt is that you ignore the army of self releasers and small independents.
When you download that music against our wishes (AND you do), you don’t pay the artist even once. You are angry at the middle men and the copyright system, but when an independent artist asks you to support their recordings by paying them directly, many of you still download the music without paying. The OP EI-P is a clear example of that. pay the guy once. Support the artists who have sidestepped the ‘gatekeepers’ and put up their own money to make their own recordings.
Until you do, all the diatribes against ‘gatekeepers’ and artists being paid for doing no work are just uninformed BS.

the pirate bay is ripping off artists. that’s a fact. other wise show me where the contracts and payments to artists are.

citation please.

and so you support that. I support the artists getting paid.

I know you couldn’t say it. I knew you supported the pirate bay ripping off artists. why do you hate artists so much?

you don’t think the pirate bay is ripping off artists? not after losing lawsuits? not when it is obvious?

you think it’s ok that the pirate bay makes money by exploiting artists illegally. wow, just wow.

you are too funny… single word thread… gotchya!

you need a contract to distribute the artists work for commercial profit which is what the pirate bay does, and takes 100% of the artists money, ripping the artist off and giving the artists 0% of the money earned from that commercial exploitation… at least $4m a year according to tech crunch.

why do you support ripping off artists?

“Come on. The quote is “in space” with all of the context around it removed. Are you fucking kidding me? Even Mike wouldn’t cherry pick that bad!”

Well, if the quote that got to the heart of the matter isn’t satisfying to you then read the full 17 page court decision here in all it’s context…

http://tinyurl.com/usa-vs-dove-pdf

why do you support people ripping off artists? explain how the pirate bay is not ripping off artists? this will be good.

who is david lowery?

I don’t hate anyone, not even the worst pirates.
I’m just pointing out the faulty logic many of you use to excuse ripping off artists.
So to conclude:
Even when an artist uses their own money to make music, and cuts out the gatekeeper, many people pirate the music (example EI-P)
You don’t like copyright’s length and scope, but you are unwilling to pay artists even once when they go DIY and release a record.
You don’t think anyone should be paid for doing something they love, even though many Apple employees love technology, many nurses love caring for people, and soldiers love serving their country.
You are fighting (supposedly) for freedom and democracy. However you refuse to abide by the law while you can’t change the music business model democratically, and you trample on all musicians freedoms in pursuit of your own (financial not creative) ideals.

You don’t like that people complain about the censoring powers given to idiots that believe they should be paid over and over and over again.

You don’t like when people complain that nobody else have those kind of “rights”, you don’t care how those things affects others and so you keep trying to defend the indefensible.

I don’t understand why a leech needs to get paid.

The social leeches you call artists didn’t do the work, why they should get any of that money.

If I work the land I am entitled to the fruits of that work, if another guy comes in and do better than me is his not mine, why should you or anyone else get some?

I don’t even believe that somebody playing the same song as you should pay you anything, they should get their money from the people who wants to pay them and not have to deal with people like you.

100% of artists money?

Where?

Where is the work the artist did there to warrant any money at all?

just answer the question leigh, why do you support artists being ripped off by the pirate bay and paying them nothing.

you can always come to the light and just say “I leigh, do not support artists getting ripped off by the pirate bay.”

If you don’t support artists getting ripped off, just say so.

I won’t hold my breath.

You’re convoluting the by trying to cram as many arguments as possible into one argument, even when they are not related.

1) The money goes elsewhere into the economy
2) It may not go into the label’s pockets, but it goes into the economy none the less
3) When you download an album – now you’re assuming 1 download != 1 sale
4) You are listening/viewing without paying for it, the question is, would you have otherwise if it was not for free? Not necessarily, such assumptions that “yes they would” are as ridiculous as “no one will buy if it is free” because that’s been proven wrong already (see: iTunes).
5) No one denies the hard work required, but they deny that since free distribution is available suddenly the non-existing profits (above paying for people who host it and developed the service) somehow should be distributed to the artists.
6) What part of my argument says a musician should be paid for doing nothing? Where did I say that? No where – strawman attempt!
7) When you download an album and later buy it, you DID pay. Though if you believe the RIAA that’s two sales that should have happened, once when you downloaded it for free and once when you bought it from a store (online or physical). That is NOT reality!
8) Any album may be hard work but is that hard work worth it? If I spend six months, 12 hours a day developing an application and it crashes randomly and corrupts data, who will buy it or even use it? They may download it, try it and remove it. Just because you put hard work into something does not make it worth some value that you decide it is.
9) How many albums have you bought for just one or two songs? How many of the other songs were filler? Tough luck? Ugh, no, that’s “fuck you consumer.” And that’s another reason (note: “another reason” is not the same as “the only reason”) why people don’t buy albums but instead buy tracks.
10) If a band releases questionable material TO YOU are you willing to gamble on their next release? Or would you rather download it and feel relieved when it sucked. And the same applies to the opposite, you download for free and wow it was awesome, so you next time buy it.
11) Case and Point: Apparitions, downloaded free, later bought the album along with many other albums (CD’s – I’m old school). Case and Point again: U2’s last few albums, heard tracks after downloading, didn’t like, didn’t spend the money, not pissed that I was “ripped off into buying this sold-as-amazing but completely disappointing music.”
12) For those who don’t care or who want more, if you want to make more $$$ on copies that are available for free, give them a reason and they’ll do more than pay the $10 for the album where you get $2 if you’re lucky. They’ll buy the packages you offer, not just a damn tShirt, look at different packages (NIN, John Freese, Amanda Palmber, etc..) offered.

Look, you can’t go against the flood gates so stop lavishing in the past and look at ways to go forward, and don’t do it half-assed. And most of all, don’t alienate your fans, remember if fans paid they should not be lectured! They’ll quickly turn into non-paying fans if not non-paying-non-fans!

And I referring to the fact that it worked so well that they keep doing it to this day and it is there to everyone to see it.

Why would they keep giving away music for free if they weren’t able to get money some way?

I bet when you go fishing you tell the freetard fish not to eat your bait right?

illegal BUSINESSES like the pirate bay should not be able to operate illegally. the pirate bay is ripping off artists, and paying the artists nothing. the pirate bay is a for profit business. you do know the difference between a person and a business right?

I don’t think people see as being a musician these days as a cool thing. I bet nobody is making any friends in social circles if they say they are a leeching musician that depends on a monopoly that screw others.

That is as reasonable as your own assertions.

Can you answer why do you support censorship and oppressive regimes by supporting the legal frameworks that are used by others to do harm to people?

first, I have no issue with people being paid to do/from doing something they love, but being paid for the rest of their lives and their childrens lives….thats not fair in my book…

our “democracy” is a farce, its become a corporatocracy, society has made it clear for years that the bulk of us dont like or respect copyright as it stands, yet the govt dosnt listen, why is that?

its because big content has the money to pay them to ignore us OR they are stake holders in big content.

next you will say “vote them out” how exectially do we do that and vote in somebody whos not a wholey owned subsidary of the same industry when big content backs both sides?

and on a note, soldiers enlarge love our country, but they dont love killing and dieing for it nore do they love being maimed (mentally or physically) they dont love being seen/though of as murderes by the bulk of the non-us world…

please again give us your name, and the works you have been involved in so we can avoid them, if you cant do that, you just admitting your a lier and shill.

I love to see you make laws inside my own home LoL

Well, the fact is something those fans are doing it because Radiohead keeps giving them more free stuff, so money must be coming in from somewhere.

If it were that simple, the site would be taken down already. But the ship still sails. :3

Wow, where in the hell did you get that idea from? Are you really that bloody single minded. “Everyone who disagrees with me, will never pay for music”? Is that it?

That’s a ridiculous twisting of my comment. Why am I not surprised.
many times I’ve read Techdirters say they wont pay for music. They don’t like the label system and they don’t like copyright terms.
So if you downloaded the EI-P record without buying it, and you then claim artists shouldn’t be paid for not working (aka copyright), how are you even paying EI-P once, for the WORK HE HAS DONE?
Just answer the question without twisting my words to suit your agenda.

I agree, I don’t know why people here support the pirate bay ripping off artists and keeping 100% of the artists money.

How did The Pirate Bay get the artists’ money?

The same way that Red Hat does, offering a service and getting paid, is not that hard.

Also McDonalds get pirated by everybody and they still manage to make money, every restaurant in the world can be pirated and they still get paid, every carpenter, every engineer, every dentist, medic gets pirated and they still get paid.

A simple question with a simple answer.
How everybody else inside society gets paid since they have zero protection and don’t have monopoly rights?

What Mike does must profoundly upset you, because he shows to anybody who want to hear that even without a monopoly people somehow still managed to get paid through a lot of other means.

“This comment has been flagged by the community. Click to show the comment.”

I love the hypocrisy of the techdirt community censoring posts, how very SOPA of you! So much for you supporting freedom of expression.

So score card at end of day… TechDirt supports The Pirate Bay ripping off artists, and TechDirt censors posts. So much for open.

Wow, just wow. The truth must be hard to take.

Why do you support censorship laws?

Then obviously you are against copyrights.