Thanks to admins re: SOPA.

#76
I have no empathy at all for a billion dollar industry that feels the urge to sue students and housewives for millions of dollars; more money than they'll probably make in three lifetimes.

The MPAA and RIAA are their own worst enemies in the public's eyes.

If someone downloads a $10 CD, you might be justified to go after them for $50 or $100, but certainly not for any more than that. Problem there is, the lawyers wouldn't find it worthwhile to deal with it.

I would really like to see the courts put a stop to those kinds of suits once and for all. Some Judges have started to make a stand and I hope others follow.
 
#77
Vegas Long Legs said:
We've been in the industry 41 years. Trust me, we are well aware of what killed the stores. My DH is a respected member of the NARAS and a Grammy voter. He studies the business, not just works in it. There's alot more going on with the NARAS than the Grammy broadcast. As there is with any association.
(I know on the internet, real life experience holds no validity for some. Makes no sense to me but I don't live in these folks heads. TG! Not pretending to be something I'm not.)

Most record stores fate was buried before Itunes made the scene. The industry knows the dates. They have charts etc pertaining to piracy one would be amazed at. It their job, one they take seriously.

(You guys would be shocked at when the cassette tape industry actually died. When the last ones were replicated.)

Been reading much about the bill the last 2 days, on legit sites. People comments shock me, the justification they try to come up with for illegal downloading :rolleyes: They have no integrity/morals and they brag about it! Like we can't see through the BS.

Yes the times changed, and these companies actually pay us for the use of our products NOW. There's are some positive changes. We gets checks in the mail we weren't expecting. And it forces us to think outside the box which I love. Lots of exciting stuff happening.

But losing a customer that DH set up in 1971 with 8 tracks, hearing about the kids, talking to them about new releases, etc. Makes it tough. We feel for them, how can one not? They were trying to follow the letter of the law, do what's right. But for the grace of God go us. Being almost 55, I lived in records stores. Its what we did for a whole Saturday afternoon.

And hearing about our hard product being sold in Japan. its coming from China. (We refuse to do business with China.) So these items are being made illegally.

Some of SOPA is a bad idea, but not all of it. Does the tech industry not want to come up with something they can live with? There is going to be some kind of bill passed eventually. Now's the time for Goggle etc to say here's what we can live with.
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I can't pretend to know all that you do about this subject, I haven't studied it. But I have many friends in the business as well. I work in TV production but I run in a large circle of musicians. Older musicians who've seen it all and new ones who are making a career for themselves in this ever changing climate. I just find it hard to believe that piracy was the sole reason for record and video stores going out of business. Piracy has been going on for a long time and only recently have the b&m stores become a thing of the past. It is my personal belief that new age companies like itunes and netflix played a bigger part. It's the convenience factor. Why do people need to go to a store when they can get it with the click of a button? Why do people need to have CD's & videos collecting dust when they can have everything online? It seems to me that the digital age made this inevitable.
 
#78
littlerock said:
I just find it hard to believe that piracy was the sole reason for record and video stores going out of business.

Why do people need to go to a store when they can get it with the click of a button? Why do people need to have CD's & videos collecting dust when they can have everything online? It seems to me that the digital age made this inevitable.
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Exactly. It isn't piracy or even any one device or service. It's the whole era of digitizing and the MP3 and preceding formats that killed the record store. People could suddenly have all the music they wanted on one small device and play them in the order of their choice instead of having a wall of LPs or cassettes that would eventually wear out.

On the flip-side (pun intended), the Feds and other countries proved that SOPA/PIPA is not needed by conducting synchronized raids on three continents to take down Megaupload. That one may or may not work out the way the Feds intended either. There is already quite a bit of backlash against their overly heavy-handed tactics against a site that also had significant legitimate traffic.

The government takedown of Megaupload, a popular file-sharing site, has stoked simmering fears that hard-line enforcement of copyright infringements could profoundly disrupt Internet commerce.

File sharing has become a major way corporations collaborate with employees and partners and interact with customers. It fuels the sharing of rich content across Internet-connected devices in the home and office and distributed to mobile devices and has emerged as a major component of cloud computing, the delivery of content and services across the Web.

"If legitimate content is housed on the same service that might have infringing content, it gets sucked into this vortex and it's gone," says Dennis Fisher, security blogger at Threatpost.com. "I don't know how much the government or these companies (advocating strict anti-piracy enforcement) have thought this through. I would guess not a lot."
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http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-01-20/megaupload-arrests-FBI/52697186/1

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Nor does it appear to have worked. There are already reports that the site is available again in some areas and is working on restoring files from backups.
 
#79
All this makes me wonder, if piracy was that powerful and so many people were stealing their music and videos to bring down the entire B&M industry, then why are so many online businesses flourishing? Wouldn't everyone still be stealing their entertainment rather than spending all their money on iTunes, redbox, netflix, amazon, on-demand, etc?

I don't doubt that piracy had it's affects. I just think that without or without it, we'd still be right where we are. JMO of course.
 
#80
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-California) introduced H.R. 3782, the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday, the same day as an Internet protest when a number of high-profile websites such as Wikipedia went dark. Issa says the new bill delivers stronger intellectual property rights for American artists and innovators while protecting the openness of the Internet. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) has introduced the OPEN Act in the U.S. Senate.

OPEN would give oversight to the International Trade Commission (ITC) instead of the Justice Department, focuses on foreign-based websites, includes an appeals process, and would apply only to websites that "willfully" promote copyright violation.
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According to Issa’s site KeepTheWebOpen, which elucidates the bill in its entirety and asks for people to comment on it, “If the ITC investigation finds that a foreign registered website is ‘primarily’ and ‘willfully’ infringing on the IP rights of a U.S. rights holder, the commission would issue a cease and desist order that would compel payment processors (like Visa and Paypal) and online advertising providers to cease doing business with the foreign site in question. This would cut off financial incentives for this illegal activity and deter these unfair imports from reaching the U.S. market.”

OPEN has received support from technology giants such as Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and others,
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http://www.pcworld.com/article/248525/sopa_pipa_stalled_meet_the_open_act.html
 
#81
Some people got integrity & backbone they were missing in the early aught years. Some grew up & now understand they don't their stuff stolen from them they worked hard for. So maybe they shouldn't do it to others.

I worked in a grocery store many years ago as a checker. This man came in regularly & stole from us. Store owners ignored him for awhile hoping he'd quit, he didn't. I was there the night he got arrested. I started bawling & offer to pay for the tuna he took. The owners wife was furious & fired me. I was 22, my dad set me straight. The rules are for everyone, this man would not quit if I paid for his tuna or we ignored him. The store owners shouldn't be expected to have to give food away cause they had money.

Sorry but feel like hearing the same old song & dance about the billion dollar labels/studios is just smoke and mirrors. They aren't only stealing from the labels, they are also stealing from the artists, musicians, etc. Some who barely squeeze out a living. None of this is new that I'm stating, been hearing it for 12 years.

These labels aren't Wall Street, they rightfully own their property. And didn't create something that took down other industries.

We shouldn't assume everyone is like us. Don't want CD's hanging around so no one else must? We love our collection! I don't have one song downloaded, have no I device nor does my DH. We buy CD's all the time, we like them. I actually like other songs on a CD, not just what is on the radio. Much of my age group feels the same way, if they really like music.

A lot of the world isn't as computer savy as you guys are. Much of the world isn't as up to the minute on technology as you guys are. Seriously, I am probably one of the most non tech people on TPF.

Goggle still arrogantly violates copyrights, my attorney (who doesn't just represent us) is on speed dial with them. I think everyone wants some kind of protection without a lot of disrupting to legit businesses.

Oh, we don't want no phony pharms either.
 
#84
Vegas Long Legs said:
Here's something most forget. Anyone remember the record/cd stores> That whole industry is dead. They are almost all gone except for a few niche stores. Who felt bad for them? About 4500 stores out of business in 5 years time cause people who were greedy, entitled, the laws don't apply to me attitude stole what these stores did legally for a living. (Am well aware it wasn't just those under 25.) They were part of my customer base.

Good honest hard working people with employees, who paid taxes, contributed to society, & worked within the laws as defined, put out of business. Cause of illegal downloading.
Never mind the artists, musicians, behind the scene people who were screwed out of what was rightly their creations.

Yes, there are some problems in this law. But again why doesn't the tech industry come up with some ideas everyone can get behind?
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The reason record stores are going out of business isn't solely because of music piracy. Let's not forget that millions of people legally download artists' music in a digital form from their official Websites or sites like iTunes and Amazon MP3. People also started buying their CDs etc. online from discounters who can offer a reduced retail price because they have less infrastructure and operational costs. (BTW, one particular well known record store chain died because of mismanagement, incompetence and expanding too quickly, not just piracy.)
Come to think of it, a lot of businesses have become extinct because of technology, it's certainly nothing new. Advancements in military and weapon technology made chainmail, shield and sword craftmens unemployed. Steam engine manufacturers, train car companies, typewriter manufacturers have become obsolete, and now companies like Kodak are edging toward extinction because of technology and the ever changing world. It's been the way of the world for a long, long time.
I personally believe a lot of the companies affected by piracy may need to change or tweak their current business model. For example, why is Adobe charging a lot more to Australian customers for an online download of Photoshop, when it's available to people in the U.S. for around $500 less than it is in Australia? Why is the exact same product, a digital download, costing Australian consumers hundreds of dollars more? It's even more galling considering the Australian dollar is stronger than the U.S. dollar. Many potential customers will go elsewhere (and do go elsewhere) because they will not support a company who practices unfair pricing and price gouging. Instead of Adobe Photoshop making sure that digital copies match retail copies in an effort to protect retail distribution, they need to accept the transition to digital distribution and lower their prices to reflect the lower costs. This should actually increase sales because of greater convenience and a lower price.
Like the steam engine or typewriter, a lot of old "traditional" business models are obsolete and companies need to change and adapt to survive. I totally agree with you, piracy is a serious legal and financial issue for the companies on the receiving end of it, but to help reduce it, they need to come up with practical and workable solutions which can accommodate both company and consumer (For example, things like: Software and game developers and publishers providing toll-free tech support line for DRM-related issues. I always found it totally unreasonable that legitimate purchasers have to pay per minute to call tech support regarding issues that are no fault of their own. They need to stop staggering release dates by region. I believe the current practice encourages piracy. They also need to reduce their prices on digital distribution.) Some companies are changing their business model, which is good to see. Anyway, the problem is quite complex, but the way SOPA and PIPA was constructed, it would have done more harm than good. I'm pleased that SOPA was sent back to the drawing board.
 
#86
.:Sprigged:. said:
I also work in the entertainment industry, but I could not be against SOPA more strongly. I am not willing to sacrifice my enjoyment of the web because 1 person on a website links to something copyrighted - for instance pics in the celeb style threads here, or a news article. That person had zero to do with most of the users, and the owners of any given website. It is impossible to monitor every user on a large website. But 1 or 2 misguided people can take down the site?

What if people did it maliciously? A rival blogger (person A) links to a YouTube video on person B's blog...Person A reports it, and person B (who is innocent) now has their blog shut down?

Intellectual property rights are important, but this is not the way to protect them.
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Or the images people use in their icons/avatars and siggies...me included. *gulp*
 
#88
...the funny thing is my sister and I buy records all the time! She found a record player in the hallway of the dorm she was living in last year and the person said they were throwing it out. She took it to her dorm and plugged it in expecting it to be broken but it worked perfectly so now we hit up all the vintage places we can for records. There is a really cool record store on Queen West in Toronto that is our favourite place.

Piracy is not the reason that stores are being closed because look at all the quirky independent record stores that are open! Yes, we could probably download the songs free somewhere online but record hunting is much more fun, plus it's cheap if you find the right stores.
 
#89
The Elephant in the Room

Yes, legislation isn't always crafted well and that seems to be true for SOPA, et al. But what about the intent? For a forum that speaks to authenticity and a forum owner with an interest in photography (with its implied copyright), I'm surprised by the reaction here. The topic seems to be getting off-course with the discussion of music distribution issues that were addressed and resolved years ago. Back to the point, this website is filled with photos "borrowed" without permission or even credit. IMHO, there's something wrong with that picture.
 
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