Music downloading may be stealing, but suing one person, that's wrong. Almost every American household which has a computer has some sort of file sharing capabilities. So why not sue everyone who does it? I won't deny that I haven't downloaded music but it is like walking into a bank and stealing money. Music is these people's jobs and even though they use their surplus of money to buy useless and expensive things, we can't steal these pieces of art made over many months and download them in a matter of minutes. I'm pretty much being a hypocrit on this issue since I have downloaded music before.
Oh... they think they have a chance of stopping us. HAH! Makes me laugh... like seriously. I am laughing out loud for real. Anyways...
There are THOUSANDS, literally THOUSANDS of music sharing programs. Kazaa is not the only one, just one of the most well known ones. They think "we stopped napster, we'll stop kazaa... we'll be all set." right? Um... i never used napster or kazaa yet i have downloaded over 300 songs in the past 2 years. Anyways though, the truth is computers have no limits and for every one music sharing program that is terminated, about 300 more are made (just a logical estimate). HaH, stop us? The only way to do that would be to stop the internet, and i'm sure they'd find a way around that somehow.
Personally i think that many people don't buy CDs JUST because of the price (although that is part of it), but also because when you burn your own CD you can chose the content for yourself. Why buy a CD when you only like 3 out of the 15 songs on it? I don't know. burn baby burn!
My uncle is a professional folk musician, with several CDs out there under EMI's label. Let me tell you, he is by no stretch of the imagination "rich". He has to tour 300 days out of the year just to make ends meet. He is very much against these file-sharing programs-- it's hard enough for musicians who haven't had their "big break" without this new sorta technology screwing them out of money that, by all rights, should be theirs.
Heh, of course, that's just my uncle's view. I use Kazaa fairly frequently. However, I make it a point to go out and buy the CDs of smaller artists that I like... artists that haven't gone multi-platinum.
personally, i'd rather buy the cd than download it and put it on a cd. a lot of musicians make their livilihood off the merchandise they sell. bands and singers pay their bills but a lot of the newer and even slightly older bands need the money from record sales to live. not all bands/singers are insanely rich. they need to make a living too.
i understand that everyone wants to make there money but these musicians are already insanely rich and i dot know about you but i dont have the money to buy cds i only have 10$s a week allowance
quote: Logging on to KaZaa Lite, I see that there are 4,228,944 users online... good luck suing every single one of them.
Hell yeah!! And further more, screw all these record companies and these idiotic multi-million dollar celebs, like they don't make enough. If they want me to buy a CD, try making a CD with more then one or two good songs on it!!!
I don't know when the last time I bought a CD was, but it has nothing to do with me burning CDs, it's because I haven't heard a good CD in the last 8 years.
Ok first of I'll start with Gem, Gem be careful when you install the full version of Kazaa because it has spy ware, which is something that you don't want. I don't want to write whole explanation of what spy ware is so here is a link will give you the information and also you can download a program that allows you to remove spy ware from this site "http://www.lavasoftusa.com". A lot of people don't even realize that just about every site you go to now basically illegally adds stuff to your computer to track your browsing, in many cases these companies are hacking into your computer. Gem your problem can be solved by getting Kazaa lite which can be obtained at Cnet and doesn’t have any spy ware and also getting the program that removes the spy ware that I mentioned earlier.
As for the RIAA, they are in my opinion one of the worst companies out there; they take advantage of you musicians and have no care if they get these people in thousands of dollars of debt. The RIAA has become so deluded from the world its not even funny. They have fought every single advancement of technology in the music world from tapes to cd's. They even didn't want you to be able to back-up your cd's that you bought. The RIAA blames there loss of money on the recent surge of user friendly pier to pier swapping programs such as kazaa and napster, and this statement is partly true. But I believe the RIAA is making a judgment with very limited information. I believe one of the big reason's that the RIAA is losing money is because they have been putting out the crappiest products ever since the whole pop explosion. I know a lot of people who are buying music from Independent labels or underground labels and since these labels don't work for any of RIAA labels there's no way the RIAA can see this. Also from what I've seen, a lot of people who use these weak pier to pier programs use them just so they can see if the cd sucks or not. Also the RIAA isn't even looking at the fact that we are in bad economic times. The RIAA I believe will act on there threats but I believe they are digging there own graves on this issue. But I'm not really worried about this issue to a certain extent because I know of other ways by computer to obtain music and other "pirated" stuff. Fortunately for me, I've been raised in a family who has a strong knowledge of computers and I know of programs that were around way before Kazaa or napster and the RIAA can't touch these because they have been integrated into the business sector and for other reasons. As for Joey, why am I not surprised, continuing to label everything as Communist, you are on your way to being they next McCarthy aren’t you.
It's true, about how the authorities are going after individual downloaders now (file lawsuits in court... I find it all very ridiculous). I think, so far, they're only hitting the people who download like.. 600 songs a day. I use WinMX, a program somewhat like Napter. My friend uninstalled Kazaa from his computer to avoid being caught by the authorities.. though I think he's just being paranoid. What I really wanted to say, was that Roxio (I'm sure you're all aware of who they are and what they do?) has hired the Napster creator to work for them. He has made a program that automatically filters out copyrighted material while you're downloading so you only get the "legal" results to download. You either pay a fixed fee every month or pay for individual songs as you go (thought it would be free, didja?). According to Roxio, this wouldn't work unless all the other free downloading programs out there cooperated (aka, quit what they're doing, which is offering free downloads) with Roxio. So far, they have approached Kazaa, and Kazaa's decision is pending.
And anyway, CD's are WAY overpriced! I heard somewhere that it would probably take a dime to make one CD. We pay up to $27.00 for them on the shelves! (unless you get pirated copies) Sheesh, what a drag.
Gemini: You should download Ad Aware. It's a free program that should do a pretty good job of removing all of the adware and/or spyware that KaZaa puts on your computer.
I uninstalled Kazaa from my computer, but I can't get rid of it. My files are being "shared" and I don't want to get all the baggage that comes along with the program. But I -can't- get it off of my computer. It really pisses me off. And all the spam and other BS Kazaa implemented into my computer won't go away, either.
so now you're blaming the high price of CDs on liberals?
yes, i'm sure that those liberal RIAA CEOs are really socialists running amok. i'm so glad that those ultra-conservative people using kazaa brought them to their senses.
yes, CDs are expensive. i agree with that part of your post. the rest is just stretching to make a political statement out of a coporate lawsuit. it has almost nothing to do with taxes whatsoever; the high costs of CDs is marketing costs and the inflated price that the RIAA agreed to implement with price floors.
CDs made (legally) in vietnam will still cost the same as those made in the US. it has nothing to do with government taxes.
Looks like maybe the liberals are starting to finally get it.
Let me ask you all this: If CDs were cheaper, would you buy them? By cheaper I mean, say, $5 or $8, instead of $14, or $21?
Hmm.
You people who advocate and support this Big Government crap (socialist health care, Socialist Security, etc) are finally learning how the Tax-and-Spend mentality works.
What costs maybe less than $2 or $3 to make now costs you almost $20 because of sales taxes, production taxes, corporation taxes, etc., etc., etc.
I don't download music because well, I really don't know how, and my area of DFW still has dial-up - blah.
But, I do know economics when I see it, and charging $20 for a CD is just way too much.
Think of this thing as the equivalent of a big corporation going overseas to establish their business in order to get out of paying for ridiculous taxes and regulations.
The liberals whine that businesses can do that, but oh, the CD situation is the SAME thing.
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