Thursday, July 4, 2002
Arrr mateys! Button down yer FTP port hatches!
Posted by Jason Dunn in "OFF-TOPIC" @ 04:00 AM
http://www.msnbc.com/news/775684.asp
Oh boy - this whole thing is about to get even uglier. I suppose it was a natural progression though. Let me tell you a quick story about music downloading:
A few months ago, I was at a birthday party for my mother-in-law (her big five-oh). I took a whole whack of digital photos, and later that week I wanted to burn them to a VCD so she could look at them on her DVD player. I wanted to put some music in the background, but I wanted it to be something special. So I hopped on to the 'Net, found a list of the top 10 songs of the year that she was born, and one of them happened to be "Unforgettable" by Nat King Cole. It was late at night, I needed to finish the project, and I didn't have that song in my 400+ CD collection. I jumped onto Morpheus, found the song, and burned the CD.
Now if I had a simple, legal way to pay $1-2 for that song, would I have purchased it? Absolutely! But was I going to abandon my idea because I couldn't get it legally? No way. Am I a criminal? In the eyes of some, yes.
Sooner or later the music labels will figure this out: if they make buying music online easy and cheap, people will buy the music. Most people aren't adverse to paying for something if it's reasonably priced and is almost as good as the "real thing". And most people, if given the choice, will do the legal thing. I know I would have. There are some major initiatives going on by the music labels, but the problem is they're putting their own music online and making it a "our label only" store. Once that isn't as successful as they want it to be, they'll clue in and create a unified online store that offers everything, just like the brick and mortar versions do. But onto the article...
"Major music companies are preparing to mount a broad new attack on unauthorized online song-swapping. The campaign would include suits against individuals who are offering the largest troves of songs on peer-to-peer services. The big recording companies, working through their trade association, the Recording Industry Association of America, are moving toward filing copyright lawsuits that would target the highest volume song providers within the services, which allow people to grab songs without paying artists or labels, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The suits would be part of a broader effort, including a public campaign that may feature prominent artists urging music fans to respect copyright rules."
Oh boy - this whole thing is about to get even uglier. I suppose it was a natural progression though. Let me tell you a quick story about music downloading:
A few months ago, I was at a birthday party for my mother-in-law (her big five-oh). I took a whole whack of digital photos, and later that week I wanted to burn them to a VCD so she could look at them on her DVD player. I wanted to put some music in the background, but I wanted it to be something special. So I hopped on to the 'Net, found a list of the top 10 songs of the year that she was born, and one of them happened to be "Unforgettable" by Nat King Cole. It was late at night, I needed to finish the project, and I didn't have that song in my 400+ CD collection. I jumped onto Morpheus, found the song, and burned the CD.
Now if I had a simple, legal way to pay $1-2 for that song, would I have purchased it? Absolutely! But was I going to abandon my idea because I couldn't get it legally? No way. Am I a criminal? In the eyes of some, yes.
Sooner or later the music labels will figure this out: if they make buying music online easy and cheap, people will buy the music. Most people aren't adverse to paying for something if it's reasonably priced and is almost as good as the "real thing". And most people, if given the choice, will do the legal thing. I know I would have. There are some major initiatives going on by the music labels, but the problem is they're putting their own music online and making it a "our label only" store. Once that isn't as successful as they want it to be, they'll clue in and create a unified online store that offers everything, just like the brick and mortar versions do. But onto the article...
"Major music companies are preparing to mount a broad new attack on unauthorized online song-swapping. The campaign would include suits against individuals who are offering the largest troves of songs on peer-to-peer services. The big recording companies, working through their trade association, the Recording Industry Association of America, are moving toward filing copyright lawsuits that would target the highest volume song providers within the services, which allow people to grab songs without paying artists or labels, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The suits would be part of a broader effort, including a public campaign that may feature prominent artists urging music fans to respect copyright rules."
