Darth Mandelson strikes again.

[yorkie_chris]

Because they can prove precisely feck all "beyond reasonable doubt" as is properly required.

So they want to be able to do this, judge, jury and executioner style.

Originally Posted by rigor

This is the line that the music industry and film industry would LOVE you to believe.

"We spend sooo much money on producing all this stuff for you, surely we should have total control over how you use it"

Copyright has always been for the protection of the publisher's of work (Books, music, films, etc) rather the creators of the work. It has it's history in the start of the printing trade, when books became more available to the general public. (Notice any similarities with today?)

What they seem to have lost sight of is that individual property rights still have some bearing on the matter. When it was a case of having to physically copy a CD or cassette and transport it to another person the Music and Film industries only bothered with the mass pirating operations. Now Joe public can download every piece of music ever created (pretty much), rather than work out how to change their businesses, they want to maintain the status quo. Do artists deserve $100 million dollar contracts for creating music? Is that what their product is intrinsically worth? Or is this just a proportion of what other entreprenuers can make from marketing and selling it?

Meh

I agree!
Just being the devils advocate
Ste.

[Spiderman]

I think the main reason why no one cares about the artists involved is that mainly they earn way, way too much anyway and so do the reocrd companies. If CDs were £2 to buy then no one would waste time downloading stuff.
Thats a huge reason behind it imho.

Originally Posted by Jabba

I agree with you with regard to the theft aspect - music should be treated the same as any other goods in that regard. We're talking about people's livelihoods and innovation here.

Yeah, I know that we all used to tape our mate's vinyl/CDs but at least in that case someone had paid for a least one copy. Wrong/theft, but we all did it.

Not sure about losing 'net access though - the normal route for theft of anything else in court & fine. Why shouldn't this be the same?

Precisely because copying isn't stealing. You're not taking anyone's property, or depriving them of the use of it, or even stopping them selling it. You'd be hard pushed to argue that if I copied something I actually would have bought it if I couldn't copy it and therefore had deprive someone of the revenue (Which is how the RIAA comes up with it billions of dollars lost to copyright "theft")

[yorkie_chris]

And also, if you're a music artist, or even a music "artist" then even if you don't earn a penny from CD sales, then you're still going to draw a few bob from TV programs wanting to talk to you etc etc.

Has anyone seen the South Park episode taking the pith out of this?

[the_lone_wolf]

Originally Posted by Spiderman

I think the main reason why no one cares about the artists involved is that mainly they earn way, way too much anyway and so do the reocrd companies. If CDs were £2 to buy then no one would waste time downloading stuff.
Thats a huge reason behind it imho.

You should see how much of what you pay in the stores or when you use the iTunes store actually goes to the artists, it's pathetic...

I care about the artists, just not the record labels that exploit them for gross profit. Artists don't need to rely on the record labels so much now that they can distribute their music digitally for almost nothing, and the farmer's always going to look worried when the cows he's been milking for years start to disappear...

Originally Posted by the_lone_wolf

and the farmer's always going to look worried when the cows he's been milking for years start to disappear...

LMFAO!

Ste.

[squirrel_hunter]

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

OK bike dealers offering test rides, they don't then prosecute anybody taking a test ride.

Thankfully, or my days would be numbered.

why do you have to pay for a crap album when you only want 1 maybe 2 tracks off it ?

[Spiderman]

Originally Posted by the_lone_wolf

You should see how much of what you pay in the stores or when you use the iTunes store actually goes to the artists, it's pathetic...

I care about the artists, just not the record labels that exploit them for gross profit. Artists don't need to rely on the record labels so much now that they can distribute their music digitally for almost nothing, and the farmer's always going to look worried when the cows he's been milking for years start to disappear...

Oh yeh, i know. A friend was in a new band and they got a 3 record deal from Sony. Basically they didnt get paid a penny till they proved they could write and sell enough of those 3 to make it viable for Sony and even then it wasn't much.
It scum like simon cowell and his cohorts who cream off all the money for themselves.
I mean the big established artists, like U2 as a random name. They are all loaded and could easily sell their stuff themselves for next to nothing.