Is Napster Stealing? I need to chill and stop feeling so guilty all the time...j/k.

In My Humble Opinion
21

So what if the record companies are fixing prices? ** That is monopolistic abuse.** That was what Microsoft got into trouble for, ‘setting’ the price for IE. RIAA is on record for being an abusive monopoly, to the tune of costing customers over $1 billion. For that alone, it should be shut down. According to the law, if you abuse the copyright in such a way, you lost it. The RIAA v. Napster case is turning into the anti-trust trial of the RIAA. The RIAA will lose an anti-trust trial. The feds have a better case against RIAA than they had with Microsoft.

I, being the ‘major Napster pirate’ that I am, bought more CDs this year than ever, thanks to Napster. I’ll testify that the record companies are making money off Napster.

Napster is not making any money off mp3 swapping. It is making money because rich people are investing in the Napster technology that the RIAA is trying to stifle.

Same thing is happening with DeCSS. The movie companies refuse to create a DVD decoder for Linux. So somebody went out and did it on his own. For that he gets arrested and sued by the movie companies?? They should have handed the inventor an exclusive contract immediately. He would gladly help shut down other ‘illegal’ links to DeCSS very quickly. Sigh. Watch out folks, the conglomerating media are stifling progress in many places. Don’t invent anything, don’t solve a problem the media don’t want solved. They will hound you until you become destitute and broken.

22

Is DLing music you already own stealing? More than 1/2 of my Napster files I have on CD already, but it’s easier than digging through my collection. What about artists who don’t care if their music is being shared? Is that stealing too?

23

Re:OP
Yes, it is stealing. Unless you own the cd, or unless the artist has given explicit permission that the work may be copied. But, of course, I have mp3’s like everyone else does (not via Napster.) Here are my questions all Napster and mp3 users should ask themselves:

Does my mp3 collection contain more than one album (that I dont own) in its entirety?

Does my mp3 collection contain the majority of songs (ie, the good ones) from several albums that I don’t own?

If the answer to either question is yes, you are a thieving bastard. HOWEVER
As long as you admit you are a thieving bastard, I can still have some respect you. I disagree with your piracy of music, but at least, in a perverse sense, you are honest.

[rant]What I absolutely can’t stand are you mother felching whining SOB sleazeballs who say “but CD’s cost too much!” or “but they already sold a million copies” or “but I wouldn’t buy this CD anyways!”. You dishonest bunch of malignant tumors can go straight to hell. You know who you are.[/rant]

24

You got it, pepperlandgirl. You should’ve seen the verbal beating I got from my dad when he caught me recording an album for a friend back when I was in high school. I never saw my dad so mad. He explained to me then that what I was doing, and my attitude (to think it was okay) was literally taking money out of his “paycheck.”

The life of a professional musician is hard enough. Unless you have a day job, most people can never make enough money to make it their living. If you are lucky enough, fortunate enough, talented enough, and happen to be at the right place at the right time to get recognized professionally, you still never get a regular salary. You hope the jobs come. When they do, you eat. When they don’t, you starve. Just because my dad created a song 20 years ago doesn’t mean it’s free for the taking now. People still get royalty checks 20 years after the fact (go read Aha’s posts about his royalty checks if you don’t believe me).

It’s one thing to make a tape off your CD so you can play it on your car tape deck; it’s another to duplicate a copy to give to someone else.

25

You know, I am so sick of these threads where thieves try to justify their crimes. There is no debate here. Just because it’s easy to steal something doesn’t make it right.

26

I’m slightly curious what everybody else does with their Napster songs, or what their motivation is. I guess you should have all my facts before you attack me.

I NEVER DL entire albums. EVER. If I want a CD, I will buy a CD.
I NEVER burn the songs onto a CD, and try to sell or redistribute them in anyway.

The songs I have DLed are fairly obscure songs that have a certain meaning for me. They’re songs I used to listen to on the radio when I was younger, during summer. What I fittingly call my “Summer Songs.” They were playing when I met my BF. They were playing when I spent hours talking to my family. They played when I sat around my campfires. I listened to them when I watched the sunset. They were what put me to sleep at night. When my world was right in everyway, before I moved and realized that the world is not full of fairies and magic. These songs are my memories. And there are less than 100 of them. Buying the CDs for a simple song is not an option, because I simply don’t have the money. And trust me, these songs do NOT get a lot of air-time, on ANY radio station. The station I heard them on originally went off the air about 4 months before I moved, and I have never found a similar one that had such a wonderful mix.

I’m sure for some of you, this is not justification, and it doesn’t make the practice “ok”. But that was my attraction to Napster. I took the songs that were special to me (and only those songs), DLed them, and enjoy them every chance I get. I don’t feel guilty of some huge crime against anybody.

And Baglady, thank you for not being a hypocrite.

27

You’re most welcome, PLgirl! Hugs to you!! :slight_smile:

28

And I’m a thieving bastard. I have dozens of full albums that I downloaded, burned to CD, and never bought.

And don’t tell me I’m screwing the artists. I’m screwing the RIAA. It’s about time.

Fuck the RIAA.

Don’t believe me? Ask a musician.

29

Pepper…

You’re not stealing because you get sentimental about these songs? You’re not stealing because you happen to get all warm and squishy when you hear them?

So what? Record companies/musicians own the SONGS, not just the album. You’re getting benefits from a product, when the owner has decided that every consumer who wants those benefits must pay a fee. You didn’t pay the fee. So you stole it.

So the fact that you don’t get any money from your theft makes it not-stealing?

Well, you shouldn’t. It’s no big deal when a small group of people do it. HOWEVER… when hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions steal, eventually you have the entire music industry hurting big time. THAT’s why Napster is so controversial. Ever hear of an “Mp3” until a year ago or so? Nope, because the losses that were being taken were no big thing.

Stealing is stealing, consarnit. I don’t have any problem with it, as long as you accept the consequences of your actions. Well, okay, there’re a few other requirements… like not acting like an egotistical hotshot 'cuz of it, like some draining-type person who shall remain nameless (I don’t mean Drain Bead).

30

Forgive me, I didn’t address the OP…

Depends on the song. Napster was originally designed for indie bands to share music. However, it eventually became useful for trading illegally burned Mp3’s, a practice of which it is now stereotyped for doing.

I hope not. Mp3.com got burned for hosting the Mp3’s themselves… Napster provides an environment for trading Mp3’s, yet doesn’t actually host any of them. It’s unfortunate that people decide to use this tool for less-than-legal purposes, but oh well, them’s the breaks.

31

Myrr21:

Eh, no. While the physical material may cost less than $15, it’s nowhere near $0.10 per unit, and the glass master used to cut the actual discs is significantly more than that.

Considering that music sales are still growing, apparently the cost of a CD, as determined by free market forces, are just about right. Furthermore, it isn’t your job to decide how much profit other people should be permitted to make off of their work.

drainthelizard:

Actually, since the initial costs of those recordings are long since recouped, every single sale goes to profit. Catalog titles can be some of the most profitable items in an artists portfolio.

Yeah, that’s why Toni Braxton went bankrupt.

Don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back.

So once someone is “rich enough,” in your estimation, the fruits of their labor go uncompensated? Terrific. FYI, do you know what the average costs of mounting a major concert tour are?

32

I believe this has been covered for the most part here as well

33

For all of you who believe the record industry is busy gouging you and they’re only getting what they deserve.

I will volunteer my services as the official arbiter of fair prices for everything in the world. I personally will examine the prices charged by everyone for everything, and if it’s too high, I will give my personal blessing for all of you to take whatever you want.

My first task will be to examine you and your employer. If I decide you are overpaid for your job, are spending too much time online when you should be working, etc., or that your employer charges too much for its services, I will use my authority to grant permission for the rest of the world to come in and strip the shelves bare, as it were.

Get out your time sheets and expense reports. I’m a strict taskmaster.

34

Hm. Do I care if you’re downloading songs from Napster? No.
The Bands don’t own the music they record these days. Under recent copyright law (if I recall right) the company does. Lars can whine and bitch all he likes, but his company is the one that owns the rights and can do as they like with it now.

35

In our family, a major part of our income (wait, let me get sentimenal here and rephrase that as: the $$ that puts food in my baby’s mouth [violins swell in background]) comes from royalties. Not from music, in our case, but from software.

And I don’t care how much the little pricks who steal it and who use pirated and cracked copies justify it, I do feel that we’ve been harmed by this practice.

I’ve heard it all before:

“I would never have BOUGHT this software, so it’s not like you lost a sale.”

“If I like the software and get good at it from using this copy, I’ll eventually buy it! I might even tell my friends to!”

“It helps get your software’s name out there, having one more person using it.”

Well, I don’t care. When my spouse was working 80+ hour weeks to make this a kick-ass program, it was with the belief that he would be paid for each copy made and sold. When people acquire the software without him getting his due, it pisses me off and it continues to piss me off no matter how much you encourage me to speculate over how the stealing ultimately “helps” our income in the long run. For one thing, I have no idea now much this works in practice. What percentage of the theives really do buy the software, etc., etc.? I’d rather go by the straighforward, legal arrangement where we get paid for every purchase–and every use is a legitimate one. And furthermore, the fact that the stealing ultimately helps our income doesn’t make it right. There is all kind of stealing that I could personally do which would enhance our earnings–but I don’t do it because – guess what!–stealing is wrong.

And yes, before I met my husband, I wouldn’t have thought much of copying an album or getting some software from a friend for free. Now that I am more informed, I don’t do it anymore, and I regret that I was such a little shit before. because I KNOW I knew better, I just indulged in those stupid little b.s. justifications we dream up for ourselves when we’re being weaselly.

36

Well, here we go again…
First off, I do acknowledge that if I DL an mp3–with certain exceptions–I am breaking the law by owning and listening to the music. However, a few points on this issue:
First off, CDs DO cost very little to make–how do you think companies are able to make healthy profits selling CD-Rs at well under $1 a pop.
Secondly, there was never an issue with this when people copied tapes, because the RIAA knew that they couldn’t controll it. It’s only because they’ve been able to keep CDs under their thumb for so long that it’s an issue now.

Now before you all go ranting about how that doesn’t make it right, read the whole post.

  1. However much it pisses you off, I am NOT stealing from an artist by having an mp3 that I would never buy otherwise.

  2. I’m a chemist. If I were to come up with a new reagent and get my name attached to it and all, I have no control about who uses it afterwards. Should I be able to price gouge on a catalyst that could help create anti-cancer drugs? I’m doing this for the benefit of science and my own personal knowledge. If I make $45,000 (look at one of the links above) a year and not a dime off of my reagent, so what? That’s not a bad salary, and I provided a service to the public as a whole. Of course, some companies are patenting things there scientist come up with and making huge profits off of them, and the scientist doesn’t see a nickel more than their salary. Why should musicians have special consideration–especially given that very few actually own the rights to their music anymore?

  3. Find and download the cartoon “Napster Bad”, it’s at the very least amusing.

  4. The music is approaching this all wrong, same as a lot of other industries. Almost every time an industry or company becomes paranoid about the internet stealing their business, they pay for it. Other companies come along, see the business possibilities, and make a lot of people very rich.

37

Uh, because they’re frigging blank. Jesus, what kind of half-assed analogy is that?

38

Myrr21 said:

Oh, for the love of God. If I have to listen to this argument one more time, I think I’m going to hurl. This is the exact same argument that Canadians use to justify their fixing prices for drugs manufactured by American drug companies.

I’ll try to make this as simple as I can. The cost of the physical disc is not the entire cost of getting a CD into your grubby little hands. OK? Just because you can buy a CD-R for $1 doesn’t mean that if you go down to Media Play and buy a CD, it only cost a dollar, or 10 cents or whatever to produce. It may cost that much for the physical disc, but other costs are also borne by the price of the CD, including: advertising, merchandising, distribution, retail profit, distributor profit, label profit, payment to the artist who draw the cover art, the photog who takes the booklet pictures, the artist so that they can afford to make more records, studio time, etc.

Do you get it? Satan, can you get in here and explain to these people, again, how much a CD really costs?

Regardless, if you were going to buy the CD or not, or if you wouldn’t buy it without listening to it, if you DL music without paying for it, you are stealing. Just accept it.

39

Ok halfwits, how about actually reading what I write and posting quotes in context:
I * did * mention to read the whole post–that little bit was not my arguement, just a point. And it IS fundamentally correct. Putting info on a CD costs very little as well. Paying the people costs more, but spread over a lot of discs, it’s damn near nothing. Basic economics here. And on the issue of drug price ceilings in Canada–it’s a pretty good thing, ask anybody who lives in or near Canada.
All that aside, here’s the point I want to make:

  1. Most of the rest of us don’t get special consideration for our work, why should musicians? As mentioned, I can make up a revolutionary catalyst and not make a dime off of it. Hell, my work could save thousdands of people, and you’re worried about musicians?

  2. If this is so much like taking food out of the artists’ mouths, then how come a lot of bands ** support ** it? I mean, how many car owners are happy about car theft? Show me some. Or how many homeowners are willing to defend the rights of criminals to rob their home? NONE. There’s a reason that there are bands that support Napster–they are the smart ones who see this as a business opportunity, and realize that it isn’t hurting them.

In light of this debate, I encourage you all to go to http://www.theonion.com/onion3618/kid_rock_starves.html
Read it.

40

Personally, I also like to download songs off of napster, and I don’t feel guilty about it. It seems that the only for the companies to keep people from doing it is by selling individual songs online( as opposed to entire albums), just as amazon sells individual books. If you want a certain song, you just search for it, put it on your cart, and then pay for it, although I don’t really want for that to be the case.