KGS, yu missed the point of the movie. (Ihate people that hijack discussions, even when it’s me). No, a photgraph of a naked person is not pornography in and of itself. It’s in the context. In the movie she is portrayed as a sexual object, not just a girl walking naked.
Analogy: a picture of a woman’s breasts is the same if it’s in an anatomy textbook and Hustler?
Context my good man.
Continuing the “Pretty Baby” hijack, I believe Brooke wore a body stocking for her apparent “nude” scenes in that movie. Okay,done now. Back to your regularly scheduled OP.
lite, as I said already, I haven’t even seen the movie, so all I have to go by is…wtf?? How’d you get BANNED all of a sudden? Oh well, enough of that, then. 
Oh, and the trivia section of the IMDB entry for “Pretty Baby” (as linked above) says that Susan Sarandon gave a G-string to Brooke so she wouldn’t feel completely naked. Which means we’re no closer to the truth than when we started. 
Dammit, now I’ve really gotta track down that movie and make up my own mind…I hope I don’t wind up having to purchase it outright…
Defense attorney: “Did you copy those files?”
You: “No”
Defense attorney: “Are you the only person who has access to your computer?”
You: “No. My parents and six brothers also have access to the computer. Sometimes we have friends over and they also use it.”
Defense attorny: “Do you regularly take an inventory of all the files on your PC?”
You: “No, of course not”
Defense attorney: “So what you are saying is that it is possible that someone else, unbeknownst to you placed these files on your computer”
You: "It’s possible.
Cases are rarely cut and dried otherwise there wouldn’t be lawyers.
The RIAA is betting that with a couple high-profile cases, they can scare people into not sharing mp3s. It is not cost effective to start sueing people wholesale. Especiallly college students and 20-somethings who have no money anyway.
Of course, when people realize that their odds of getting sued are fairly small unless they are running a server farm of mp3s, the threat of lawsuit will cease to be a deterent (like the FBI warning on a VHS tape or to not use a milk create “in a manner inconsistant with its intended use”).
Suing people costs money. Even if they win, there’s the issue of actually getting paid. You could sue me for a bazillion quatrillion dollars but there’s no way I could ever pay you.
There is also the issue of how do you sue people in China or Mexico who are sharing files?
Somewhere in this thread someone posted information that showed the RIAA only intends to go after Americans. They have enough troubles in China with bootleg copies and a government that doesn’t really care to try and mess with people there over downloading MP3s. The Chinese would probably get a good laugh out if it if they tried.
I’ve said it before and I’ve said it again (and again and again and again) – if the RIAA thinks this will actually work, they are idiots. But we knew that anyway, didn’t we?
Instead, they will succeed in driving mp3 traders further and further underground, until we have completely untraceable, high-speed free music-on-demand that millions of people use daily, and not even the Federal Gov’t will have the power to stop it. And the public at large will see the RIAA as one big corporate bully, and further instill in their minds that spending money on music is pointless and wrong.
I think that’s why the RIAA is trying to take a stand now. If I copy a cd of mine and give it to 1-2 friends, that’s one thing. The mp3 traders are another. This is getting MASSIVE. The RIAA represents the record label and the artists wishes. If cds aren’t sold they don’t get paid. Let’s say you are in a band with 4 other people. You work for a year writing and recording a FANTASTIC ALBUM. Everybody loves it. You’ve been struggling for years and this is your breakthrough BIGGIE. Unfortunately it only sells 200,000 copies. It should have sold 6,000,000. Your royalty check for your share is only $20,000. How come? Well, 10,000 people who bought it made it available for file sharing. Nobody wants to pay for music, do they. Of course not. With computers everywhere these days, anybody who wants to can just download it. It would be stupid to pay for it, wouldn’t it?
What happens then. The artists and record labels don’t make any money, and find other ways to make a living.
But wait! The artists can make it up on the Concert Tour! Then somebody makes a bootleg of their concert (“Hey, I paid to get in here and I have a right to film it in case I forget what it was like.”) They post it for downloading and concert attendance goes down. Why pay to go to a concert when I can see it for free. The artists stop making music and have to find a real job. No more new music. We’re stuck listening to oldies.
I know this sounds ridiculous and just about everybody that has posted on this thread is ready to flame me, but to some extent it’s true. A little file sharing can be ignored but it has grown way too big and is getting bigger all the time. KGS’ scenerio posted above is starting to be a reality. CD sales are on a downward slide.
There are sites now where you can download songs legally for 99¢ each, but again, “Why should I pay for music, when I can get it for free?” You can rationalize all you want, but it really is stealing. This thread is all about “Can I still do it and not get caught. How dare the RIAA try to stop me from stealing.”
Well, those are my thoughts. Let the flaming begin!
Yes, it is. But you are looking at it from the wrong direction. And since there’s already a GD thread going strong (and probably in The Pit as well, I haven’t checked) I’m going to keep my answers as concise, tactful and “factual” as possible…
Oh, I’d take that whole “representing the artist’s wishes” tack with many grains of salt. This may be opinion, but I think it’s clear to anyone with half a brain that the RIAA is a completely corporate-controlled entity, whose only design is making money for the record industry executives (aka “suits”) who pull their strings. (Shit. So much for being tactful.)
Uhh…it should have gone platinum six times over, but never got halfway to gold?? Dude, seriously check your math: that’s a 97% drop in sales, and not even the staunchest of RIAA supporters go THAT far in their already wild claims. (Let me guess…you were in such a band, yourself?)
Whoa, if this really is a true story, kudos to you, you got paid more than even the most established artists of our time!! Check out these articles by Courtney Love and Janis Ian, who “expose” how the whole mythical royalties system is set up so the artist gets the smallest share of the pie. (Shall I go on? I can break it down even further if you want me to.)
Well, I spent about $120 on music CDs this month, and that’s a low ballpark figure, and we’re talking real, official, factory-pressed CDs, no bootlegs or mp3s. I could have easily found them --well, most of them – on mp3 or CDR, but I wanted the satisfaction of owning the music (or, at least the package representing the “license” between me and the copyright holder) and all this despite the fact that I can’t even afford to spend that much. Am I “nobody”, then?
Yes, it’s true that most professional musicians need to find a “day job” to support themselves, because the record labels are screwing them so hard on the royalties. Heck, even multi-platinum artists like TLC have been driven into bankruptcy because the record companies ripped them off…and in 1995, there were no mp3s to blame it all on, either!!!
Okay, we are talking apples and oranges here. First of all, “bootleg” recordings (esp. live concerts) do not represent any direct loss in sales, as they are not commercially available. Second, there is absolutely NO correlation between “bootleg” sales and concert attendance…indeed, if anything, hearing a live bootleg by a band I’d never heard of might inspire me to pay for a concert myself, right? Indeed bootleg-trading (if not selling) is expressly endorsed by many bands, including Genesis, Dream Theater, and of course The Grateful Dead. Hell, even METALLICA, the personification of corporate evil itself, fully endorses bootleg trading!!! So your whole scenario is a joke.
Well, this might just be the icing on the cake. The whole mainstream music industry has been stagnant for nearly a decade now, and there are NO new trends on the horizons, and the big reason people aren’t buying up Eminem and ‘Nsync and all that crap is that it’s all been done. Some experts even claim that pop music, as a viable art form, died around 1983, and it’s only the invention of the CD format and constant re-releasing of remastered CDs, box sets, and archived live performances, that is keeping it from dying completely. But there’s only so many "Zombies’ Greatest Hits" albums that you can put out.
On the other hand, you should check out one of the underground scenes, be it progressive metal, stoner rock, or whatever your taste is. Bands on indie labels, and bands that embraced using mp3s as a promotional tool, have seen a VERY distinct rise in their sales and popularity. You may have never heard of Ayreon, Opeth, or In Flames, but you will soon enough…in fact, you just did. And that’s but a tiny fraction of the thousands of underground bands whose sales & concert attendances are growing day by day, in some cases quite rapidly.
As is the whole economy. And everyone keeps ignoring the FACT that music sales were at their overall PEAK in 1999 and 2000, right when Napster was at its peak, too. (Somebody else find a cite…I’m tired of typing the code for linking pages.)
And thus we return to my original point. Yes, the public at large is now thinking that. And it could have all been avoided if the RIAA jumped on the mp3 bandwagon instead of trying to stuff it back in Pandora’s Box. What do we do now? Well…that’s kind of where we’re at right now, actually. The public has an entirely different mental paradigm regarding music, now.
Indeed. The monolithic record labels have been stealing from my pocketbook every month, with their price-fixed CDs and their constant recycling of media and “remastered” versions, which have forced me to buy many of my albums at least twice, and in some cases four separate times. And record executives have been stealing money from the artists who make them rich in the first place, by sticking to an antiquated royalty system that hasn’t changed since the mid-70’s. (Yup…artists got around 50 cents per sale, back when albums cost only 1/4th of what they do now, and the production / promotional / touring costs, which are all deducted from the artist’s share of royalties, have skyrocketed as well.)
And it’s about time we ALL got some payback. High time indeed.
I did acknowledge that my example seemed “ridiculous” but I did this because I felt that your comment that “spending money on music is pointless and wrong.” is equally “ridiculous”.
I exaggerated it only as an example of where a trend could eventually end up. As far as being tactful and “factual” goes, I mostly hear “attitude” , “anger” and “rationalization”, but maybe that’s just me.
This isn’t Great Debate Forum, so I’ll just leave it that copywright law (read numerous earlier posts in this thread) seems to spell out that it is stealing.
I believe the factual question has been answered, so I’ll close this thread. Those wishing to debate or rant are directed to our other fine forums.
bibliophage
moderator GQ