Napster will be shut down

Great Debates
41

Do not put words in my mouth. You said that if I think CDs are overpriced, don’t buy em. I pointed out that this is a unfeasable position. I did not say, “go ahead and steal them since they’re overpriced.”

I don’t know when the last time you bought a new CD but you’re way out of touch. New CDs start at $13 and go up from there- and that’s at the cheaper places. Go to a Sam Goody (I know, if you buy CDs there you deserve to be gouged) where CDs easily start at $15.

Hell, $13 is still gouging. Tapes cost $8.99 and the media is more expensive than CDs- there is no good reason why CDs should cost more than tapes.

42

You are right–I apologize for that. I don’t think, “If you think they’re overpriced, don’t buy them” is unfeasible, however; it’s absolutely true. Spend your money on something you think is more valuable for the price. Nobody’s holding a gun to anybody’s head and forcing them to buy music. If you want to buy it, shop around and find it at the best price.

Out of touch? Nope. The last time I bought a CD was two weeks ago, at the record/book store down the street from my office. I bought the new Belle & Sebastian (on Matador Records, which I believe is distributed by WEA or one of the big distributors) for $11.99, and the new XTC (on TVT Records) for $12.50. Both had been released within the last two months. And, as it happens, the store had those two, along with about 30-40 other new releases in various genres, available for listening so I could sample before buying.

CDNow (www.cdnow.com), which sells those same two titles for $11.88 and $12.99, also has sound samples available for listening before purchase. Yes, you pay shipping if you buy online, but if you buy several items at once the per-unit shipping costs are negligible. Also, Amazon.com sells the two titles I mentioned for $11.88 each, and has sound samples.

No good reason? How about the fact that CDs are infinitely more durable and of monumentally higher fidelity? Music sales continue to increase, so apparently the CD price revolt is not as widespread as believed. If people can’t find CDs for cheaper than $15, it’s their own fault for not shopping around and just going to the mall stores. There are places you can find new music for far less than list, and find listening stations to sample it before buying it to boot.

Let’s face it, people’s protests to the contrary, they are not, by and large, using Napster to buy new music. Look at all the threads today devoted to people desperate to figure out how they’re going to download music if Napster shuts down at midnight tomorrow. They’re scrambling to find a program that will allow them to continue taking music off the Internet. They’re looking to put one over, to get something without paying for it. Where I come from, that’s called stealing.

43

‘Ask the artist if he wants his music given away for free’:

OK, tell me what fraction of the money we spend on each CD goes to the artist. A check will be in the mail, pro-rated by the number of tracks I downloaded. And speaking for myself, I’m not being the least bit facetious. I bet it isn’t much.

I’m willing to pay the artist. My beef is with the record companies that exploit artists and consumers alike. There was an article in the Washington Post a few months ago where record companies and retailers settled a suit where the record companies had been using their combined clout to force retailers to not drop CD prices below a certain figure. (If you can’t figure out why this was to the record companies’ long-term advantage, despite their realizing no direct profit, I’ll explain it in another post.)

‘Napster wants to make CDs and record stores obsolete.’

BFD; fifteen years ago, the record companies decided to make records obsolete. And did so, rather than let them linger as a low-priced alternative to CDs. Just as CDs were more convenient than LPs, mp3 files are becoming more convenient than CDs. This has exactly no connection with the legal and moral issues swirling around Napster.

"[T]he Battle Cry of the Music Thief is, “CDs are too expensive! The RIAA keeps music prices artificially high!” So why are you buying it at all? Seems to me people are playing both sides of the fence, here.

I’m almost never buying music anymore; I’ll be damned if I’m going to fork over $16 for a CD, only to find that, while the one or two songs on the radio may have been worthwhile, but the other ten or twelve songs were crap.

I want to buy just the songs I want; I don’t want to have to buy twelve songs to get one or two. They can sell them to me as MP3 files, or custom-make a CD for me with the songs I’ve ordered, and send it to me in the mail. And getting a song that was popular last year, or five years ago, or twenty years ago, should be as easy as getting one that’s on the radio today, albeit at cheaper prices.

As soon as this is possible for a reasonable price, I won’t have a real problem here. But see this thread for where that stands right now.

44

Mojo, there is a thing in capitalist societies called supply and demand that does come into play when prices charged are decided. People would rather have CD’s because the sound quality is better. That IS a good reason why they should cost more.

I still don’t get where Napster is causing the record industry or artists any financial problems. This copy of Fill Her Up (same album as Desert Rose) I just downloaded has a flaw in it too. I will be glad when I save up for the real thing. Until then I’ll suffer with these copies.

45

But the fact is, RTF, that it’s irrelevant for the purposes of this discussion. Whatever the fraction is, it’s greater than 0%, which is what they get if people simply download it like crazy for free and don’t pay for it at all. And I know you don’t advocate that.

How about small bands that spend their own money to record, press and distribute CDs, only to find their music being given away for free online?

As I mentioned in the post I was typing while you were typing this one . . . :wink:

I don’t know where you people are shopping, but you are poor comparison shoppers. I never pay in excess of $13 for a CD, unless I absolutely, positively cannot find it anywhere for a lower price. Then, I either don’t buy it at all or wait to find it in a cutout bin. And I can nearly always find a place on one of the online music retail sites, or in the store, to sample extensively before I buy.

46

Sorry, Phil, for having overlooked what you said about prices. These days, I have a hard time finding enough CDs at any one time that I’d want to own, to make much of a dent in shipping costs from CDnow et al. Lots of songs, but very few CDs. When I hear three cuts from the same album that I like, it’s the exception, these days. (When I find an album where I like almost all the cuts, I play it to death, driving my wife crazy. I’m still playing Voice of the Beehive’s Honey Lingers to death, and I got that in '92, I think.) And $12 at CDnow is still too much to pay for one or two cuts.

That’s not a generalization - that’s just me. I don’t know if I’m nearly unique, or part of a widespread trend. But that’s my story, and I’m stickin’ with it.

47

Simulposting, I see. :slight_smile:

Gotta go pick up Mrs. F and head home…I’ll reply to your last post later, Phil!

48

I can’t believe it- you’re actually defending price gouging. And in the process you are once again putting things in my mouth that I did not say. Did I say that anyone was being FORCED to buy CDs? No. I said that if you’re not going to buy CDs until the RIAA voluntarily eliminates price gouging, you won’t be buying music anytime soon. I don’t think that’s fair or feasable.

…which costs them nothing extra- in fact, its cheaper. Because they can gouge, they should? That’s ridiculous.

Just because CDNOW has the shite music you listen to for cheap that doesn’t mean that all other CDs are cheap as well- Hendrix’s Driving South? $14.99. Pato Banton Live? $13.99… More CDs cost over $13 than under.

49

Now, I don’t feel very strongly either way…but…
The thing is, Napster is making money off of those downloads and what have you. THAT right there seems to be the problem. It’s not like taping a song off of radio-it’d be more like me taping stuff off the radio then selling it to all of my friends.
Overpriced CDs…well, like it was said, shop around. Look for USED CDs…I don’t know if it’s a national chain, but around Pittsburgh, we have something called Disc Go Round…
And then I went to the Half Price Bookstore and bought Madonna’s Immaculate Collection for 8 bucks, when it’s sixteen in a regular music store.
Do I use Napster? No, not personally, since I don’t like the idea of downloading something that gives people access to my harddrive. Yes, I know, you can turn that feature off, but I still don’t feel like downloading it anyways, since my computer is sorely in need of a serious upgrade, storage wise. That said, I do tend to download MP3s of stuff i like (oldies, mostly, and cheesy seventies music…it’s embarassing.) I mostly go to the MP3 bulletin board, and other places, where you can find stuff…not as much as Napster might have, but still, it’s there.
Gee, am I the ONLY one who actually LIKES midis?

50

My biggest gripe about the passing of napster is no longer being able to find songs that are out of print or live tracks otherwise unavailable.
I recently downloaded a track that was on an out of print CD. I checked ebay, and the cd was going for 50+ bucks. While I liked the song, I wasn’t going to pay 50 bucks for it. And certainly none of that money was going to the artist.

Gnutella and it’s ilk will never have the vast #'s napster had due to the segmentation of it’s servers.
So now it’ll be infinately harder to find those old unavailable tracks.

To those so adamently opposed to napster, I wonder if they feel the same about mix tapes/cd’s traded between friends? Would you not except one as a gift?

Isn’t that a copyright infringement as well?

51

O.K…

I’ve been out biking so I’m coming back in here to take issue with any number of people.

Arnold, come on.

Quote:

“It doesn’t require rocket science to say you are going to have a very hard time selling something if someone is giving it away,” says Cary Sherman, general counsel of the Recording Industry Association of America.

Couldn’t find a less opinioned person, huh?

Of course they’re going to say this, do you expect anything else? They’re the people suing Napster. 'Nough said.

Quote:

If CD sales are up 8%, perhaps they would be up more without Napster?

Givin that pretzel logic, how can you say that the 8% gain isn’t because of Napster?

Quote:

Do you know of any problems with the methodology of this RIAA study?

O.K… Do you you know any stats that support the validity of the study or anecdotal reports that you seem to follow?

PLD
Quote:

In any case, I don’t think you should just casually accuse a 100-year-old publication with a respected journalist record of lying. They are quoting one of Napster’s own documents as part of the story.

Why not? If they have a biased opinion, why not point it out?

I’m saying they do, but who are you to say they don’t?

Their parent company obviously has an opinion. Is it truly wrong for us to think they might want to skew the stories they publish to support their own interests? I don’t think so.

PLD Again:

Oh, no, you should definitely just steal the music without paying for it. That’s the right thing to do.

Ughhh…

Put it this way. The college student’s and myself don’t have the money to go out and buy the C.D. in the first place. We, I, get a few songs that we like from that site and play it to other people.

More likely than not, they comment on the album and go out and purchase it.

I’m not saying I’m a saint for copying these songs, but I wouldn’t be buying them in the first place. No harm, no foul.

52

No, I’m defending what appears to be the prevailing market price in a growing industry. If you want to argue that they would sell more if CDs were cheaper, well, duh. Welcome to Econ 101. If your only argument is that the record companies are more profitable than you prefer them to be, I don’t know what to tell you.

I didn’t say you did. I said that not buying music if you don’t like the price is a perfectly feasible solution. Do you go around buying a lot of things you want but think are overpriced, then sit home all pissed off about it?

I can tell you from personal experience that it is not cheaper to cut a glass master for a CD pressing than it is to provide a DAT master for a cassette run. Period. The physical medium used to secure the final product is another matter altogether. Most of the cost of pressing (not including recording costs) is incurred at the mastering stage. Once you have it mastered, each successive run is cheaper.

Yeah, because it’s not like anyone likes XTC. :rolleyes: Brilliant refutation there–if you can’t argue on the merits, insult their taste in music. Whatever. Oh, and 800.com has Pato Banton live for $11.95, a savings to you of $2.04. I found it in about two minutes.

53

Uh, they did. They mentioned it in the article. What, you think the suits behind Napster are paragons of truth and virtue, just trying to help the little guy? Screw that–they want to get rich. They want to make a trillion bucks off a highly-visible dot.com IPO, and they’ll say whatever they have to to do so.

That’s what we call “unethical journalism,” and it’s a rather serious accusation to make cavalierly.

So budget for it. You’re telling me you don’t have $13? I know I had $13 when I was in college, several times.

If I don’t have the money to buy a Viper, can I just “download” one into my garage? Or just “share” someone else’s?

54

Wait just a damn minute. CD sales are up 8%? But the record companies are “price gouging?” Apparently, a large portion fo the public disagrees. If they felt this to be the case, would CD sales not fall, especially when options, like Napster, to get that music at no cost exist? I see some faulty logic here.

55

I don’t think I have much else to say in this thread that I haven’t already. As a musician, I’ve made my position on Napster and other copyright-violation aids quite clear in the past, and I’ve yet to see anything that changes my opinion. ALl of you are invited to e-mail me if you want to discuss the issue further with me at all.

56

I don’t doubt that Napster is infringing copyright laws, but since there are no central servers for Gnutella and Scour and several others, That would be more along the lines of trading peer to peer, like making personal copies from tape to tape. Am I correct in this assumption? Or does that still fall into the same category Napster does. Napster hosts servers for the public to connect to and copy music from each other, whereas the other Applications similar to it, allow users to connect to each other, and not to any specific network of servers. Is there a gray line there? When you copy tapes, your are protected by law since it’s for personal use (supposedly), and so I would imagine the same falls in here for Gnutella. Or are we also going to see the music industry go for Gnutella next?

57

Damn you PLD!

“I want to get out, but they keep pulling me in.”

I’m up to speed now. And, once again, you seem to miss my point.

PLD Quote:

So budget for it. You’re telling me you don’t have $13? I know I had $13 when I was in college, several times.

Sir, what part of my post don’t you understand?

I said that I’d never buy that C.D. in the first place. I could care less about the $13.00 that it costs.

If I was never going to buy the album in the first place, what harm am I doing getting a song off of Napster?

It’s not like their missing sales and/or royalties.

Or, what if a friend that happens to own an album I like and makes a copy of a song for me? Am I Mr. Stealing Shithead? Tell me you never did that.

The record companies are not being screwed. They are being helped. Their being helped by people who play their music and promote it.

Ever heard of radio?

Seems to me the record companies used to have a thing called ‘payolla’ to push their records in the old days, meaning they played the song alot. Result= “Sales”.

Dick Clark, you out there? Help me. Oh, sorry, court injunction to stay quiet. Sorry Dick.

58

I wouldn’t bet on that seriousart, I just checked gnuttella and got the following message:

Dear Gnutella Users:

Due to the unprecedented traffic volume following the Napster decision we had to take the servers offline temporarily to increase bandwidth and capacity. The gnutella site will be up again in a few hours as soon as the necessary upgrades are completed.
Links removed by UncleBeer

We are sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.
WEGO
The ultimate vertical portal platform.

In other words, one man’s sorrow is another man’s bread and butter, just ask an undertaker !

GPL
Moderator’s Notes:
I have removed the links to all of the sources for MP3 download software. It is the view of the SDMB administration, and apparently the federal authorities, that this software may possibly facilitate copyright infringements. As such, we will not allow what we consider to be illegal activities to be promoted on this message board. While we recognize the possibility of any legal action against the Chicago Reader and the Straight Dope arising out of this is remote, we must take actions to limit our exposure.

We do not wish to stifle the discussion; we value the exchange of ideas and opinions.

[Edited by UncleBeer on 07-28-2000 at 07:39 AM]

59

quote:

Their parent company obviously has an opinion. Is it truly wrong for us to think they might want to skew the stories they publish to support their own interests? I don’t think so.

“That’s what we call “unethical journalism,” and it’s a rather serious accusation to make cavalierly.”

Personally, I think it happens all the time, given the corporations and whatnot that have become owners of these papers.

If you feel I’m wrong, check out the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Unethical Fucks. Their (The conglomerate that is the parent company) are all for light-rail transit despite the public’s dissaproval.

Just so happens that the line will pass over a major piece of property that the parent company owns. The liberal paper couldn’t be happier.

Please tell me their not skewed.

60

Hey Phil, don’t leave just yet!

The problem is, there isn’t anything out there that I can advocate. I don’t advocate continuing to allow the record companies’ monopolistic price gouging, and especially their refusal to sell me what I want without a whole pile of overpriced tracks I don’t want attached. And I also don’t advocate depriving the artists of their fair share.

I’d like to see something in between, but I think it will take a bunch of Napsters and Gnutellas to make it happen. Eventually the existence of easy ways to get music for free will force the record companies to sell people exactly what they want, at reasonable prices.