# Web based digital music distribution is over 10 years old. How goes the RIAA's fight? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 29, 2009, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/web-based-digital-music-distribution-is-over-10-years-old-how-goes-the-riaas-fight/491200 "2009-03-29T18:44:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Bluffcityguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ebca7d/32.png) [@Bluffcityguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bluffcityguy)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/web-based-digital-music-distribution-is-over-10-years-old-how-goes-the-riaas-fight/491200/21 "2009-03-31T11:12:25Z")
> [@TastesLikeBurning](#): > > > [@Cyberhwk](#): > > > > Yeah, except it doesn’t really matter whether it’s true or not as long as people THINK it’s going to be really complicated. You’d have to explain what a TORRENT is, why you need to SEED, why you need this special program to download it, why you need to go to this special site, etc. > > > > That’s probably worth avoiding for a measly $.99 to a lot of people. > > Very true, but I still believe most people could get their head around torrents in less time than it would take to set iTunes up from scratch. As someone whose job includes providing computer technical assistance and helpdesk support to faculty at a fairly prominent professional school in the health sciences (i.e., just about everyone I work for is entitled to use the title “Doctor”), I find your faith in the abilities of users amusing. The folks I work for have years of post-baccalaureate education, held fellowships, received millions in government grants, won awards, etc., and they daily demonstrate the inability to comprehend such complex concepts as that of “a power switch”. 🙂 Cheers, bcg ---
**Author:** ![flyboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/4da419/32.png) [@flyboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flyboy)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/web-based-digital-music-distribution-is-over-10-years-old-how-goes-the-riaas-fight/491200/22 "2009-03-31T12:37:18Z")
> [@DWMarch](#): > > The intuitive leap that the average computer user cannot grasp about Torrents is the fact that the .torrent file is not the movie/song/game they were looking for but merely a means to start downloading it. It doesn’t sound like much to you and I but it’s a huge leap for someone who just wants to download something without hassle. And jumping from music to video is even worse. Unless you stick with Ipod-centric sites , you have to sift through all kinds of .avi et al crap (no easy freeware out there to convert video file formats)… then you finally find what you’re looking for and not enough people are seeding it… :smack: just not worth it to me. ---
**Author:** ![TastesLikeBurning](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@TastesLikeBurning](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TastesLikeBurning)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/web-based-digital-music-distribution-is-over-10-years-old-how-goes-the-riaas-fight/491200/23 "2009-03-31T13:39:16Z")
> [@Bluffcityguy](#): > > As someone whose job includes providing computer technical assistance and helpdesk support to faculty at a fairly prominent professional school in the health sciences (i.e., just about everyone I work for is entitled to use the title “Doctor”), I find your faith in the abilities of users amusing. > > The folks I work for have years of post-baccalaureate education, held fellowships, received millions in government grants, won awards, etc., and they daily demonstrate the inability to comprehend such complex concepts as that of “a power switch”. > > 🙂 > > Cheers, > > bcg I don’t dispute any of what you’ve just said. The point I’m trying to make is that if they can download and install iTunes from scratch, add their music/videos, sync exactly what they want etc, then torrents should be a cinch. The people you refer to are a different category IMO. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/web-based-digital-music-distribution-is-over-10-years-old-how-goes-the-riaas-fight/491200/24 "2009-03-31T13:52:43Z")
> [@TastesLikeBurning](#): > > Re **appleciders** comment about difficulty of illegal downloading and ease of iTunes… > > This simply isn’t true. > > Without mentioning any specific torrent clients, most these days are designed to set-up and configure automatically, then it’s just a matter of searching for the file you want and downloading it to your PC/Mac. The other advantage is that in my experience, a torrent can generally be found in better quality and is also much much more versatile than anything itunes has to offer. > > ITunes is bloated, slow, restrictive, and not all that intuitive in comparison. And you folks wonder why Windows users are malware magnets. ---
**Author:** ![RiverRunner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/977dab/32.png) [@RiverRunner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RiverRunner)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/web-based-digital-music-distribution-is-over-10-years-old-how-goes-the-riaas-fight/491200/25 "2009-03-31T14:01:23Z")
Some of us just believe that it’s wrong to do. If I’m not prepared to shell out a buck or so for a song, then I’m certainly not going to download it for free just because I can unless the copyright holder has explicitly made it available for free download. RR ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/web-based-digital-music-distribution-is-over-10-years-old-how-goes-the-riaas-fight/491200/26 "2009-03-31T14:37:42Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > And you folks wonder why Windows users are malware magnets. FWIW, that’s why I don’t use torrents- I installed BitTorrent and the first three things I downloaded were viruses. After much checking to ensure nothing got infected, I decided maybe I didn’t need to download free games and music after all. ---
**Author:** ![Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troy_mcclure_sf/32/4150_2.png) [@Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troy_McClure_SF)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/web-based-digital-music-distribution-is-over-10-years-old-how-goes-the-riaas-fight/491200/27 "2009-03-31T18:02:28Z")
[http://torrentfreak.com/](http://torrentfreak.com/) keeps a pretty good log of the legal efforts going back and forth. ---
**Author:** ![Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troy_mcclure_sf/32/4150_2.png) [@Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troy_McClure_SF)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/web-based-digital-music-distribution-is-over-10-years-old-how-goes-the-riaas-fight/491200/28 "2009-03-31T18:04:55Z")
> [@TastesLikeBurning](#): > > Without mentioning any specific torrent clients, most these days are designed to set-up and configure automatically, then it’s just a matter of searching for the file you want and downloading it to your PC/Mac. Without getting specific, it’s even easier with programs that can keep an eye out for new episodes of \_\_\_\_\_, then download the torrent and launch the BT client all automatically. You might not know a show is even back from hiatus, but there it is when you wake up in the morning. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/web-based-digital-music-distribution-is-over-10-years-old-how-goes-the-riaas-fight/491200/29 "2009-03-31T21:42:17Z")
> [@TastesLikeBurning](#): > > I don’t dispute any of what you’ve just said. The point I’m trying to make is that if they can download and install iTunes from scratch, add their music/videos, sync exactly what they want etc, then torrents should be a cinch. The people you refer to are a different category IMO. The issue for a lot of people with torrents is that when you search for a file you usually get thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands, of results. Some are good, some are bad and some simply aren’t what you are looking for at all. Sifting though and picking the one you want can be a nuisance. With iTunes (and iTunes is easily the crappiest, most intrusive and cumbersome piece of software to ever get mass distribution) you at least have the certainty that you are going to search once and get a couple of results that are exactly of the type and quality that you want. The download is immediate and can be made automatic. Those are big factors, deal breakers, for people who are busy and on the go. It’s not about having the intelligence or computer savvy to pirate, it’s about simply not seeing the motivation to do so when $1 is well worth avoiding the hassle of delving into the porn and virus laden world of torrents and P2P. You can know that you can open up iTunes and have one stop shopping. New music is promoted to you. New shows are downloaded as they become available. 90% of the time you don’t even need to search since iTunes store has links on their front page. iTunes has music samples for folks that might not know the exact title and artist they are looking for. iTunes simply has a lot of value added over torrents and P2P and it insulates you from the 4chan world. I say this with full understanding of the fact that iTunes is _by far_ the worst program to use for legally downloading content digitally. Even the worst piece of glurgeware has distinct advantages over Bittorrent. ---
**Author:** ![from\_a\_to\_z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5fc32e/32.png) [@from\_a\_to\_z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/from_a_to_z)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/web-based-digital-music-distribution-is-over-10-years-old-how-goes-the-riaas-fight/491200/30 "2009-03-31T23:34:37Z")
> [@astro](#): > > In [wikiing Napster](http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napster)Did the RIAA win, lose or draw? [Piracy: Online and On The Street](http://www.riaa.com/physicalpiracy.php) has the RIAA’s take on the issue. For example, “With investigators deployed in cities across the country, the RIAA is working closely with law enforcement to pull pirate products off the street and to demonstrate that the consequences for this illegal activity are real.” This seems to me as successful as the war on illegal drugs, including the arresting values for cost of bootleg recordings – “global music piracy causes $12.5 billion of economic losses every year, 71,060 U.S. jobs lost…”. I greatly prefer the legally available downloads, like Amazon’s, but even those need aware buyers, because Amazon seems content to just market what its vendors offer, leaving the end buyers to determine the actual content. For example, [One Hit Wonders (“18 Pop Classics From The Stars That Time Forgot”)](http://www.amazon.com/One-Hit-Wonders-Various-Artists/dp/B0000DD78F/) has 6 Customer Reviews, 5 of which note that the songs are re-recordings. (The 6th has “Good quality and great music.”) The RIAA could surely improve its fight by having more truth in advertising. ---
**Author:** ![TastesLikeBurning](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@TastesLikeBurning](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TastesLikeBurning)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/web-based-digital-music-distribution-is-over-10-years-old-how-goes-the-riaas-fight/491200/31 "2009-03-31T23:39:58Z")
> [@RiverRunner](#): > > Some of us just believe that it’s wrong to do. If I’m not prepared to shell out a buck or so for a song, then I’m certainly not going to download it for free just because I can unless the copyright holder has explicitly made it available for free download. > > RR And that’s a valid stance. FWIW, I don’t download music (unless it’s something I literally can’t find anywhere other than a torrent site), for the same reasons you’ve laid out. ---
**Author:** ![Bluffcityguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ebca7d/32.png) [@Bluffcityguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bluffcityguy)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2009, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/web-based-digital-music-distribution-is-over-10-years-old-how-goes-the-riaas-fight/491200/32 "2009-04-01T00:06:05Z")
> [@TastesLikeBurning](#): > > > [@RiverRunner](#): > > > > Some of us just believe that it’s wrong to do. If I’m not prepared to shell out a buck or so for a song, then I’m certainly not going to download it for free just because I can unless the copyright holder has explicitly made it available for free download. > > > > RR > > And that’s a valid stance. FWIW, I don’t download music (unless it’s something I literally can’t find anywhere other than a torrent site), for the same reasons you’ve laid out. Not music, but the same principle. I have a couple sets of bootleg DVDs of TV series which are not in DVD release yet. I don’t like the fact that I had to buy bootlegs, but I wanted these series badly enough to do so. If and when I find out they’ve been legally released on DVD I’ll gladly buy those and dispose of the bootlegs. Cheers, bcg ---
**Author:** ![groo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecd19e/32.png) [@groo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/groo)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2009, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/web-based-digital-music-distribution-is-over-10-years-old-how-goes-the-riaas-fight/491200/33 "2009-04-01T02:16:12Z")
> [@Alex\_Dubinsky](#): > > What happened was: The music industry realized dumb saps would still shell out $$ even if free music was readily available. People use iTunes and don’t know their way around bittorrent. Can’t say I can pinpoint the reason for it, but it’s probably related to why people spend too much money on a handful of companies when better value is always available elsewhere. > … > [@Alex\_Dubinsky](#): > > But, like I said, the real wonder and window into psychology is the question of why hasn’t **free** uptaken as widely and unstoppably as any reasonable person expected? > [@Alex\_Dubinsky](#): > > That’s part of the psychology angle. Why do even computer-savvy people sometimes feel anxiety doing new but simple things? > … > [@Critical1](#): > > … > I think the attitude you have is one of the reasons that pirating isnt more popular…lots of people think its some kind of mystery. > [@Omniscient](#): > > … > It’s not about having the intelligence or computer savvy to pirate, it’s about simply not seeing the motivation to do so when $1 is well worth avoiding the hassle of delving into the porn and virus laden world of torrents and P2P. > … You guys are so sophisticated, and my ignorance has been fought. I live in the Los Angeles area and I can confirm that an awful lot of middlemen seem to make a living by somehow inserting themselves between the musicians and their fans. Are you short-circuiting that abominable business structure by mailing checks to the musicians directly? ---
**Author:** ![Windwalker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/5e9695/32.png) [@Windwalker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Windwalker)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2009, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/web-based-digital-music-distribution-is-over-10-years-old-how-goes-the-riaas-fight/491200/34 "2009-04-01T12:45:52Z")
> [@groo](#): > > You guys are so sophisticated, and my ignorance has been fought. I live in the Los Angeles area and I can confirm that an awful lot of middlemen seem to make a living by somehow inserting themselves between the musicians and their fans. Are you short-circuiting that abominable business structure by mailing checks to the musicians directly? I’ve sent money via Paypal to a few bands’ accounts. It’s less than the price of a physical album, but more than the percentage they’d get from a typical recording contract. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/web-based-digital-music-distribution-is-over-10-years-old-how-goes-the-riaas-fight/491200.md?page=1)