Napster and Kazaa (lite) have provided me with all of the music I ever wanted to own. It allowed me to find rare and unreleased songs. Now I just burn custom CDs for running, gym, driving, etc. Never again will I have to buy the whole album for the hit single. And yes, the artists themselves usually get a painfully tiny percentage. It’s not immoral; it’s simply efficient. (Can’t decide if that last observation is more like Satanists or the Borg.) This is my revenge for the price gouging that the music industry subjected us all to. In fact, we’re all due for a refund anyway:
While I am morally opposed to theft, it’s just too damn easy to download free stuff i might never want to or be able to afford to buy.
DVDs I would prefer to buy though. $15 bucks (pre-viewed) is not a bad price to own a movie when it costs $20 for two to see it in the theater.
Kazaa Lite does have spyware, it’s just less obvious.
Kazaa, Morpheus, Grokster all use the same engine (developed by Kazaa), so essentially they are the same program with a different shell.
The spyware Kazaa puts on your computer allows it to be used as part of a massively distributed system… meaning that you are giving Them permission to use your computer to work on Their projects when They like. There is a utility to remove the spyware.
If you are able to realize a moral stance that allows you to utilize a p2p client, may I recommend WinMX? Its advantages over Kazaa and that ilk: No spyware, No Ads, No (known) exploits, (IMO) A better engine, Unlimited returns for a query. Its disadvantages: A smaller network (but i still find everything I look for).
True, WinMX has a more technically oriented interface than Kazaa, etc. and it is strictly a p2p client. It does not have any embedded players. I mention these just FYI, I don’t see them as disadvantages.
If you’re interested, the website is www.winmx.com.
…can anyone explain to me, how exactly the big music companies are ripping off the consumer? People keep saying it, but noone ever provides any cites or proof…
Banquet Bear, check out this link, as originally cited by Virgowitch above. It is the result of a class action lawsuit against the major record labels for price fixing. This means they conspired (the corporations conspired with one another) to inflate prices of CD’s market-wide. They were found guilty and ordered to pay millions of dollars to any of us (U.S. only maybe?.. not sure) who bought a cd between 1995-2000. No proof necessary (after all…who doesn’t qualify for that?!) they will pay between 5 and 20 dollars apiece to whoever signs up. I learned of this in the news originally. It is legit as far as I know. The payout depends on how many people. I think the settlement was 44 million USD so divide that by however many. Max payout 20 bucks each person. If toooo many people sign up, and the share goes under 5bucks each, they just have to donate the dough to non profit music programs in the “recipient’s” area of residence.
Hyaaah!
take that record labels!
Kazaa Lite, the hack of Kazaa, is now starting to put some ads in its software. I haven’t checked out the spyware angle, noted by Batz Maru, but I wouldn’t be surprised. To combat this, there is now a hack of Kazaa Lite that removes the new ads. I suppose it’s only a matter of time before that guy gets greedy, too, and we end up with a hack of a hack of a hack of Kazaa.
Moral issues aside, I have Kazaa, and if you know how to get rid of the annoying piggyback ware that comes with it, then you just have to deal wit constant pop-up windows. I miss Napster 
If it had not been for P2P programs then I would have not gone out and bought a lot of stuff.
The price of CD’s in the UK is such that experimentation is way too costly and risky, my collection would have become moribund, sticking with the tried and trusted artists and perhaps a few of their spin offs.
Now I can listen to just one song on the radio, pull down other stuff by the same artist, and if I like it will then purchase it.
Realplayer is such an intrusion, and a pain that it is no alternative at all.
It is a pity that even the legal pay to d/l sites cost way too much, why can’t the music industry have the imagination to find ways you can listen to stuff with a file that deletes itself after a trial period ? Then you can pay to keep it it you want.
In the interest of fighting ignorance and all, here’s an interesting article about P2P sharing giving an alternate view to that of the RIAA and their ilk. I find the experiences of Mercedes Lackey, cited in the article, particularly interesting, and much more in line with what I’ve seen as the effects of P2P than the Chicken Little wailings of the record industry. Cassetts were going to kill record sales too, remember? And VCRs were gonna kill Hollywood? And blah, blah, blah…
I haven’t noticed any spyware in Kazaa Lite. I run Ad-Aware all the time and it doesn’t find anything. Even better than Kazaa Lite is a hacked version of that called Kazaa ++ which sets your user participation level to 1000 giving you maximum bandwith.
How about this reason:
It rewrites your winsock and keeps an open door into your computer open at all times, as long as you are connected to the net?
I haven’t seen any popups with Kazaa Lite. There’s a modified Hosts file that you can download that blocks most of the ad sites from being accessed by your browser.
Which justification do you use?
- It’s easy.
- I steal because someone else(record companies) steal.
- Both.
[slight hijack]
Spybot - Search and Destroy does a much better job of removing adware and spyware than Ad-Aware does. At least in my personal experience. Everyone should have this excellent program.
[/slight hijack]
Damn, the ignorance being spouted in this thread is breathtaking. Just one example:
So, if you were buying a Rembrandt, you’d figure out how much the canvas and oil paint cost, and figure a small profit on that, to come up with a fair price? Should you be able to buy a book for the cost of the paper? Sorry, but that’s just moronic.
When you buy a CD or DVD, you’re not paying more than a few cents for the medium. The money is going to the songwriters, screenwriters, musicians, producers, advertising expenses, artwork creators, etc., etc.
You won’t see them if you’re using an old version of Kazaa Lite. The newest version is 2.02 build 2. The ads started with 2.01, IIRC. It’s just one little window that moves across the screen from right to left, then stops in the middle. The ad is internal to the program; that is, it doesn’t spawn a seperate window, though it does look like one. I haven’t checked which ad server they’re using, but apparently it’s one that’s not looped back to the localhost in the hosts file.
If I were buying a copy of a Rembrandt, I’d do just that. If I couldn’t afford the original or a copy, I’d just take a free look on-line.
Comparing original oil paintings to music cds doesn’t work. When you buy a music cd, you’re buying a copy of the original. You want to purchase the original, it’d cost you millions. How much would it cost to buy the lastest original album by Sting? Not just the original master recording, but all the rights to it?
Regarding the music side of this, when you but a cd the majority of the money goes back to the record company. The band generally sees about 1 dollar for every 20 dollar cd. However, and I suppose this varies from label to label, the band has to repay any outstanding advances they were granted before they can start to claim royalties. As it says here, most bands never recoup enough to cover their advance and won’t see a cent from record sales.
As soon as they come up with a file-sharing system that won’t mess up my computer, I’m signing up, and for what is, AFAIK, a completely legal use.
I’ve got hundreds of LPs, with thousands of songs on them. I could go through the hassle of hooking up my phonograph to my computer and turning them into MP3s myself (perfectly legal), or I could download them off the Web. Legally, there’s apparently zero difference, which makes sense, since the outcomes are the same.