I'm ducking already!

Okay, we've covered the ground on MP3 downloading. We've had countless debates on our ideas on what's right and wrong and what the recording industry and everyone should and shouldn't do. It's also pretty obvious that downloading full movies isn't good and has some ethical problems. Personally, I don't download MP3's. Since my freshman year of college I've downloaded maybe 100 songs. That's about .3% of the amount of most people I know. Plus, I've went out and bought CDs for much of what I've downloaded.

But what about stuff you can't buy?

This is one area where I have a pretty firm stance. I say if I have no means of paying someone for their property, why shouldn't I get it for free? My prime example would be music videos. I'm not afraid to say that I have downloaded over 200 videos totalling nearly 8GB. Most of these are impossible to buy. I've looked. Yes, I have most of Alice In Chains' videos on file, but I also own the Music Bank DVD. That shows that I have the desire to buy these, but if I can't, I see no wrong in downloading them.

For example, I have 9 from Stone Temple Pilots, 10 from Soundgarden, 10 from Nirvana, and 7 from the band that in my opinion has the best videos, Radiohead. Don't all these names sound like groups that would have a video collection out there? But no, they don't (AFAIK).

Believe me, I'd far rather buy these videos. Many of them were encoded badly (hey, it can happen for video too), and most of the authors have decided that their genius in capturing video must be acknowledged by a clever (read: annoying) clip at the end of the video. I would think it would be a simple task to simply throw all the videos on a DVD and ship it out.

So what are your opinions on this? (ducking again)

So what are your opinions on this?

Somehow I think that, if Hell *did* turn out to exist, you aren't going to burn in it. It is a good sign that you pause to ask the question!

But what about stuff you can't buy?

Yes, this to me is one of the ethical determinants. You could say that the owners of the STP/Soundgarden/Nirvana collective estate have the right to keep those music videos from you by not publishing/selling them, but I think that's pretty weak.

My position may be the weaker one from a legal standpoint, but, as a somewhat similar example, I've thought of putting up an homage of out-of-print Kliban cartoons. If Workman Publishing has a problem with that, my feeling is ...why don't they put them back in print?

Maybe I'm just in a bad mood. I was listening to yet another news report today on NPR about college stations going off line due to their inability to pay RIAA fees. Ridiculous. I hope RIAA is happy. I have to say that the music on my Empeg is 99.9% from CDs I own, but if this keeps up that might change. Yes, I have kept to a CD-only policy out of a combination of desire for quality and ethical responsibility to artists, but if this keeps up i think I'll be ready to start a "CD Club" on top of my monthly book club and start passing around burned copies of CDs just to keep a few dollars out of the hands of RIAA.

May I take the opportunity to point out that music videos are merely commercials which sell the albums?

May I take the opportunity to point out that music videos are merely commercials which sell the albums?

And that CDs are just are just commercials to sell concert tickets and T-shirts?

You may. This is one of those rare occasions where I'd like to buy a commercial.

Also, not all of them are. Like the afore-mentioned Radiohead videos. I think they're freaking brilliant. Like art. One question: has anyone here seen the video for a song called "Rabbit In Your Headlights"? It was banned from MTV and VH1 for being "too disturbing", but it's absolutely wonderful.

I always thought the concerts were to sell albums. I think it depends on the band.

I always thought the concerts were to sell albums. I think it depends on the band.

Oh, I know. It's just that at least once a year I have to try to get a rise out of Tony!!

Actually, I think the economics do vary. Touring may make up more of the income profile for bands where their CD market is saturated and -- cocaine-induced-heart-attack-bassist-fatality-or-not -- where arena tickets can still sell for $60.

Lots of music videos have been bundled up into VHS and DVDs, though, eh? And I doubt those record companies would let their lawyers overlook piracy thereof.

ya it really dose, take dave mathews for example i think his studio stuff is alright, but the thing for him is doing live shows, but little bands just starting out do shows to sell Cd's. it all depends because there are some artist who don't even do concerts and just have music videos and those are there way to get there music heard.

Radio play, and music videos to me are just Commercials for the Cd's. But calling them a commercial isn't disrespecting them. Some commercials have been amazing and have been with us from the past Budweiser to name one company that has made some that have stuck, yet get annoying after time i know.

Music videos are just that i see some of them as works of art, yet most are utter crap, just like prime time commercials. there are a few exceptions such as super-bowl sunday commercials where about 70% are great.

just my 5 cents on the situation

About the only thing I have are concert bootlegs. I wish some bands would sell these things. It would be easy money all they have to do is hook up a mini disk record the show and sell it off a website for cheap.

I always thought the concerts were to sell albums.

Usually, yes. At least, that used to be the case-- the point of long hard tours was to increase awareness for the band and to increase the fan base. Tours would often lose money but still be considered a success if album sales went up in the toured markets.

However in recent years, some really big concert tours have been an end unto themselves, with the goal being to make money on the concerts. This is a tricky thing, because I've heard that a badly-attended concert tour can lose spectacular amounts of money very quickly.

About the only thing I have are concert bootlegs. I wish some bands would sell these things.

There are a pile of Fleetwood Mac bootlegs that I know exist and can't get. I occasionally find them on Gnutella or one of the OpenNap networks, but can never download them. Makes me very sad.

I'd buy them if I could...

This is a tricky thing, because I've heard that a badly-attended concert tour can lose spectacular amounts of money very quickly.

Yes, it's that old "ticket-sales-to-trashed-hotel-rooms" ratio!

IMO, if you've made a good faith effort to obtain published works legally, and yet cannot, then the copyright holder is actually committing a crime worse than copyright infringement. The original intention of copyright law was to make works available to the public at large, and to ensure that works didn't get hoarded in dusty cupboards never to be seen. Without that premise, copyright law is entirely worthless.

But you need to be careful with your wording!

I say if I have no means of paying someone for their property, why shouldn't I get it for free?


I have no means of paying for a Ferrari F40.

Anyway, the interesting question is "What constitutes a good faith attempt?"

Trying your local mom+pop record store?
Trying your local Big5-owned store?
Trying all stores in a 5 mile radius?
10 miles? City-wide? State-wide? ....
Phoning the copyright owners agent?
Shagging the copyright owner?


Answers on a postcard please....

I download all of my music with absolutely no remorse whatsoever. I am proud to say I am a pirate. In fact, I hope one day to steal an FM frequency and play pirated music on pirated airwaves. That is my dream.

Anyway, the interesting question is "What constitutes a good faith attempt?"

The internet seems to be a great place, between rare CD stores or used copies. Beyond that, there is always the possibility that the publisher or creator might know. An e-mail I sent to Presto Studios asking where I can buy a CD turned into the CD in question, and some other promotional items sent to me for free. It's amazing what can happen when you show interest in something long since discontinued.

Right now, I use my share of P2P programs, but for one purpose. A VCR. I don't own one, nor will I buy a DVD burner until they settle on a standard, so for now I tend to download TV episodes I want. Right now for example, I have all of Farscape on CD, and when the DVD is released, I buy it and destroy the approiate CD. It's also been handy for catching up on shows, like Jeremiah on Showtime. I managed to catch the second episode when I subscribed to Showtime, and have now downloaded season one to be prepaired to see season two this fall.

While I don't like the crackdown actions by the RIAA and such, I can see why it's done. I see so many people now downloading stuff for free, and just expecting it to be that way. I guess many see it as corporate backlash, but unfortunatly right now, all it does is really hurt the little guys. Both on the creation side (the artists, etc) and the small stores. It seems everyone is willing to deal with crap on their computers while they download stuff, but they are unwilling to do anything to fix the problem, like wiriting their representitives, and voting with actual thought.

Good question on what constitutes an attempt.

Well, I know I didn't do all that I could, but I've looked. For instance, the search revealed a video that Soundgarden released in about 1992 of live performances. I'll be getting that on Half.com when I get a chance because, suprise suprise, it's out of print.

All of my attempts were basically online stores. I check Amazon, I check Half, I check ebay. I also check for the most informative sites on a particular band, and see if there's anything listed there. My last resource is generally GEMM, a site with a heck of a lot of used music stuff, from CDs to posters. They usually have anything that's been out for a band.

But I know what you're talking about Drakino. I've had a similar experience. I had wanted a video that was put out by Blind Melon (not a music video, sort of a documentary on the band), called "Letter From a Porcupine". But it was out of print and nobody was selling. My girlfriend called up the distributer and got them to sell her a copy they had in back stock and she gave it to me for my birthday. That was rather cool.

Now they've just released it on DVD

I should also say that I have the same morals when it comes to old TV shows. I now have every episode of the X-Men animated series that was on Fox when I was still in boy scouts. So many memories from that show

Anyway, I guess I'm going to continue my music video downloading. And I encourage everyone to try to obtain the video for "Rabbit In Your Headlights" and see why MTV and VH1 are a bunch of wusses and can't appreciate a good music video when they see one. Also, if you don't know the song, you'll find a familiar voice singing it If any of you are on AIM sometime, I'd gladly send it to you. I'll send you any video you want

I've downloaded at lot of seventies disco stuff. Not because I wanted to, but because I had to.
See, I would much rather buy a (or several) CD with all that music full length and in excellent quality. But I can't. Believe me, I've tried. At best I can find a compilation album, of which 80% of the tracks are of no interest to me, or (even worse - this is close to sacrilege) all the songs have been cut (sometimes as much as by half!), just to let them push more songs onto one CD. I really hate that. I want FULL versions, but they are impossible to find.
So that's why I download them. They forced me to.

I just hate the fact that a lot of CDs stink with fillers. For instance, there are very few rap artists in which I like more than one song. So to make my rap collection on my empeg, I'm supposed to go out and buy 50 CDs to get the songs I want?

50*14=700 bucks.

Umm... yeah. The RIAA has hardly made even a half-assed attempt to allow high-quality music to be downloaded over the Internet for a fee.

I never really got this mode of thinking for some reason. No offense of course... we each listen to music in different ways.

What i'm trying to say is that when i buy albums, i buy them for the artist, never just for a song. The whole album is their piece of work... and of course you'll like some more than others, but in general everything that i buy i listen to all the way through everytime ... unless i'm in shuffle. I in no way intend this to sound elitist or anything like that, but maybe its that i don't generally buy pop music which is often made with a couple of songs specifically made to be singles. I've never bought a single in my life, but again that's because of the kinds of music i listen to i guess. They just don't do singles. Singles are the fodder for radio play... that's why they are made. I don't get the idea of "that song is awesome, but they suck". Is that just me??

Well, I used to operate in the same way as Loren - I knew which artists I liked, or had listened to a friend's copy of an album before deciding to buy it myself, and I still do normally listen to complete albums. But having the Empeg player has changed my thinking a lot. I'm now much more likely to buy an album on the strength of a couple of tracks, knowing I can put them into a specific mood playlist even if I don't play the album much. I also have been more willing to buy compilations even if I already have 25% of the contents, because I can simply leave the duplicates un-ripped. Compilations only get their own playlists if I'm convinced there's a strong theme tying them together - film soundtracks being the obvious example. I have a "singles" playlist for every year, and several mood playlists composed of singles (set to random play); these are popular with passengers who can't agree on entire albums to play.

As for the ostensible topic of this thread - I've never downloaded music from the Net - free or otherwise. And now our corporate proxy blocks audio/*, so I'm unlikely to do so in the forseeable future. But if anyone has a digital copy of Capercaillie's Cascade album, I'd love to know. My tape is too worn out to bother with, and AFAICT it's never been released on CD and is out of release on cassette...

Hmm... You know... i think i'm just still stuck in the CD paradigm. It's a mental organization thing. I just don't want to seperate everything from it's source. I do the same with photos, digital and otherwise. Prints are all stored in their sleeves with the rest of their roll, and digitals are stored by date/event.

Weird. I never really realized i do that so much. I've gotta start realizing the potential of digital... things can go anywhere. When i get my new empeg... it's time to reorganize. =]

I don't only listen to top40 stuff pop music. I mostely listen to albums too. But let's face it, there's always some tracks that are better than others and some tracks are, well... plain crap.
One of the reasons I got an Empeg actually was to be able to only encode the things I like, so I wouldn't have to use the skip button as often.
I would love the possibility of being able to listen to an album and then just buy the tracks that I like. It's not because I like an artist that I like ALL his tracks. eg. I'm a big fan of the Dire Straits, but a track like "fade to black" is simply not my cup of tea so I don't encode it and I dont put it on my empeg. This doesn't mean I will only fill the empeg with the crowd pleasers like "money for nothing" or "sultans of swing", I also like the not so well known songs like "telegraph road" or "love over gold". What it comes down to is that it's all about tastes really, and you know what they say about that.

I also have a lot of CD singles. But it doesn't mean that if a track makes it to Cd single that it's automatically a commercial track. Far from it. Practically none of those singles even made it into the top40. In the last years I've also bought a lot of trance vinyl records, which I converted to Cd. All those records could be considered as singles, but I'm still very happy I bought them. They contain lovely full length versions of all those tracks I like.

As for the ""that song is awesome, but they suck" as you put it, well, this happens at least a few times a year to me. A good example would be "Drax Ltd III's Amphetamine", a great track, but all Drax'es other works is -dare I say it - pure shite. (or at least I think it is)

it's just like that : people have preferences : reorganising is cool, don't be ashamed to do so! That's where the true power of the Empeg lies!

Yep, exactly. I wasn't trying to make a dig at your listening styles or preferences =].

I've had an empeg for over 2 years and i'm just now realizing the reorganizing power.

One of the reasons I got an Empeg actually was to be able to only encode the things I like, so I wouldn't have to use the skip button as often.
I would love the possibility of being able to listen to an album and then just buy the tracks that I like. It's not because I like an artist that I like ALL his tracks. eg. I'm a big fan of the Dire Straits, but a track like "fade to black" is simply not my cup of tea...

I have wound up making some of the same decisions, but I start out differently. I tend to ripcode *everything*, let it come up a few times in shuffle/random, then I delete only when it occurs to me that "Yikes, I really don't want that on my Empeg". The good thing is that I've been re-exposed to songs I'd forgotten about or which I realized I actually did like if they were part of the right "mood mode".

I'm with Loren, the possibilities are just starting to come to me in part due to tools like Jemplode. I keep wanting to clone my #1 unit to a backup, but keep procrastinating while I debate more playlists!

Of CD's which I've had for years and knew exactly what's on them I simply encoded the tracks which I liked. With new albums I also tend to encode ALL the tracks and upload them all to the player.
Then after having heard them all a few times, I simply mark the tracks which I don't like. I delete them afterwards then.
So in fact my method is a combination or yours and Loren's. Best of boths worlds so to say!

I'm from the camp that rips and encodes everything. I figure, if I have all that space, why not use it? Yeah, you've got to press the skip button sometimes when a song you don't like comes on, but I'm so compulsive that if I didn't include that song, part of me would be thrown off when it doesn't play. That's why I have trouble listening in shuffle mode. I'm so ingrained in listening to entire albums.

Anyway, basically I've come to no different conclusion on my question. I'm going to stick by my moral evaluation until government employees knock down my door.

All I can say is, if I could get Deee-Lite's "Groove Is In the Heart" video on DVD, I'd be groovin' all day long.

Astronomical!

That's why I have trouble listening in shuffle mode. I'm so ingrained in listening to entire albums

Heh, funny. My players shuffle mode is NEVER off. (at least it hasn't been for the last 6 months). I kinda like the idea of not knowing what will come next. This way I sometimes listen to tracks of which I've forgotten I uploaded them onto the Empeg once.
My Empeg has also already surprised me more than one time by playing the exactly right song for the mood I'm in at a particular moment. I swear, it's like my baby knows me better than I know myself sometimes.
/me looks lovingly at my Empeg on my desk now

95% of the time, I'm listening to albums on my empeg. Usually, I feel like listening to something in particular. The rest of the time, I listen to the whole thing on shuffle. So I don't think you're wrong in doing that.

I've always thought that, in many cases, an album is more than simply the sum of its tracks. It has a life of its own.

And I've always had a good ear for recognizing a song that's interesting, but is obviously on an album that's otherwise crap. I usually find that I'm tired of that one song before long, too, with a few exceptions.

So, to me, the concept of albums will never go away. And I hope recording artists feel the same way. Ever go back and listen to some early sixties albums? It feels more like a collection of singles than an album. And most of those one-hit-wonder albums feel the same way, somehow, regardless of the relative quality of the rest of the tracks. But maybe that's just me.

I keep meaning to go back and make genre categorizations that make sense to me so that I can shuffle on emo or hardcore or bubblegum or easy listening or funk or whatever, rather than the genres that the ID3v1 committee decided I should categorize my music into. Now if only the empeg would support multiple genres per song....

Edit: Oh, and I have occasionally bought singles, but always of bands that I really liked and already had the album of, so that I could get the B-side, if it was a new song. Not in recent years, though.

Bwahahahahahaaha!!!!!

An ethics discussion...on the Empeg board!

Bwahahahahahaha...