Comments

1. My thoughts are that Malerie is still with David and will stay together forever and ever

   Malerie | 2008-02-04 - 12:43:51 PM (CDT)

2. hey you RIAA minion,

   how much are they paying you for this FUDD?

   Ruckus is a great service and I do use it, but that ain’t ’cause of no friggin’ empty RIAA mania, it’s ’cause the service has a good catalog and decent search capabilities and downloads fast.

   _||_ | 2008-02-08 - 04:07:26 AM (CDT)

3. 1) Nothing - my advice is a service to the community.
   2) You spelled FUD wrong. There’s only one ’D’.
   3) Empty RIAA mania? You tell that to Jammie Thomas, single mother from Minnesota that got sued in October for $222,000 for sharing 24 songs.

   You can spout crap all you want, but for the sake of the community, I’m glad the only outlet you have to do it (the comments here) isn’t as widely read as a hard copy of the paper.

   Philip DiStefano | 2008-02-08 - 12:10:04 PM (CDT)

4. To all you POSs that ARE stealing music and think it’s no big deal - I hope there will come a day when you enter the real world/work force and your boss decides not to pay YOU for your work. You badly need a taste of your own medicine!

   Working Musician | 2008-02-10 - 08:56:37 AM (CDT)

5. The gap in the level of discourse on either side of the filesharing thing always amuses me.
   Pro: "media giants need a new economic model, information wants to be free, blah blah"
   Anti: "OMG it’s illegal you’ll get sued!"

   just another spambot | 2008-02-12 - 02:36:29 AM (CDT)

6. 1) The RIAA uses investigators to find "guilty" parties (all they find is an IP #, which isn’t a valid way to verify who’s actually *at* the computer). As I was saying, the investigators? They don’t have valid investigator’s licenses for a lot of the states. As far as I know, one state has already sent the RIAA a cease and dissist letter.

   Also: The fact that Ruckus isn’t getting enough users should be a clue. When people aren’t willing to download DRM infested music for free, it’s saying that your DRM infested music is worth LESS than nothing.

   I download it for free, because I use [EDITED] to re-record it so I can put it on my iPod for free =)

   It’s perfectly legal to download from Ruckus, and it’s legal for me to use [EDITED], but it’s not legal for me to *distribute* [EDITED].

   Note the edited part is self injected. Like I’d give the software name to a RIAA fan?! PFFT! Please.

   Not to mention, due to supply and demand, the MP3 files? Aren’t worth anything to begin with. CDs were worth something because they were a limited stock. MP3s don’t have a limit. You can copy an infinite number of MP3s, and that’s why they have less value.

   Don’t believe me? The past shows it’s true. Just look at Germany’s record before WW1, where they printed out too much money and it meant *nothing*.

   Or the US in the 1930s. We all had money, but because the stock markets crashed, it was worth NOTHING (at least, not until we got involved in WW2).

   Or think about this way: what if the most famous painting you know (I’m thinking Starry Night by Van Gough, myself) suddenly was *insanely* easy to reproduce and spread everywhere? Would museums still want to pay a few billion dollars to buy it? NO! Because why would you spend a few billion dollars for a product that’s so easy to copy and distribute?

   The RIAA needs to ask that themselves.

   At this point in my life, if I *had* the money, I’d be willing to spend 99 cents per song that’s not infested with DRM (and can do so in the iTunes Store).

   But, once DRM is gone for good, I don’t think I’ll be so willing to spend the 99 cents per song anymore. I’d be more willing to look into a cheap substitute that lets me pay a monthly fee and download (AND KEEP!) all the DRM free music I want.

   I’m willing to spend $10 on this at most. However, I’m not willing to convince *any* music subscription service to keep me as a customer if they jack up the price.

   And the fact that now the RIAA wants to shoot themselves in the foot by

   Also? Filesharing isn’t illegal, since you’re not making money off of it. Canada’s government has even gone to show that filesharing hasn’t made any dent in CD sales, whether for the positive or the negative.

   Filesharing constitutes as fair use. Wanna know what’s *really* illegal? Forcing ISPs and Colleges/Universities to give out other people’s names so that you can *sue* that person. Suing multiple people with 1 filesuit. Taking people to court over substantial evidence. Waiting until the last minute to inform someone that they’re going to court, so that user has to give up their info right away and doesn’t have enough time to contact a lawyer for advice.

   Gee, I wonder who follows *those* practices...Google it ;)

   Also: The filesharing thing? If the thing about that code (09 F9 blah blah woof woof) has shown *anything*, it shows that cease and desist letters DO NOT WORK.

   If anything, C&D letters help give free advertising to file sharing communities (hey, that’s how I found the Pirate Bay).

   And the fact that the RIAA is charging innocent people for crimes they didn’t commit (some didn’t own a computer that *supported* the software the RIAA claimed they were using, and I’ve already touched on the Free Use thing), as well as charging one single mom with 2 kids a 6 digit fine for filesharing (NOT STEALING, since she didn’t take a physical file, and since she never sold it), people tend not to like the RIAA so much. In fact, this makes users want to rip off the RIAA *more,* so the RIAA can stop funding these useless lawsuits.

   The worst part is that the RIAA wind up with a lawyer who clearly has *no* idea how filesharing/The Internet/IPs work, and *that’s* why people wind up with such an insane bill. That ought to be illegal in my book. It isn’t yet, because the laws are too draconian, and nothing like the Internet has ever been invented before.

   And the whole thing where the ISP must now monitor who shares what over computers (despite the lack of adequate technology, and the lack of logical sense doing so) is STUPID. *nothing* prevents me from hiding my IP and claiming I’m from Russia in order to file share.
   Having the ISPs become police is like having gas stations police who buys gas by making sure the user isn’t gassing up their get away car on the way to the bank.

   It’s asinine and stupid, and the RIAA is quickly making many enemies. The only friends they *do* have are friends because the RIAA is using terms with negative connotations ("STEAL" when they mean "infringe," even though the "infringement" clearly falls under fair use) in order to turn its consumers into criminals in the eyes of the people who aren’t technologically savvy and have NO IDEA what is going on (and thus are forming half-baked opinions, since they don’t bother researching into what the RIAA is saying). And the rest of the RIAA’s "friends"? Yeah, they’re *paid* to be the RIAA’s friends.

   I say Go State of Oregon!! Since the state general is now basically saying that the RIAA doesn’t have a leg to stand on. And the RIAA can’t run from the case because that *proves* the accusations are true, and proves it *far* more better than just sticking with the case and waiting for the truth to inevitably come out anyways.

   Also: All the movies that I "illegally" watch on sites that are hosted in China? Yeah, even if they weren’t available? I still wouldn’t have paid to go to the theaters to see those movies. I still wouldn’t have paid Blockbuster to rent them. If anything, I’d borrow the said movie from the Library (that I seldom visit) or my friends (who are more into games than movies).

   Heidi | 2008-02-12 - 09:04:29 PM (CDT)

7. so basically this is an advertisement for ruckus - a program that not many college kids use, and the ones that i know that do listen to music then download the album ILLEGALLY.
   you’re not going to stop people from downloading music ala torrents, ala limewire, etc etc etc
   if the RIAA wanted to stop it, they’d stop giving albums out to dumbfuck journalists like yourself to review before the fucking thing comes out - it’s called press.
   but you know what, even bands know that this won’t stop. that’s why they’re dropping their labels, and it’s not just Radiohead, it’s The Rolling Stones - you know those guys who have about 6 albums in the Top 500 Greatest Albums of all Time? Also, Madonna, Prince.... the list goes on because artists are saying, "Hey, we want our fans to hear our shit right after we make it, we don’t want to go through the middle-men."

   The music industry ain’t what it used to be kid. Stop reading Billboard in hopes that sales will go up. Nobody’s gonna buy an album at 18 bucks a pop when they can download some software and get it for free in a matter of minutes.

   Tiger Weekly stop publishing advertisements and get some fucking stories in.

   tom izzo | 2008-02-12 - 09:04:59 PM (CDT)

8. ^ you=idiot

   grandma | 2008-02-12 - 09:20:50 PM (CDT)

9. This isn’t an ad for Ruckus; this is a message to let people know that they can get sued for using programs like LimeWire (and a lot of people STILL don’t know that) and that you can still get free music elsewhere.

   I don’t like the RIAA either, but I’m still smart enough to not Torrent new CD’s.

   P.S. Ruckus + Fair Use 4 WM

   Philip | 2008-02-13 - 03:16:55 PM (CDT)

10. The RIAA is nothing more than a bunch of gangsters. They are BAWWWWWing that it’s getting harder and harder for them to rip off people and artists. They say that they are protecting artists, while at the same time trying to reduce the royalties they have to pay to them. If an artist is good they will make money from concerts and use recorded music to make sure people hear and know about them. Unfortunately America has become infested with corporate gangsters in the form of the RIAA and others who are basically just the same as the thugs you find in the bad parts of any major city, but with a business degree and a suit. They will try hard, but they will fail at stopping piracy. The reason they are going after colleges is because they failed so hard at trying to find people in the wild of the internet. What they are doing is about as low as you can get, going after college students. Then they put up a bunch of propaganda and start Ruckus which is probably infested with all kinds of spy/adware.

    NOMORERIAA | 2008-02-14 - 11:09:34 PM (CDT)

11. Ruckus is spyware and adware free.

    John | 2008-02-20 - 12:21:36 PM (CDT)

12. alright you tards, number one... for those of you who say "Oh, I hope you get caught because the artists aren’t making money"... most artists don’t make money off of the songs... but simply off of the record. Many artists are just given a specific amount. Some may get royalties... but the smaller groups most certainly do not. Ruckus is fairly nice if you listen to what philip says. I see the RIAA being disreguarded by every music company currently active... the trend has already started... just watch to see who follows.

    James | 2008-02-25 - 10:11:21 PM (CDT)

13. This article sucks and this writer’s an idiot.

    Paul | 2008-02-26 - 03:51:02 PM (CDT)

14. If you haven’t been caught using BitTorrent (if you use limewire you are a tool) it is because the number of suits is insignificant in relation to the number of users using these services. Nevertheless, some people are sued, and if you are really concerned about this you should NOT use Ruckus, which has a small music library riddled with DRM, and seriously contributes nothing to reform in the music industry, but you should use Usenet (another form of piracy) which is completely secure, faster than Ruckus, has a wider selection (especially of movies), and while it costs money in the short term the tracks you obtain will NOT be riddled with crappy DRM technology. Moreover, you will get to keep them forever, and use them however you like.

    Piracy will continue as a major form of distribution until the RIAA and MPAA both come up with intelligent and viable ways to interface with modern technology. If they don’t they will go the way of Ned Ludd.

    Finally, addressing the man above who posited that MP3s have no value, being infinitely copyable, this is essentially true. What does have value however is content distribution (bandwidth is not free), customized recommendations (use Lastfm or pandora if you don’t), and live performances (which cannot be copied). There are niches here in which the record labels can monetize music beyond the simple sale of easily piratable tracks.

    And for those of you self righteous hacks who believe that by using the iTunes music store (DRM riddled despite what the author of this article says), or even the Amazon store, you are taking a serious alternate position to my own, consider that iTunes is currently in a battle to reduce artist royalties to just %4 percent of sales (thats 4 cents a song), while Amazon rocks it out with slightly under 10%. Ask yourself what their profit margins are, and whether the big winners are the performers, or the studios and distributors?

    Finally, please consider that Ruckus costs money after college, and as such cannot be considered free. And when Ruckus goes out of business, what will you do? Your DRMed music will surely expire with this concept.

    Willis | 2008-02-28 - 10:48:25 PM (CDT)

15. Forget paying for it after you graduate. Forget not being able to actually have the file on your computer. If you want true free music...

    www.Spiralfrog.com

    Joe | 2008-03-07 - 02:57:33 PM (CDT)

16. @ Heidi, # 6:

    I suppose I am writing this for my own benefit, because I doubt you or I will ever revisit this thread.

    I do not believe you have an entirely reasonable approach to what you think. It is possible that I could be wrong, but permit me to explain my point of view. Firstly, your use of all caps to express ideas (NOT STEAL, STUPID, NO IDEA, etc...) seems to indicate only that you are strongly opinionated, and perhaps that you have let your emotions cloud your judgment. You should yell at someone if you want him or her to agree with you. At best, they will do what you say and despise you for it.

    **************QUOTE******************************************
    The RIAA uses investigators to find \"guilty\" parties (all they find is an IP #, which isn\’t a valid way to verify who\’s actually *at* the computer).
    ***************END********************************************

    You may indeed be right, and you are certainly correct that one cannot prove an individual’s actual computer use based on the usage of their IP, but I am curious how you know the inner workings of the RIAA’s investigations. Perhaps you know it from good sources, but I cannot assume that is the case. You should provide a name or a link to back up your claim. Not everyone is entirely truthful on the internet.

    ****************QUOTE******************************************
    As I was saying, the investigators? They don\’t have valid investigator\’s licenses for a lot of the states.
    *****************END********************************************

    The same holds true here. How do you know the investigators do not have valid licenses? And if they do not, how many of them do not. Do you mean to say there has never been an individual employed by the RIAA for the purpose of investigation, who was also licensed to perform such an investigation? Perhaps you are right. However, what do you mean by a lot of states? I consider 1 to be a lot of states if you are driving in one day (I am from Texas), but I would not consider 1 to be a lot of states to take in the presidential election. This language is too vague to tell me anything useful, because I only know your opinion of the RIAA and it’s affiliates, and not whether it can be trusted.

    ********************QUOTE****************************************
    I download it for free, because I use [EDITED] to re-record it so I can put it on my iPod for free =)

    It\’s perfectly legal to download from Ruckus, and it\’s legal for me to use [EDITED], but it\’s not legal for me to *distribute* [EDITED].
    **************END**************************************************

    This appears to be a profoundly audacious claim. To myself at least. Thus far, you have not written in a manner that caused me to presume you are a lawyer. If you had, I might give you the benefit of the doubt and say you probably do know every law Federal, State, and local in the United States and how they are applied.

    But you have not. I must confess, your writing style does not make me believe you are a student of law. All it makes me believe is that you mince words as lawyers are reputed to do. Is it any less stealing for me to take a lawnmower from a store and not sell it to anyone? I think it is not.

    Now, intellectual property is not exactly the same as physical property for a few important reasons. Two of which are that Intellectual Objects are not consumed in the use, and that they are exclusive in regards to ownership.

    However, I believe your viewpoint is too limited when you define theft. It seems you think of theft as taking something physical from someone’s hands. And while many thefts occur in precisely that way, even some physical ownership is difficult to define; cases of abandonment for instance.
    I contend that you are stealing when you make copies of this music. If the music is supported by advertising, then someone is paying for it. If you do not view said advertising, then you are breaking the system and someone is losing money. Perhaps it is not a lot of money per instance, but tell me this: These people feed their children with the money the get from this industry. Is it alright to steal food from their children, as long as it isn’t very much?

    Perhaps it is. Perhaps it is perfectly fine to steal from someone as long as they aren’t aware of it. Maybe we should all steal from the blind, because they won’t receive any undue discomfort from such an act.

    Perhaps we should all steal from you, in a way you don’t notice. Would that be alright? If you never notice then you shouldn’t mind.

    *****************QUOTE*******************************************
    Not to mention, due to supply and demand, the MP3 files? Aren\’t worth anything to begin with. CDs were worth something because they were a limited stock. MP3s don\’t have a limit. You can copy an infinite number of MP3s, and that\’s why they have less value.
    *****************END*********************************************

    This economic argument would be more convincing if you had approached it differently. If MP3’s are entirely worthless, or nearly worthless, then why would you want them? You shouldn’t want anything that is worthless. I know I wouldn’t want anything that I didn’t want.

    I do not believe MP3s are worthless, because many people derive use from them. I use MP3’s to listen to music on my MP3 player. That is the worth I derive from the file format called MP3. All of this is to say, if you mean to show the file format to be worthless you might be correct—most of my songs are in the windows lossless format, and only my old songs are in MP3s.

    However, if you mean to say the music contained in MP3s is worthless, then I disagree with you. I for one enjoy music. I bet you would also enjoy music if you gave it a chance. In fact, you might enjoy music so much that you wish to listen to it often. In this case, you would probably have to buy a copy. This transaction is the process by which musicians are compensated for their work. If we did not engage in this process at all, then there could be few great musicians, because by and large people must work to support themselves.

    ***********************QUOTE************************************
    Don\’t believe me? The past shows it\’s true. Just look at Germany\’s record before WW1, where they printed out too much money and it meant *nothing*.
    ******************END*********************************************

    This part confuses me, because you are using the particularly rare concept of hyperinflation to illustrate the concept of Intellectual Property, and why you are not stealing when you take things that don’t belong to you. As I recall from my economics class, the only two countries to ever suffer from Hyperinflation are post WWI Germany and Argentina some time after that. Regardless of the history, I believe you are incorrect in your assertion that these two ideas are identical.

    For instance, the formula for Coca Cola is Intellectual Property. But what would happen if the formula ever escaped? If there was suddenly an off brand that tasted identical to Coca Cola, then the value of Coca Cola would plummet, because the market tends to buy the cheaper of two similar products. Granted, this does not take Coca Cola’s brand into account, but the idea still holds. What if it were medicine? What if we were talking about plans to a simple device a layman could build that produced a bullet proof energy shield that took very little electricity to power? In some instances, intellectual property—though infinitely reproducible—can be very valuable because of its scarcity.

    ******************QUOTE****************************************
    At this point in my life, if I *had* the money, I\’d be willing to spend 99 cents per song that\’s not infested with DRM (and can do so in the iTunes Store).
    *****************END********************************************

    Now, here I am about to make an attack on your character. Perhaps this reveals that I really am a bad person after all.

    You think like a petulant child. Permit me my presumptions, but I do not think you mean what you say. I believe you could find one dollar to pay for one song. What you mean, If I am correct, is that you would pay for the songs you have downloaded if money were no object. Hence, you are saying you will never pay for the songs. Money is no object for you now, because you do not pay. If money were no object you then you would pay, but only because it still costs you nothing.

    This is a foolish argument, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Do you really believe you will pay for everything if you suddenly won the lottery? Maybe you would. Maybe I have entirely misjudged your character and you deserve and apology. But, I say, you pay nothing because your character is lacking here. You don’t pay, because you are a hedonist in a world without consequence. You don’t pay, because you don’t believe it really matters.

    I suspect that you don’t want to admit you are stealing, and that is why you justify it to yourself this way. You should be ashamed of that. I’m not even saying you should stop downloading music illegally. I’m saying that you should stop lying to yourself, because that pollutes our civilization.
    Those words were harsh, and for what it’s worth I’m sorry I had to say them. If it makes you feel better, many people are in the same place.

    ****************************QUOTE********************************
    Also: All the movies that I \"illegally\" watch on sites that are hosted in China? Yeah, even if they weren\’t available? I still wouldn\’t have paid to go to the theaters to see those movies. I still wouldn\’t have paid Blockbuster to rent them. If anything, I\’d borrow the said movie from the Library (that I seldom visit) or my friends (who are more into games than movies).
    ******************************END**********************************

    You do not know everything. Think back to when you were very young. Was there ever a time that you didn’t like boys? Was there a time you believed in Santa Clause? The tooth fairy? If you thought you would never like boys, If you later thought no one would ever like you, if you believed in Santa Clause, or if you swore that you would never speed in an automobile, if you have thought any of these things, then you have probably also done something you did not think you would do. You grew to like boys, or realized Santa Clause isn’t real. I cannot say what your life has been like, but surely you can see how there was once a time in your life when you believed something and yet events turned out differently?

    If this happens to everyone, then how can you say you would never buy any of the music you download? You will never buy it now—you already have it. But if it is music you genuinely want to hear often, then eventually you would pay for it. Instead, you circumvent the entire process. Maybe I’m wrong. You say you rarely visit libraries, but maybe you’re absolutely right and I am not. Maybe everything you think right now will eventually come to pass as if the purpose of the universe was to bend to your desires.

    In any case, I do not contend that it is easy to live a scrupulous life in these regards. There are innumerable Youtube videos that break the same laws, and everyone watches Youtube. But do not lie to yourself. You are a thief. Even if you delete all of your music, it will not really be paid in full until you purchase it all.

    We live in a time when people do not have an inner sense of right and wrong concerning Intellectual Property, and it would be unreasonable to expect everyone to live without ever making mistakes, but for the sake of your unborn children do not maintain the habit of lying to yourself.

    David | 2008-03-08 - 03:09:13 AM (CDT)

17. I would like to mention there are typos in my above post. The most important one I noticed was the omission of the word "not", when I was talking about intellectual property.

    David | 2008-03-08 - 03:16:32 AM (CDT)

18. Hello David,

    I have enjoyed reading your post. I must say that I applaud you on your article. Your words are positive and encouraging. Spoken like a true great Music Attorney. This is the kind of advocacy all musicians need and should have. I have been an independent artist for well over 30 years touring extensively and have had a fair amount of success throughout my career. This due, partially from the sale of my music over the years. I have since embarked upon launching my own music store www.suite503music.com which now has a web presence. I would like to invite you to visit us and brouse our store. I respectfully ask for your comments about my site, as I believe that it could be of benefit to me. Please know that I am not sensitive on these issues, so please feel free to say what ever you feel. I seek your true input. I encourage you to please invite your friends to visit with comments as well. I would like ad that this is not a sales pitch to get traffic to the site, nor to get you to purchase any music. If you do not wish to respond respond, I understand.

    Regards,

    LaCrue | 2008-03-09 - 11:14:34 AM (CDT)

19. I would like to ackowledge the typos in my above post. The second to the last sentence should read; I would like to ad that this is not a sales pitch to get traffic to the site, nor to get you to purchase any music.

    LaCrue | 2008-03-09 - 11:19:50 AM (CDT)

20. Wow, there’s really been some interesting conversation here.

    PD | 2008-03-10 - 04:32:30 AM (CDT)

21. DRM is absolutely worthless and the bitrate quality of this stuff is atrocious.

    Anti-piracy advocates are such industry tools. WATCH OUT YOU’LL GET SUED COWER IN FEAR. give me a break.

    http://www.demonbaby.com/blog/2007/10/when-pigs-fly-death-of-oink-birth-of.html

    read an learn.

    ~~~~ | 2008-03-29 - 07:04:19 PM (CDT)

22. DRM is an encryption technology that uses a key to turn an encrypted file into a decrypted one. Never in the history of cryptography has there been a system that encrypts something that decrypts it in worse quality. That would completely skip the point of encryption.

    I have no money, therefore I use Ruckus to download and play music on my computer. If I had spare money I would probably buy the tracks off of Napster or something less restrictive, but I have no money, so I can’t. That’s how the market works. It’s not about whether they deserve the money, whether I was going to buy it anyways, or whether I’m sticking it to the man buy stealing music, it’s about whether I am able to afford it.

    dbc381a9a99ffa8831debea89dc17f5f | 2008-09-08 - 06:49:08 AM (CDT)

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