i was at the night club the other night and they all have videos to the music these days, and i went home and was thinking i want the videos to my current cd collection.
now the thing is, i personally don’t download any music that i do not own (unless it is specificly free for download).
so i was at a dilema, now i have the CD’s for all the music videos that i want. so i started downloading, only songs that i have in my collection.
i personally don’t see this as a moral issue, because i am directly suporting the band/group/person/record label in question.
however somtimes you can get DVD’s with all these on so in some ways its a bit dodgy.
anyway my view is that its ok to download if you have the cd anyway.
i was curious about other peoples moral standpoints on this.
If someone downloads it that would never have bought it in the first place does it still cost the riaa money?
(their figures for losses due to piracy are wrong, most people would not have bought a lot of stuff downloaded in the first place)
as for morals go, music videos are a form of promotion and are often avaliable online for free (depends on the band)
but I am not particularly fond of anything out there now, nothing to download. Just me and my streaming radio.
Speaking as a professional musician, please don’t steal from musicians, they work hard, and most of the time they don’t get payed much at all for it. If you like their music, buy it. I play at old folks homes for free. Everybody else pays. [!]
the closest thing I have are 2 mechwarrior 2 cds which I sometimes listen to (though the mp3 version I ripped)
and have probably only 1 Gb of mp3s (my dad ripped them from my parents cds). Really, I only listen to them when I am in linux and can’t get windows media streams to work right.
the newer music I listen to in only streamed (well, it is cached but I can’t do anything with that directly)
so, my best answer to the moral question is that I have no need to download them, I don’t find much music I like, and when I do it is avaliable free (direct from the artist, radio [ick], or other)
If you spent mutliple hours on blender and produced an awesome animated art work composition. It was so awesome that you knew someone would buy it to help you continue your artistic creativity. How would you feel if someone absconded with it?
If you willingly give it away that is one thing but is theft a justifiable way of dealing with anothers greed? I draw the line of morality when an issue is life threatening. If one is starving I look the other way if he steals the kings meat.
the music videos are all from television, and are made not as a seperate product to the CD’s but as a way to put music onto another media.
for example if i sell VCD’s of my blender work and someone buys them, and then i release a different version of the artwork (the same thing but for a different media source) e.g. a poster of it. i wouldn’t have an objection to the person downloading an image of the poster and printing it (at a lower quality than the original)
because that person is suporting me anyway as an artist.
however if the person had never bought my original CD and hence is not suporting me then i would view it differently.
the fact is i don’t download music, i think its terrible. but at the same time i would not be prepared to buy a cd for $25 and also get a VHS for another $25 just because they play in different machines. in escence they are performing the same function and that is music.
however if i bought a DVD of a artist, and ripped the music too CD (which is going down in quality from 5.1 channels to 2 and losing the video) is that still considered imoral???
Just to get it out of me, IMO dowloading can’t be considered illegal, riping and thereafter intentionally sharing (and causing damage to record companies) is illegal… On-topic, I have most of my MP3’s on legal CD’s.
I don’t download music, but I can’t afford to buy it either. I just find most music all sounds the same anyways. Everyone is mimicing everyone anyways, so who is copying what?
Personaly I have no sympathy with or for the record labels or musicians who sign with them, especially in this day and age. Signed musos get an average of 18c / $ and the labels get the rest less costs. If they want less piracy they ought to sell for less and give the artists a fair cut. Smells of kharma to me. The kind of music I listen to I cant download anyway(Hoyt Axton, Tony Joe White, Mike Bloomfield, etc). I hope piracy drives music sales to direct, web-based marketing and we can see the end of fatcat middlemen.
actually i have another option that achives the same goal as Fligh.
this is the option I choose to take.
i buy only second hand music, or bargin bin cd’s.
this means that the record industry isn’t getting any MORE money, and i am still morally in the right.
however if there is a cd i LIKE, but don’t want to buy, i will jsut GO WITHOUT.
you realise that not buying anything and going without, will have the same effect as stealing, yet will leave you in a better legal and moral poisition.
Well, when it comes down to it. I think it will ultimately be a matter of ones own conscience. If the inside says it’s wrong then it’s wrong for you. If the inside says it’s right then consider this: the USA has 4% of the world’s population with 96% of the world’s lawyers = lots of hungry lawyers.
But in regard to %<'s point I could also flip the coin this way. If the musicians and artists don’t like the rate of pay let them do the work themselves. Let them become linux users, download the software, train their groupies to publish and join the sub economy and underground music scene. They’ll do better.
(anyone interested in a goat hair rug?%| )
If they partake of the beast with their eyes wide open then they deserve 18 cents per $. Surely by now there are artists doing it that way. Up here in the aires of Umpqua National Forest a lot of strange folk live. I know one that creates an online radio show for the artists that do “wake up” or the ones who need a break. There’s a lot of talent there.
I’m all for the use of linux for the reasons above. There is a price to pay not to be a victim of uncontrolled greed. In the long run the rewards are very great if one patiently takes the challenge. The effect on personal character is good most of the time.
If it’s food or medicine yes it’s justified, Unless you one of those UN peace keeper that leave a bowl of soup out and shoot anyone why trys to eat it.
Is downloading (not sharing) music any different than recording them off of TV or the radio? Both basically qualify as “stealing”, and there is a mutual sacrifice: lower quality than the original copy. I think that if downloading music and/or music videos shoud be banned, VCRs and tape recorders might as well be banned too. I know that file downloading is done on a much larger scale, but tape recorders and VCRs have been around for much longer and nobody’s decided to put a stop to them yet. Why?
Another place is the library. Isn’t it legal to copy book pages and even quote them in your own works? But those same principles do not apply to computers for some reason.
AFAIK, quoting rights are usually given unless specifically prohibited. Of course, that assumes you quote properly by given the source and the quote itself in a correct manner.
If you like their music, buy it. 
I play at old folks homes for free. Everybody else pays. [!]