Quote:
Originally Posted by Adje
First of (and this is also an answer to the very first post) -according to Dutch law (not sure about other coutries)- It's not illegal to download movies, music etc. It's illegal to UPLOAD them without permission of the artist. That may sound as a technicallity but it's an important difference because the law says that it's not upon the downloader to find out if material was offered by permission. What you are not allowed to do is make a copy of it yourself unless you own the original. But you can record from a third party.
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Just to clarify: in The Netherlands it is legal to make a copy of an copyrighted work of art (music, movies, books, etc.) for "personal training, study or use", regardless of the source. That last part has been reaffirmed in two separate lawsuits this year. Uploading or "making available copyrighted works without the rights holder's consent" is forbidden.
Which brings me to a related pet peeve: downloading a song from the internet without paying for it (what one might call "illegal downloading") is not "theft". You do not take some discrete instance of something, like when you take a cd from a record store without paying for it. When you download something, you make a copy of it. Calling it theft is polluting the discussion, as the word has a lot of baggage.
But going back to the 'interesting report in illegal downloads': in the last few years there have been several studies showing that there's a correlation between downloading music and money being spend on music. As in: those who download lost of music often spend more money on music too. But of course, that's not something you hear from record industry reports.
Fact of the matter is that the internet has drastically changed the music industry, and it's not going to change back to the way it was ever again. That might be bad news for the record companies and the select group of artists who made a boatload of money from lucrative record deals, but ultimately, they'll have to adapt. Record companies should stop doing what they have been doing for ages--home taping is killing music, anyone?--blaming the fans for the dire straits they're in and start to innovate. Like make their back-catalog easily available online without stupid restrictions. I believe that if people can easily get the music that they want when they want it for a reasonable price, that they are willing to pay for it. I know I am. But when something I want (say, the
If I Can't Have You EP) is only available through one platform (say, iTunes) or in some part of the world where I don't happen to be, (say, the USA), well, then I have no problem obtaining that from other sources. That's one of the reasons why peer-to-peer networks are so successful: a wealth of content is easily available at a very reasonable price.
Of course, some might argue that you cannot compete with free, and there are those who wonder what the value of music is when you start giving it away for free. Why then are there numerous examples of artists being successful while giving away their work for free or with pay-what-you-like pricing? Maybe it's not the Robbie Williams/Madonna/Bruce Springsteen multi-million-dollar-record-deals kind of success, but artist who make money out of record deals have always been the exceptions. For every mayor success there's a multitude of artists who never get the recognition (monetary or otherwise) they deserve.
As I said, the music business has changed, and I believe that artists will have to work a lot harder to make a living of their art. And I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. I think it goes to the very core of being a musician: do you make music because you want to be famous and make a lot of money, or do you do it because you have to?
I think my train of though has derailed a bit. But something like that anyway.