Interesting report on illegal downloads

[AndyK]

OK enough with the personal comments please.

Discuss the issues, don't drag it to personal insults or accusations any more please or it's a

[Adje]

Originally Posted by PanicLord

* What proportion of people, having illegally downloaded eg a film or album, would then go and legally obtain the same or something else by the artist? My opinion is if you steal once you are more likely to steal a 2nd time. I think the majority is harmful.

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.

So over here you won't get prosecuted for downloading and watching copyrighted movies/listen to music. When you offer these material to others without permission you are breaking the law. In that perspective I'm not doing anything illegal :) So there can't be a mentioning of stealing in my case.

Maybe you should all check the law in your country/state but it might be that they are equal to ours.

That also means that in the Netherlands you are allowed to tape from radio/tv and watch/listen the material in your own private surrounding. Again you're not allowed to share so you technically can't invite people when you watch this material.

Now we have sliced this topic in two, it seems. Apart from 'is it legal to record radio/tv material we also started a discussion about bootlegs. Just so you know bootlegs are not considered copyrighted material over here.
Maybe you never watch bootlegs, maybe you do or maybe you lie about it. Thing is that having/watching/listen to bootlegs doesn't make you a bigger or lesser fan of an artist.
If you feel it does the artist wrong, good for you. Don't bother with it.
If you want to enjoy as much as you can from your idol this is a great way to do so.

Take Meat Loaf. I won't be able to see the HC tour. After 2007 and 2008 it would be extremely hard for Meat Loaf to get a concert booked in the Netherlands. But more important Meat doesn't seem to want to tour outside the UK on this side of the ocean. Costs, health, busy agenda etc. they are all part of that decision which I can only accept. That means if Meat doesn't give us an official release I will never be able to see anything of the tour. Thank the mighty Lord for YouTube and the people recording in the audience. They make it possible for me to get a real impression of the concerts. And as a fan I enjoy every moment of it.

Does this make me a 'bad' fan? I don't think so. Are people who refuse to watch those clips lesser fans than I? Nope. But the bootlegs make it possible for me to get impressions of shows that I could never hear or see otherwise. And for me it's a big bonus that they exist and are out there to grab.

[Julie in the rv mirror]

Originally Posted by The Flying Mouse

The problem with this (as well as the comments on this thread concerning artist who encourage illegal downloads of their material) is that is not up to the artist, or any fan club to give this permission.
Strange as it might seem, they do not have the right.

You are of course correct when it comes to official releases, because those recordings are indeed the property of the label. To me, it becomes different when you talk about fan recordings of live shows.

We're talking copyright law here, which is why the murder/mugging example, while I know your intent was to be dramatic, was not a good example. Laws against those types of actions were made for a completely different purpose than copyright law, which was made to protect the rights of the creator of something to profit from it.

I'm a huge Bruce Springsteen fan (shocking, I know ), and he is one of the top most bootlegged artists (with the Beatles, Dylan and the Stones being others). While he has never explicitly given permission to tape his shows (as the Grateful Dead did), he's done very little to stop it. There are websites devoted entirely to boots of his shows, which I'm sure he could shut down with just a phone call to his attorney if he wished.( I might note that links to official material are not allowed.)

Satellite radio has a channel called E Street Radio, which is officially sanctioned by the Springsteen camp. They play bootlegs. Recently, Bruce gave an interview in which he stated that he gave them permission to play anything that anybody sends them. If you want to be picky, you could argue that he never gave permission to record in the first place- that is true. The Grateful Dead did- you mean they had no right to do so? Why not- it's their performance, of their songs.

My point is, he is the performer, songwriter, and owns the publishing to these songs. He owns the copyrights. Are you saying he has no right to say what happens with these recordings? Who owns them then? Not the record company- they only own the specific recordings released by the label.

Is it still illegal? I guess so. But if the artist appears not to have a problem with it, I don't either. And I don't feel any sense of entitlement to have any recording, nor am I saying that it's the artist's "fault" because they haven't released it officially. I would be quite content to live without them- I did for many years before I knew anything about them or where to get them. On the contrary, I feel happy that fans share with each other, and thankful that the subject of our admiration "allows" us to do so.

Originally Posted by The Flying Mouse

Most people find their own compromise based on their ethical beliefes.

They do. And nowhere did I say that just because you can get away with something, that it's OK. I simply stated that people are more likely to do so. It's a matter of degree, IMO.

@tink, to answer your questions, when we say bootlegs, in most cases, we mean audience recordings of a concert. You don't need any magical software or equipment- if you can download and play songs from iTunes, you could do the same with boots if you knew where to look for them. Let me state clearly that I am not advocating or encouraging this practice- simply answering a question.

And technically, yes, if you tape an album and give a copy to a friend, that is illegal, even if you didn't sell it.

[Wario]

Im pro not spending money on unreleased music.

[Evil One]

Originally Posted by WarioLoaf

Im pro not spending money on unreleased music.

Anyone who pays for bootlegs in this day and age is a bit

[evil nickname]

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.

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.

[allrevvedup]

I refer to what Andy has said...can we stick to that please?

[sexyeyes_jo]

imo i think that illegal downloads shouldn't be aloud to me there's nothing wrong with going out and buying a cd wether its a meat loaf or bon jovi cd at least that way its legal and you can listen to anytime you want rather than listening to it on the computer i don't know perhaps im just being old fashioned for my age but thats what i would rather do myself

[Sue K]

This morning I received a Garth Brooks alert containing a link to his performance Thursday night of Friends In Low Places. It's on YouTube and was recorded by someone in the audience. It was of pretty good quality, imo. I'll be unable to attend his shows in Nashville. I watched it, enjoyed it and I've passed along the link to friends.

Should there be a dvd or cd and I have some extra cash, I'll probably purchase it. If I can get a new vcr recorder and the Nashville shows come on tv, I'll probably record them.

No questions. Just saying... lol ...

I'm bad for good... ...

[Steve6]

I'd feel sorry for the artists who lose money from people downloading music illegally, but I certainly don't feel sorry for the record companies if I was being totally honest. They have ripped people off for decades and got away with it, including the artists they sign, and we have seen this with Meat Loaf.

[Sarge]

As for illegal downloads, I don't know if they are primarily to blame for the crisis the music biz is in. I'm sure it's due to a couple of reasons why sales figures decrease. As for bootlegs: Those who claim they would never listen to any obviously don't know about the joy of discovering some rare gem and I wonder if they are really interested in the music. Not everybody is fortunate or old enough to have seen and heard their favorite artists live when they were in their prime. Fans have always provided each other with inofficial live or rare studio recordings. They may be in circulation without the approval of the artist but they usually don't cause financial losses, they rather increase the interest in the artist, in my opinion.
Ripping new, official releases and make them available for free to everybody is another matter, that's indeed theft. If you put a lot of time, effort and money into something in order to sell that product and make a living from it, you wouldn't be pleased if someone else took posession of it and spread it without your consent.
The trouble is, it's not possible to suppress illegal file sharing entirely and some decisions of the artist / record company even prevent people from purchasing a product. "Exclusive" releases, for example. I guess most people on this forum would like to BUY Boneyard or the B-Sides to If I Can't Have You but they can't because they live in the "wrong" part of the world.

[Evil One]

Originally Posted by tink

If I can get a new vcr recorder

Ever thought of getting something slighty more modern?

[Sue K]

Originally Posted by Holy One

Ever thought of getting something slighty more modern?

Oh, gawd ! You and my daughter ... nag nag nag ... ... lol ...

[Monstro]

Originally Posted by robgomm

There was a report out this morning which makes for interesting reading and also an interesting discussion.

Apparently in the UK currently 7.7million people regularly download music illegally, and in the last year alone 1.2billion tracks have been downloaded illegally. Now as the UK music industry currently gets nearly 25% of it's revenue from downloads, the illegal downloads are really hurting the industry.

But you know it's an intersting thing to discuss, because I was saying to my Wife about it and she said, well what's the difference between what these poeple are doing now on the internet, and what we all did years ago when we used to tape the top 40 songs off the radio? Surely that was illegal copying too? And also if you think about it if you've got a DVD recorder at home, you can easily record tons of songs off of music channels and digital radio stations.

Now I have to admit, I have downloaded Meat Loaf songs in the past, BUT, this has only been songs from live shows that were never released on CD or video or DVD, am I wrong for doing this? I don't think I am, because there is a line to be drawn. If it's an officially released track, album, or DVD, that's when it's illegal in my book, because then you are hurting the music industry. But then I am saying it's illegal to tape stuff off the radio or record stuff on your DVD player, which i'm not sure I agree with, so my thoughts contradict themselves!

Anyway i'd love to hear everyones views on it, the report was really quite shocking to me with the numbers involved.

Last reminder of what the topic being discussed is........

Originally Posted by AndyK

OK enough with the personal comments please.

Discuss the issues, don't drag it to personal insults or accusations any more please or it's a

Last reminder of what will happen if topic is forgotten

[Dave]

The United Nations determined quite some time ago that any and all activities on the Internet would be regulated by the legal discourse and precedent of the local legal standards. Any and all activity on the internet is under the legal threshold of where the server is physically located.

I too ran a very popular Meat Loaf fan site. I obtained the services of a bar certified lawyer as part of my web hosting package. I was informed that unless I had specific written permission from the copyright holder for anything I posted that I was putting myself up to legal issues.

I also had it explained to me that since the server that housed my website was physically located in Atlanta, Georgia that I was under the legal precedent of Atlanta, Georgia for any and all activities on my site. Upon the physical server moving to Denver, Colorado - my legal responsibilities changed to that locale.

As for posting multimedia, again it was explained to me that posting even a portion of anything that I did not have expressed written consent to post from the copyright holder was in violation of local copyright law in America and I could hold myself up to legal recourse. There was not an exclusive dissemination of the information that 30 second clips were "okay by Meat Loaf" to post on the Internet. Many websites were told the same thing. However; I did the research, knew that Meat Loaf was in no way legally authorized to provide permission written or otherwise, and chose to share not only 30 second clips - but also full performances in many cases.

Does this make me any less of a fan than anyone else? Certainly NOT!
Does this make me any more of a fan than anyone else? Certainly NOT!

I know the fingers will be on the report button for this post. That is okay, as I know this post is just adding my personal opinion and the facts as I know them to the current conversation.

[Dave]

Another thought on illegal downloads to ponder. There were recordings made from International Radio Broadcast in MP3 format and sent directly to me and/or my partners that worked on the Meat Loaf site I used to own. There were certain circumstances where Meat Loaf was interviewed on the radio, the archives were not made readily available, and the amazing network of fans from all around the world did what they could to digitally record these interviews for dissemination on our old website.

Here are a few questions to open up conversation further:

1 - What is the difference between posting MP3 files of interviews and performances on a personal website versus adding a cheesy graphic to them and posting a video version of them on YouTube?

2 - A lot of the files that were recorded by fans for the distribution through the fan community on my former site are now appearing as part of bulk Meat Loaf "live recording" illegal downloads. Do I have a right to be personally upset about this? Do I have any more right to report these bulk downloads than other illegal downloads?

Just some things to think about on a freezing cold Sunday morning kids.

[Julie in the rv mirror]

Originally Posted by Sarge

As for bootlegs: Those who claim they would never listen to any obviously don't know about the joy of discovering some rare gem and I wonder if they are really interested in the music. Not everybody is fortunate or old enough to have seen and heard their favorite artists live when they were in their prime. Fans have always provided each other with inofficial live or rare studio recordings. They may be in circulation without the approval of the artist but they usually don't cause financial losses, they rather increase the interest in the artist, in my opinion.
Ripping new, official releases and make them available for free to everybody is another matter, that's indeed theft. If you put a lot of time, effort and money into something in order to sell that product and make a living from it, you wouldn't be pleased if someone else took posession of it and spread it without your consent.

Agree 100% with all of this.

I have a few bootlegs that I like better than many official albums, and in those cases, they have only increased my appreciation of the artist's work. If it weren't for those recordings, there's absolutely no way I could have heard some truly amazing performances, and for that I'm a happy camper.

[The Flying Mouse]

Originally Posted by Julie in the rv mirror

We're talking copyright law here, which is why the murder/mugging example, while I know your intent was to be dramatic, was not a good example. Laws against those types of actions were made for a completely different purpose than copyright law, which was made to protect the rights of the creator of something to profit from it.

Just for the record, I was talking about illegally downloaded albums at the time, not bootlegs (or if you prefare, "fan recordings" lol).
Artists are pretty much at liberty to allow fans to record them at concerts, but an artist can't endorse criminal behaviour like illegal downloading.
That was the point I was making.

It would be nice to think that copyright laws were put in place to protect the creator, but I fear it's the record companies thyat are being protected far more than any artist or song writter.

Originally Posted by Julie in the rv mirror

I'm a huge Bruce Springsteen fan (shocking, I know ), and he is one of the top most bootlegged artists (with the Beatles, Dylan and the Stones being others). While he has never explicitly given permission to tape his shows (as the Grateful Dead did), he's done very little to stop it. There are websites devoted entirely to boots of his shows, which I'm sure he could shut down with just a phone call to his attorney if he wished.( I might note that links to official material are not allowed.)

It's cool he takes that attitude.
Bootlegs are a fact of life, and people who bury their head in the sand about them are ostrich-izing (see what I did there? ) themselves from reality.
It's how you deal with them that counts.
The coolest way i've heard of dealing with illegal bootlegs was by Roy Orbisons estate.
They basically obtained the rights to the four best bootlegs, cleaned them up a little, and sold them as an authorised bootlegs box set.
So all the fans were able to go out and buy these bootlegs and enjoy them with a crystal clear concience.

I'd love to see Meat do something like that

Originally Posted by Julie in the rv mirror

The Grateful Dead did- you mean they had no right to do so? Why not- it's their performance, of their songs.

Again, the comparison I was making at that time was against copying and downloading albums.
Artists are well within their rights to allow fans to record them, they are not able to give permission to download or in any other way copy media that is copyright protected.

Originally Posted by Julie in the rv mirror

They do. And nowhere did I say that just because you can get away with something, that it's OK. I simply stated that people are more likely to do so. It's a matter of degree, IMO.

Exactly

[Evil One]

Originally Posted by The Flying Mouse

The coolest way i've heard of dealing with illegal bootlegs was by Roy Orbisons estate.
They basically obtained the rights to the four best bootlegs, cleaned them up a little, and sold them as an authorised bootlegs box set.
So all the fans were able to go out and buy these bootlegs and enjoy them with a crystal clear concience.

I'd love to see Meat do something like that

The frustrating thing is they wouldn't even need to do that. Meat and/or one of his record labels probably has more stuff stashed in their vaults than you could shake a stick at. If you had a stick and felt the desire to do a bit of shaking.

[The Flying Mouse]

I dare say you're right, but "proably" is a bit of a loose term.

There are a number of reasons that the stuff isn't released.

• Perhaps the quality isn't good enough.

• The material has been damaged over the years.

• The material has been lost over the years.

• Conflicting copyright issues.

• Not enough of one particular thing to make a product from (if you catch my meaning).

• No confidence that the product would sell well.

• Nobody knows/remembers the stuff exists.This I suspect especially with record companies, who I picture to have vast warehouses full of stuff that will go unopened and undiscovered until the end of time.Think of the end scene in Raiders Of The Lost Arc, only injstead of the arc, the crate has a Meat Loaf DVD in it

I imagine there are reasons that I haven't listed here, but it is still frustrating all the same.

[Julie in the rv mirror]

Originally Posted by The Flying Mouse

Bootlegs are a fact of life, and people who bury their head in the sand about them are ostrich-izing (see what I did there? ) themselves from reality.

Oy.

Originally Posted by The Flying Mouse

It's how you deal with them that counts.
The coolest way i've heard of dealing with illegal bootlegs was by Roy Orbisons estate.
They basically obtained the rights to the four best bootlegs, cleaned them up a little, and sold them as an authorised bootlegs box set.

Frank Zappa did something similar, but one better, IMO. He hated bootleggers, although that didn't stop them. Anyway, he simply took their releases and copied them- sound issues, their artwork- everything, and released them as a series called "Beat the Boots". The beauty part was, the bootleggers couldn't say one word about it.

[Evil One]

Originally Posted by The Flying Mouse

• Conflicting copyright issues.

• No confidence that the product would sell well.

• Nobody knows/remembers the stuff exists.This I suspect especially with record companies, who I picture to have vast warehouses full of stuff that will go unopened and undiscovered until the end of time.Think of the end scene in Raiders Of The Lost Arc, only injstead of the arc, the crate has a Meat Loaf DVD in it

I suspect these three are the most likely. Remember that Sony were all set to release a show (probably the Nassau Coliseum one ) and then changed their mind.

[carole]

Originally Posted by tink

Oh, gawd ! You and my daughter ... nag nag nag ... ... lol ...

Not sure of the situation in the US but would assume it's similar to here. When my video recorder packed it in last year, I asked a couple of places about getting it fixed, and they said it wasn't worthwhile and would be cheaper to get a new one, but that video recorders were becoming obsolete and were being phased out due to the digitalisation of TV. And on looking around at various shops here could not find many stocking video recorders so had no choice but to buy a DVD recorder.

Carrole

[Paul Richardson]

Originally Posted by Sarge

As for bootlegs: Those who claim they would never listen to any obviously don't know about the joy of discovering some rare gem and I wonder if they are really interested in the music. Not everybody is fortunate or old enough to have seen and heard their favorite artists live when they were in their prime. Fans have always provided each other with inofficial live or rare studio recordings. They may be in circulation without the approval of the artist but they usually don't cause financial losses, they rather increase the interest in the artist, in my opinion.

Exactly.

[Sue K]

Originally Posted by carole

Not sure of the situation in the US but would assume it's similar to here. When my video recorder packed it in last year, I asked a couple of places about getting it fixed, and they said it wasn't worthwhile and would be cheaper to get a new one, but that video recorders were becoming obsolete and were being phased out due to the digitalisation of TV. And on looking around at various shops here could not find many stocking video recorders so had no choice but to buy a DVD recorder.

Carrole

Yes and my problem, too, with the need to get a vcr player/ record is I have piles and piles and piles AND piles of vcr tapes containing shows I copied from tv I enjoy watching and now can't ... ... lol ... My mother-in-law has a vcr player she's not using. Maybe she can give it to Santa who can give it to meee ... lol ...