what is up with these laws

Quote:

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WASHINGTON -- Legislation designed to provide law enforcement more tools to fight online copyright theft met a warm reception Thursday afternoon by those invited to testify at a Congressional hearing and harsh words from those who weren't invited.

The Piracy Deterrence and Education Act of 2003 (H.R. 2517), introduced by Rep. Lamar Smith (R.-Tex.), calls for greater FBI and Department of Justice (DoJ) involvement in Hollywood's ongoing war against file swappers

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full story is here

what is next? stealing a candy bar is a felony too? give me a break!

Firstly, my deepest condolences, I read your mood statement.

I am commenting on this because years ago I worked for the UK subsidiary of A&M records. Even then there was a copyright issue regarding people borrowing vinyls (yep I'm that old :D )
or cassettes and copying them.

In those days you had to borrow the original physical media, but the concept is exactly the same. You could even go round the street markets and bars of London and buy "pirate" cassettes, just as you can buy pirate CDs and DVDs today. Some years later, when videos were becoming fashionable, these were copied and swapped, and available in pirate form.

My point is that there is nothing new about the activity, it has just become easier (which does NOT mean more frequent!) and more obvious due to modern technology. It has also extended into the cinema world with video and DVD technologies.

I believe that if anyone is to blame it is the entertainment industry itself for failing to keep up with consumer demand and modern technology. Oh sure, now every song has some bimbo ridden video to hype it, but the product is (in my opinion) overpriced and fails to meet consumer requirements. Let's face it, if something is overpriced or illegal you will create a black market; if things are cheap, a black market cannot arise.

There is an old saying over here "if you can't beat them, join them"

I think the entertainment industry should set up its own file downloading sites. You pay for what you take, but you only take what you want . This would save a lot on production and distribution costs. It would not significantly increase unemployment because that is happening due to the piracy anyway (I was made redundant for that very reason years ago!!!) and it would provide useful marketing information as to what people really want.

It has always hacked me off to pay for a product that contains 16 tracks of which I only like 8.

If you only have CDs that have what you want on them, you don't have to fiddle with the stereo whilst driving, so it would reduce road accidents as well?

Just a few thoughts on the subject :cool: but stealing candy bars IS a felony, particularly if you take the 18 wheeler they are being kept in. :) Grand theft auto?

Cheers!

The problem is, indeed, the price. While people would like things to come free their way, when the difference in price between a blank cd and a single [to reduce the issues of liking half or less of the production of an album] is small enough, people would give up the hassle of finding it online... Everybody knows artists do get out of business [or less published, which is equivalent to the listener] if they don't bring money to the label.

On the other hand, laws like this service the labels and not the artists [as they may try to bring it forth]. You see, the reason you pay so much for an album is so you can think you are getting a lot of music for the money you're spending... even compilations have 90% fillers in them. But a lot of the good tracks don't come as singles...

As for sites where you can pay for tracks you are downloading, to my knowledge they exist already. It's a step in the right direction, certainly.