Your opinion on ethics of using limewire for mp3s?
 

I'm a limewire user and a reporter writing a story for the Ottawa Citizen about how music companies going after P2P servers due to fears of mp3-swapping is, some say, kind of misguided.

I'm looking for comments on user's views on the ethics of using Gnutella-like software for this purpose. Does it bother you? Also, are music companies justified in trying to shut down P2Ps (re: Audiogalaxy, Morpheus, Kazaa and Grokster law suits) if not all users are trading MP3's?

I'll need names and city locations please, in order to quote you.

Thanks.

Elaine O'Connor

the ethics of p2p
 

there's a very considered article by Janis Ian (www.janisian.com) at her homepage that neatly canvases the issues associated with p2p, mp3, copyright, and RIAA - Courtney Love has also written some good pieces but I can't remember the links so you might want to kick google into action - another avenue you might want to explore is to use google to take you to the various groups chatting away about the ethics of p2p and mp3 files (absolutely every side of the debate represented)

Cheers, bad_vlad

mp3, p2p and the changing nature of cultural consumption
 

a couple of thoughts

the guy that created freenet once commented that if you've been making money selling water in the desert and its starts raining you need to get into a new business (selling umbrellas I guess) - its a succinct expression of the issue facing the major music distributors - on the one hand they'd clearly like music compression technologies and p2p to just go away but on the other hand they'd desperately like to make money somehow out of it - so far their attempts to profitably adapt have been underwhelming - some like Sony start manufacturing mp3 players but then reduce their usefulness by ridiculous attempts at linking them to cumbersome formats (i.e. atrac) that limit copy/transfer of files - but but but - the real issue I think is that the very nature of music as a cultural product for market consuption has fundamentaly changed in ways the major comanies have yet to really get a fix on - music is no longer 'special' - we don't put on our best clothes, gather around the radiogram and marvel at a band suddenly being in our lounge - for millions of people music has become 'wallpaper' - inherently disposable, transitory in its appeal, and part of an ever quickening process of cultural consumption - p2p and mp3 files perfectly match this development whereas older more expensive and durable formats do not - if the established companies were serious about 'catching up' instead of being dragged kicking and screaming into the real world they'd radically change the way they operate.

First, they'd accept that copyright as a way to ensure endless profits for themselves (as opposed to artists) is no longer viable.

Second, they'd accept that the longer they whinge on the sidelines the greater the number of 'privately' copied music files there will be available for download via gnutella.

Third, they'd take note of the fact that the reason many people prefered napster to 'purer' p2p systems is that its soooooo much less hassle. If the majors let individuals cheaply subscribe to their catalogues and download high quality files for home burning (with shops also custom making CD's of mixed artists/tracks) - and - switched to releasing quality players (both hardware and software) - they'd have the beginnings of a new business model that people would embrace rather than their current one that is (justifiably) held in contempt. They'd certainly be selling umbrellas rather than water but its either that or get steadily washed away in the flood.

Amen!!!

This subject brings up a common problem for any ethical surveys: peoples' real opinions may often differ from the politically correct replies they 'ought to' give.

For example, if you stop people on the street and ask them to publicly state whether or not they think copyright infringement is wrong, most will probably say yes. However, the reality is that P2P is overwhelmingly used to exchange copyrighted material. This is an entirely visible social phenomenon that has been written about extensively in respected publications.

The fact that the major record labels:

a) have declared war on their potential customers with anti-copy , anti-P2P measures

b) have made no attempt to reduce CD prices and at the same time spend more and more money promoting a smaller and smaller number of artists.

c) still take the vast majority of profits

d) are making little or no attempt to use the Internet to their advantage or revolutionise music distribution

makes it even easier for users to justify piracy with the "I'm just rebelling against the bad guys" argument.

One should never underestimate the influence of peer pressure. This use of P2P has reached such a massive degree of acceptance that the computer users I know (almost without exception) regularly download and copy music without the slightest hint of guilt and without making any attempt to hide their activity. And here I'm talking about people from about 14-55 years old , both male and female, of a wide variety of professions and social backgrounds. Still ....if you asked these people "Is it wrong to steal?" in a street survey I'm sure almost all of them would still say yes.

But let's imagine that the mainstream recording industry wised up a bit and decided to set up their own servers with instant, high-bandwidth access to a large catalogue of high-quality music....for a small subscription fee. I reckon some 'renegade' P2P users would be prepared to sign up. This would, at the very least, be a better option (both finacially and in terms of public relations) than the current 'pay up or else' legal battles and sabotage attempts. Of course it would require a radical change in philosophy on the part of the major labels.

you're absolutely right, we would in fact give our money to ensure quality downloads. i think that is obvious by the number of people that pay for software these days. i paid $20 for a year of audiogalaxy and look where it got me!! but i would gladly do it again! i definitely got my $20 worth. but it will never surpass the immense cd collection that i've amassed since high school. i must have spent every paycheck on music. i've got thousands of dollars worth of cds that were bought legit. i went broke and ate peanut butter for a week to be able to get the new albums coming out while all the record industry got rich off of me and every other sheep music lover. our weakness is our love of music. they preyed on that and the naivety of music artists to become rich, talentless thieves.

Spend a Day
 

I dont know that I'd spend any more money on file sharing than I already do. I pay for a high bandwidth connection to the internet. I paid for limewire pro and am now using Aqualime (lmao), I've bought bigger hard drives to acoomodate all the stuff I share ...

As I look at filesharing, its a try before you buy sort of appeal. I think the artist needs to make money, I think the record lable needs to be reimbursed for expenses, and make some money too ... however, 15-17 bucks for a cd that costs less than .50 cents to produce is insane. There's profit and then there's insane profit.

But like Mr. Unregistered, I've bought at least 1000 cd's since I was in school ... but I've ripped them and share them ... and I suggest that Mr. Unregistered do the same. ;)

Insane profit
 

You have to realize that the record companies aren't selling CDs for $15-17. The local record stores sell them for that price. The price that the record companies sell CDs to the local stores is probably more like $5-8.

What's sad is that the artist is forced to sign away their copyright and they typically gets 50 cents to $1 per album and they have to pay for huge promotional expenses before they start seeing any money.

I wish artists would start selling their albums on their own so I could give my money directly to them without making the big record companies and music store chains rich.

Thanks for the input.

Elaine.

Ethics
 

I have got to support and echo the comments made above (at least most comments). When I began downloading I did go for the latest releases (this was over a 33.6K modem, very slow download time) but soon encountered Napster that offered the ability to locate songs from my past and beyond. I have bought CDs that I would never have bought had it not been for the try-before-you-buy ethos that MP3s offer. I do believe that if you truly feel that an artist needs supporting then purchasing the CDs is the only process at present to offer such support.

However, a large amount of my downloads are songs that I would like but would

What I don't understand is that the music industry has made their money on research/development and promotion of continually better technologies that produce slightly better quality music. The public bought into this in a huge way. We started with primitive records, then LP's, then 8-tracks, cassettes, then CD's, as well as better amps, speakers, digital devices, etc.. Each time the consumer has willingly forked over a lot of money to repurchase their collections and buy the hardware to play the new format.

MP3s are a step in the opposite direction. Most MP3's are 1/8th the quality of CD's! The sound is noticeably worse than even cassette recordings.

The fuss the music industry is making about MP3 "piracy" is CURRENTLY rediculous. However, with ever-increasing internet connection speed and larger harddrive size, MP3 compression will probably not be necessary. When that happens, the music industry may well have something to worry about.


It is interesting to note that in the USA one may only be prosecuted for copyright infringement if one is:

1. downloading/uploading copyrighted material for any kind of profit (including barter agreements).

2. dowloading/uploading more than $1000 of copyrighted material in six months.

This is from the recent "No Electronic Theft" act.

This means that various anti-sharing people are trying to counteract (in some cases with an aggressivenesss boardering on harrassment or electronic vandalism) an activity which is, in many cases, NOT illegal.

mp3 quality etc
 

really interesting points but a couple of thoughts come to mind

First - $1000 in six months is very easily exceeded (especially if all the files that are downloaded, listened to once and then deleted are counted)

second (and more pertinently) - I'm not at all sure that mp3 files can be criticised on quality grounds - I endevour to download files at 256 or 320 bit rate - use the 'jet audio' player and have external speakers and a sub woofer connected (on the other side of the room) to my computer - I also have a CD player connected to a duplicate set of speakers and sub woofer but it just gathers dust - the convenience of making up playlists as I please makes CD selections cumbersome and tiresome and the sound is just fine

a well ripped mp3 file at a respectable bit rate is only very marginally inferior to a CD and way better than a steadily decomposing cassette - (even at 128 a 'good' mp3 is more than adequate - certainly better than FM radio)

play a poor mp3 through crappy PC speakers via a crappy player and yes you'd be convinced mp3 was a dead end format but likewise if you played a scrathed and dusty vinyl record through a beat up old radiophone you'd think records were were pretty hopeless too (and lord knows those vinyl freaks love the sound distortion you get with records and a needle pick-up)

the real problem is nothing to do with copywrite or format quality - its about the outdated business models of multinational companies determined to make consumers want what they can provide at maximum profit

Cheers, bad_vlad

I am still trying to figure out if the $1000 means $1000 worth of the same file, $1000 worth of files held by a single copyright holder, or single files totalling $1000.

I also have no idea how the worth of a file is determined. As an example, though:

A standard CD is roughly $15, contains 10 songs, and lasts an hour ($1.50 per song, $0.25 per minute of music). If the $1000 is a total of all shared files, and this is the method of determining worth, you can download/upload around 667 songs in a six month period.

You can do all sorts of math on this of course -- is a compressed song with less data worth less than the CD quality song? If so, a 128 bitrate MP3 song costs around $0.13 ($0.02/minute). That's 7,692 shared songs in six months!

This changes significantly if we are talking about other media, but I think it's still a lot of leeway.


As to the quality issue:

As a test I took a 14:15 minute song from a CD.

The song on the CD was 144 megabytes.
The 320 bitrate, 44.100 kHz. MP3 version was 32.7 megs..
The 128 bitrate, 44.100 kHz. MP3 version was 13.1 megs..


For the 320 bitrate MP3 that is 1/4 the data. For the 128 it's 1/11th. Of course the sound quality of the MP3 is not 75% or 91% worse, but I would say that these are significant amounts of data loss.

Obviously we are a ways away from being able to quickly download and affordably store lots of CD quality music (40 megabytes for a "standard" 4 minute songs is hefty).

Interesting thoughts, in any case.

-gratis

The quality of a 256kbit mp3 is for the human ear equal to cd quality. Of course there are slight differences but tests show that even professional sound engineers are unable to tell the difference just from listening to it.

the idea that a CD costs $15 gives away 'location' as probably the US - here in Australia we're talking 30 bucks - which reduces the per six month calculation to around 334 files over the six months - thats only around 56 a month - thats not even 2 a day - if you then factor in all the incomplete downloads there really isn't too much leeway at all - and - do we seriously think Hilary and the RIAA troops are going to give a discount for the lesser quality of files at 128 bit rate - can't see it myself

bad_vlad

LIMEWIRE RUNS AS IF IT WERE WRITTEN BY MY MENTALLY RETARDED 4-YEAR OLD GIRL!!!
 

THIS PROGRAM SUCKS SO BAD THAT I CAN'T STAND IT FOR ANOTHER MOMENT!! HOW ON EARTH ARE WE EXPECTED TO PAY EVEN AN HOUR'S WAGE TO SUPPORT A PROGRAM THAT OPERATES SIMILARLY TO BOB DOLE'S SEX ORGAN?!?!

Re: LIMEWIRE RUNS AS IF IT WERE WRITTEN BY MY MENTALLY RETARDED 4-YEAR OLD GIRL!!!
 

Any suggestions to make it better or are you just going to bitch abou it? :rolleyes:

I buy Naxos classical CDs all the time. They cost $5.00. I wouldn't waste time downloading the same music in MP3 format.

But if the record companies continue charging $15.00 for a CD, then it's worth our time to download. Why can't Sony charge the same prices as Naxos?

The solution is for the record companies to reduce prices and quit ripping off the public.