The government is right. The music industry is merely being greedy. I buy my music on CD. I rarely play these as I then transfer the music onto a memory stick and play them in the car. I could play the CDs in the car, but a memory stick doesn’t need constant changing. It’s the same music and I have paid for it. If I buy through Amazon, I get an MP3 version to download anyway and this is as it should be.
Although the music groups were not against private copying they suggested that there should be a tax on blank media, such as blank CDs, hard drives and memory sticks. They suggested this money could then be shared between rights holders which is strategy already employed in other European countries.
Nice bit of shroud waving there. So we have a wealthy, greedy, industry worth billions wanting to steal money from ordinary people. Well, fuck you, frankly.
In the review which took place yesterday, the High Court largely agreed with music industry groups and decided that there was insufficient evidence to prove that legalisation would not hurt the industry. Mr Justice Green ruled that “the decision to introduce section 28B [private copying] in the absence of a compensation mechanism is unlawful.”
Really? Home taping; that killed music, right? Oh, right… People copying their music so that they can play it on other systems does not cause harm to an industry worth billions and musicians who rake in millions in royalties. This is simply voracious greed. Or, to put it the way, Justice Green should have; there is no evidence that lawful copying causes harm to the industry because it doesn’t. No one in their right mind is going to pay twice for the same product – they will copy it, regardless of what the law says. Changing the law, as the government wanted, merely brings the law into line with what has been happening for decades. The music industry is still here. It is still reaping millions of pounds. It is perfectly healthy. It doesn’t need compensation for the product has already been sold and they have been paid – that is their compensation and that is all they are entitled to.
The government was correct and Mr Justice Green is wrong.
I’m wondering if Mr. ‘justice’ Green is afilliated in any way with the music industry. You know, just like the judge who got appointed to the Pirate Bay trial.
“Although the music groups were not against private copying they suggested that there should be a tax on blank media, such as blank CDs, hard drives and memory sticks. ”
If they get that agreed, I’ll just not buy any more music. If I’m paying an “infringement tax”, I might as well infringe.
This is sad because I thought the music industry had actually got it with services like iTunes and Amazon MP3 – you can’t stop poor people, or cheapskates from bootlegging, so at least make it easy for legitimate purchasers.
Quite so. The majority of blank media I buy is not used for storing music, but these greedy arseholes want me to give them money for it anyway. Fuck that. Likewise, I’ll stop buying music. If that’s the game they want to play; bring it on.
I totally agree with you, Longrider. I write and record my own music and do the odd cover version – but 99% is my own stuff.
Back in the late 60’s /early 70s I played in a blues band. In those days you worked like hell on the club circuit to build up a following and get noticed – hopefully – by a record company. You made money from the royalties on those recordings. These days, that’s no more. It’s all gone. You make an album, give it away for nowt and use it to promote the tour. The money comes from bums on seats in big venues we could only have dreamed of playing in and merchandise. There’s no money in recording.
To an extend, taping – or these days downloading – killed the music sales business. That’s why people like Prince and U2 gave their albums away for free – to promote their live performances. But what really killed the record business was the venues you can now play at. If you can put 50,000 or more bums on seats for a show, it’s a damn site more lucrative than playing Wimbledon Palais (showing my age there!)
To sugest that taping / burning CDs / loading up your iPod is illegal is ludicrous because, at the end of the day, it matters not because it’s unenforceable and a stupid law which everybody has been ignoring and will continue to do so. As for Pirate Bay, I put three of my earlier albums on there perfectly legally because I own the copyright and chose to do so.
My web site has around 150 tracks on it that anyone can download for free with my blessing! (Not an advert! I make nothing from it). Thankfully, of course, I can be pious about it because I don’t do it for the money – I do it because it gives me a kick when I walk into a Cape Town restaurant as I did in January and they were playing one of my tracks. That’s what it’s all about for me.
Strange I thought we already paid a tax on blank media because of music copying. In fact when it was introduced I saw that as me being given approval for copying what I wanted because I was now paying for it. Saved me a fortune in CDs.
Incentives matter. I am not paying for something twice so if one is compulsory and the other not I just won’t do the voluntary one.