Metal Reviews

A well-reasoned post Tyrion, but I think there is a reason you can't check out every single second of an album before you buy it (which is debatable, you can't do that to a film, sure you can rent it, as you can rent cds from libraries. Perhaps music libraries are the answer, even if people would just rip them and bring them back - or not bother since they can download it for free).

The majority of films made nowadays you can see once, then ignore, and ignoring crap pop music for the moment, you just can't do that with music, which often takes a couple of listens to just to make it click.

I meant an experience as more than an audio one, it's having the cd, holding it, possessing it, taking the adventurous step of buying it - which I think is riskier than buying dvds/going to cinema, as non-art films require far less of the participant (viewer/listener). I accept that books are easier to browse (although who reads a bit each day in a bookshop rather than, say, getting it from a library?), but again, I like the 'experience'. Paintings are different, as it's all about owning the original in that case, being able to hang it on the wall. Looking at it isn't what it's all about...

The burden of proof is not on me, it is on someone that is trying to prove harm, you can't prove something does not cause harm. iTunes causing cd slaes to lower is not proof of anything. The record companies profit either way.

Just popping in to add this little fact: The illegality of downloading music is not universal. In many countries, including my dear Canada, downloading is perfectly legal. Hence it is not a universal moral issue, as say, murder is, and its morality is perfectly debatable and the argument not automatically closed by "its illegal, therefore its wrong,." or a statement that downloading is automatically theft (it is a far more complex issue than that, as all those "would you steal a car" commercials fail to grasp). Furthermore, certain laws can be broken without moral stigma; take underage drinking, which is as much a part of Quebec culture as being a douche, and which is practiced in the states by many and similarly viewed as not such a bad thing by many (seriously guys.. 21?).

As for the popularity of digital music, there's no doubt that its getting huge. Not everyone can afford an IPod, Zad, but there are clearly a lot of people who can and do, and these are definitely not all rich people either. Personally, I love buying CDs/records; I enjoy holding the product in my hand, and I'm the same with books. However, the majority don't seem to mind much, and I think that ITunes is the right way to go for a company trying to make money, rather than fighting a losing war against downloading like the RIAA in an incredibly stupid fashion that engenders no public sympathy. Downloading is here to stay, and companies need to learn to adapt.

And returning to my early preference for buying CDs and books- well, if I'm not sure whether I want to buy a book, I go to the library (which charges me a hefty 5 dollar membership per year). Its easy for me to find a good book that I want to buy; I can check out the plot, see what reviewers who I trust have said, etc, and then go for an impulse buy for seven to eight bucks. But I can't do that with CDs, which generally cost between 20 and 35 dollars, and from which I therefore can't trust impulse to the same extent that I do with books. I have bought far too many CDs that have ended up sucking complete balls because I heard one song and thought it was good. I need to listen to the music first- and downloading allows me to do that. By your standards, it may be immoral, illegal, blah. But I think it is a far more complex issue than some are giving it credit for.

I realize downloading is legal in some places. However, please consider that just because it's "legal" somewhere doesn't mean it isn't still stealing. Taking another person's work or property without their permission is theft regardless of whether there is a law telling you that you can or can't do it. Since when (whether they actually do or not) are laws trusted to definitively govern what's rational or moral or right?

It is particularly interesting to me to consider how a country can pass laws regarding and affecting a person's property who is neither a citizen nor a visitor there. ... But it's also up to the artist and their label to make sure their products are only being sold and distributed to places they approve of and that they understand laws regarding copyrights and downloading before they ever even market their products, but... Yes, it is certainly complicated in many respects.

Underage drinking is irrelevant, imo. That is something that someone does to themselves and, in itself, does not violate the rights of anyone else. To compare it to theft or even a drunk driving accident is to really misconstrue the issue(s) here.

As for anyone who wants more than just a digital file... I'm in exactly the same boat there. I tend to be a collector of various things and I can be incredibly anal about the care and handling of my stuff. That said, I also understand the positions of a lot of people who don't mind and just want a digital file. That's fine, and there's certainly no reason why their wishes can't be appeased as well as mine.

By the way, does anyone have or know of a list of all countries where downloading is expressly legal or illegal? What about uploading?

Here's where we part ways on this yet again.

#1) Have you ever been in a court room? For that matter in any argumentative discussion or debate the burden of proof is upon whomever has an argument. You have to be able to argue you view whether you are for or against. Each side has an equal responsibility to prove and proficiently argue their prospective point. It does not fall just on one side. That's simply ludicrous.

#2) The discussion that has been prevailing throughout this thread is: Is downloading illegal? However, independent study has proven that ITunes has not and does not aid in the sales of CD's.

I completely agree. I therefore advise we stop talking about legality and illegality and focusing on the ways in which it can be argued that downloading is stealing and the ways that it is not- because to treat it as simply as the taking of a candy bar from a store is silly. There is clearly something different about downloading then there is about taking the candy bar; hence why so many law abiding citizens do it.

Hell, lets return to the library. I pay five bucks for my yearly membership there, which is a tiny fraction of what I spend on music each year. Would anyone consider it immoral if, using that membership, I took the same book out over and over? If I read it 50 times, without the author or publishing house seeing a single cent from me? I'm taking the author's work! I could do as many professors do, and photocopy the book if I would like, or put it up on the internet for others. Now, it can be argued that it is no longer the author's property; it is the library's property, and they have a right to do whatever they please with it. Well, say Joe buys a CD. He says to himself: "This CD is mighty fine, I'm going to upload it to my computer and pass it on to my friend Jimmy." Jimmy borrows the CD, gets to listen to it, decides to listen to it fifty times or so, and even upload the tracks onto his computer. Joe then decides that he'd like to share this CD with the world; it his his property after all, just like the library owns the book. Now, legally, one is completely different from the other; but would you not agree that library lending and downloading have more in common than car stealing and downloading? Or am I just completely talking out of my ass here? I may be, and you may come and whup me some, but until then, I do think that this is a far more complicated issue than many make it out to be.

There's no reason to whup on anyone here.

The numbers actually involved in library usage is microscopic compared to the ability and ease (of virtually millions) to upload songs and download them for free.

How long does it take you to read a book?

How long does it take you to download a CD?

What makes the property rights any different for the candy bar any different than the material on a CD?

You're right in saying that after the original point of sale it's your CD. Just as the car is yours. Right? Profit and price differential on cars VS. CD's obviously is vast. However, the car is a tangible/concrete possession, just as the candy bar is. Muisic is not....is it? This is where the lines become blurred. The creator of the music owns those rights. That's why (at least in the USA) there's a warning written on every CD that states :

Unauthorized copying is punishable under federal law

Would uploading a CD and then having a user download the CD not fall under the category of "unauthorized copying"? Did you obtain written permission from the artist and distributor to copy their property and distribute it via the Internet?

The difference between downloading and stealing something is that stealing someone always loses - the store that already bought the candy or whatever the hell analogy we're using. When someone downloads an album nobody directly loses any money because the record label isn't paying for the copying, and nobody knows whether the person would have payed 15$ for the album or not.

But its not a question of numbers. If library memberships increased by 1000% by tommorow and people stopped buying books, would we denigrate libraries morally?



Completely agree that the lines become blurred. Which is why the following:



Does not hold- because once again, all you need to do is drive up north three hours and you're in a place where you can download and copy to your heart's desire. So if we're going to talk about this blurry issue, as you call it as well, we need to get beyond talk of legality and illegality and discuss the morality of downloading- and I'd be very interested in what you'd have to say, in reference to the general ideas of libraries and tangible property vs. creative property.

morality of downloading is pretty blurry because i can think of at least one example where it's not wrong (otherwise unavailable downloading) and others where it is wrong (making money from the music without the artist's permission, eg. those sketchy russian websites) then a huge gray area in between the two.

Yes, what's different about the two is the risk vs. the reward. In order to steal a candy bar you must physically be in a store to rob it, probably near a counter and near store employees, probably while under surveillance, etc. For a candy bar... Okay, it's obvious here that the possible reward isn't worth the risk unless you're like 5 years old and don't understand yet anyway.

As far as downloading, you can do it from the comfort of your own home with little fear of being caught and punished for it - and the reward is pretty substantial. But it's not something you have to grab, hold in your hand and look at, maybe try to conceal it, etc. You just watch a progress meter. There are other factors as well that I don't really have time to outline, but you get the idea.

In any situation like this, it's risk vs reward and what a particular person's threshold happens to be. But whether it's easy or hard to do doesn't have anything to do with whether it's right or wrong.



I don't know the inner workings of the library / publisher relationships to be honest. However, it would seem to be a given that when the company sells the book to the library, there is an understanding as to what it will be used for. Or there's at least an understanding that some of the books published and sold will go to libraries. Whether you, one person, goes and rents that one book 50 or 1000 times isn't really relevant. In actuality, they do see money from you after a fashion. The library purchased that copy of the book for a price. You pay the library a fee to be able to rent books there as do all members. Additionally, that library is funded by taxpayers, which, if you are one, means you're paying even more for renting it (even if it actually functions more similar to putting money in a kind of pot).

Yes, the library may own the book, but that does not mean they are authorized to do certain things with it, such as copying it a 100 times a day and putting stacks of those copies near the entrance with a "Free" sign above it. Somewhat similarly, I don't know what rights are given to professors or universities with regards to that kind of material (such as when a professor photocopies a chapter from something and hands it out to his students as part of the curriculum).

Keep in mind that a library is able to loan out one copy of something as their property at a time. There is no property exchange, it is a lending system which you pay a small fee to partake in. And there aren't that many copies available either, and those copies that are available were all bought legitimately. No matter how many times you or anyone else rents that one book, it's still just one book that was legally purchased. At that point, it's not really about you paying for the book as much as you are paying for the service the library provides for you. But again, you're essentially paying some money for both.

Buying a CD and then copying it and basically giving it to ten or hundreds or even thousands of other people is a property reproduction and exchange without the consent of the artist or publisher. Again, I come back with the question of laws on downloading and copying/uploading as both are important.

And as for whether it's "tangible" or not, what are you trying to say by that? Certainly, if you cut and paste someone's text from a research paper and call it your own and turn it in for a grade, you've copied and stolen their work without permission... You can't do that too in Canada can you?



No, fundamentally it's not even about money (even if the RIAA or someone else tries to emphasize that it is). If you download you are in possession of someone else's property that they have not authorized you to have. It's not even like finding out that you're somehow in possession of stolen goods (say you didn't steal something but you bought something from someone who did steal it, for example). You knew what you were doing and you actually and physically enacted the process. You stole it, in one fashion or another.

There may not be a guarantee that any money was somehow lost by the artist/publisher. However, what is lost is the control and discretion they have over their own property to do with it as they see fit. And I still don't see how any government thinks it can reasonably take that right/choice away also (that they simply want to absolve themselves of any responsibility for their citizens behavior and the financial burden of trying and prosecuting them or getting otherwise involved is, or should be, another matter).

Very well stated. I have tried to bring up the issue that buying used CD's, et. al does not support music, the artist or any other reason people have to suggest only the amoral would download a product before it's purchase. This type of argument falls on deaf ears, so I doubt the legality of downloading will either. These individuals believe the way they do and nothing will change their minds.

You can read an entire book in a book store without being a theif, you can watch a movie on cable or premium without being a theif. You can stream TV shows without being a theif, but listing to non-radio music is stealing? come on, that is blatant company line directly from the manufactuer who believe two people listening to the same album should be a crime and listening to music on two different stereo systems (like a car and on a computer) should be profited from twice. Their arguments make them sound like assholes who have no idea what music is about and they are in no way helping themselves by coming across as greedy and uninterested in keeping their customers. They are trying by all means to get people without access to free music to pay more than it is worth just like they did in the 80's when they wanted royalties for people dubbing their albums to cassettes.

What you are saying is that the defense has to prove their client is innocent. Quite a departure from he way criminal justice operates.

You have to prove downloading hurts music, no one has to prove a negative that downloading does not hurt music because that can not be done.

I don't see anyone debating the legality of downloading whatsoever. we do it regardless of it's legal status because it is essentially not harming anyone to not buy an album that we think sucks. It sure as hell helps the lesser known bands that depend on every cent by us promoting the material and buying the music later on.

From this post, and in subsequent response to your last sentence, I'd say your guilty of doing that as much as anyone else. Buying a used CD doesn't need to support the artist as the money you pay is to the seller for basically providing you with a service. The money to the musician/publisher for the product has already been paid.

Now I'm not going to give you something about how buying used keeps Earth green or whatever tangents we could take, however, do remember that you can't actually buy something that's used if it was never bought new in the first place. And no, that's not the same thing as one person buying a CD then uploading it and distributing its contents to the rest of the world. "It" really is the operative word here (as in, "one").



Your first few sentences have already been covered and the wording you chose just doesn't make much sense (even though I know what you're trying to say, which isn't valid anyway). Even the utterly silly things, that are true even, such as some labels wanting you to have to buy separate CD's for your car and your computer, etc. You know what? Lobbying to the government aside (which is pathetic yet not surprising), it's their product and their creation and if they want to make it so that you can't copy the thing to a PC or whatever, that's their prerogative (just print on the packaging what we can and can't do with the thing and don't put in these "sneak" security measures... Sony...). Anyway, if you don't like it, don't buy their product! Is the RIAA made up of a bunch of greedy, whiny idiots? Sure as shit looks like it to me, and I'd be among the first to tell you that what they're not innocent in all this.



Uh, no. Who is "we"? You may do it because you believe that, but you clearly don't speak for everyone on the matter.

Are you trying to justify why you (and/or people in general) download or are you simply stating why you do it? I mean, just to be clear, I'd like to know exactly what it is you're trying to say and what your position is. I don't personally care whether you download or not, nor am I trying to be the moral police or a source of validation for anyone else here.

I made a long post but have just deleted it. This is the heart of the matter. The labels don't have the right to prevent you from legally copying albums for archival purposes or to make back-ups. The think they do. They have distorted the very reasons those warning labels exist to the point that they are interpreting as meaning "you only have the right to play this disc until it breaks, any other use constitutes fraud." you are also suggesting I am the only person in the world that uses downloaded music in the manner that I do and I am using "we" as other members have said very similar things.

Um, when was the last time you read an entire book in a bookshop? Anyone?

Okay... Not only did you not answer my question but you assumed something that isn't true. I did not suggest you are the only person in the world that downloads the way you do, I merely asked who all you were speaking on behalf of. You may represent a position held by many people but certainly not all people - whatever that position is exactly...



I've done it, though not with a lengthy novel or anything. I have skimmed through entire novels once or twice, however. At this point, I would imagine that those books aren't shrink-wrapped because they want you to be able to preview them at the store (or at least they don't mind it).

Books, TV shows, etc. - Although interesting in terms of comparison, those comparisons don't really hold any water as something that somehow validates or justifies downloading. I would have thought that was fairly obvious, but I guess not.

I did that once over several trips. The staff got more and more pissed at me as I was using the place as a library and never buying anything!

I don't really consider that morally wrong though as long as somebody else doesn't take credit for it or use it to profit

...and I thought I'm a cheap bastard