Ha ha ha, just found this article about SA police filesharing movies. Bless!
Personally I am way over our antiquated copyright laws. The reality of the situation is why would anyone pay money for music/movies/games etc when they can get them for free, especially if they feel that that money is lining the pockets of already wealthy record companies, producers, artists?
All the stuff in the news recently regarding iTunes has revealed that artists get 9c per song downloaded off iTunes. 9 whole cents? Of about a dollar. Where does the rest go??
It's all summed up pretty neatly by MC Lars in "Download This Song." This song would have to be one of my favourite just for the message in it. Sadly not so much for the music itself, but you can't have everything.
One Problem Remains:
What is the alternative? How can we make a copyright law that would pay the artist for their work somehow yet offer a competitive alternative to illegal downloading?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
While it
s hard to feel sympathy for rock stars sitting in Hollywood mansions, they are only the tip of the iceberg losing money from digital art theft. What about the struggling muso who is just making enough to survive? How can they afford to keep doing their thing if 90% of their product is being stolen?
And the 9% to the artist is about what it has always been. I can't speak authoritatively about digital music profits, but in the old days the retailer got 50%, the company got about 20%, and the distributor, tax and the artist got about 10% each.
Wow, I had no idea that it was always so little!
The area of copyright is really hard for me to reconcile with. I firmly believe that artists should be paid for their work, struggling musos as much as the ones already rich.
But, if I pay $100+ for a concert ticket plus a band shirt, is this enough to make up for getting the CD for free off my boyfriend?
Also, I think that if you are living with someone, and both like the same music, it is plain stupid to buy two copies of the same CD. You can’t play them both at once. But we are both going to listen to the CD. Now what? What if a friend wants to borrow it?
Some people get a digital copy of an album off the internet free, then, if they like it, buy a real CD to support the artist. This seems ok I think, no one wants to buy a CD then find out it’s shite. But by buying the CD, they are shelling out money to others that they may not necessarily want to support. What if we just mailed our $3 direct to the artist? Or what if I bought two shirts at the show but no album? And should we also pay the shite artist we ripped off? Noone wants to support/pay for music they don’t like – really defeats the point.
So many questions! And this is just for music. Movies are even more complicated...
Post a Comment