Skip wrote:
>If I make someone a comp CD and it has a Stickmen song on it, and I do
>this
>with the intent that it will create a Stickmen consumer out of someone
>who
>has no other practical means of encountering the Stickmen, and I take no
>money for this (and in fact have paid both for the Stickmen LP in the first
>place long before it was ever reissued and for the CDR), how have I wronged
>you?
First of all, I wasn't talking about taking one song and giving it to a
specific person/friend who you thought might enjoy it and enventually
purchase it. I was talking about copying an album that one has no intention
of buying. Or uploading a complete album to a ftp site so it is available to
anyone who wants to take it. This is what I think most people are discussing.
And there are other ways someone can hear the Stickmen; on our website, for
one thing. On sampler CDs that we make and distribute in magazines at no
charge for another.
The argument here is definitely about hurting a label and artists in terms of
sales, but the argument is also about having control of one's intellectual
property or the intellectual property that I, for one, have paid money to the
artist to have certain rights to in exchange for my ability to market this
property.
I don't need/want/have the time to get into this with you here. And,
personally, I don't have a problem with you taking ONE track off of the
Stickmen CD that you bought and making it for a specific friend who you think
will like it, in the hopes that he too will become a fan of the band and buy
the CD. But this scenario here that both you and I have described right here
is quite a bit more 'controlled' and 'label friendly' than what generally
goes on, wouldn't you agree? Don't you think what happens more frequently -
or at least as frequently - is that someone downloads an entire album off of
a site or peer to peer system somewhere? I certainly think so!
-----------------------------------------
Craig just wrote the following which I am excerpting here, and basically I co
nsider to be sound and I am in agreement with:
>The sense I'm getting from some people here is that they don't consider it
>stealing because you would never have made that sale in the first place
>-
>they wouldn't have shelled out the money anyway, so you can't lose what
>you
>would never have gotten in the first place. I happen to think this
>argument is crap. If you aren't willing to invest your money in purchasing
>the disc, what gives you the right to enjoy the disc? I would love to
>have
>a new car, but I won't get one because I can't afford one. But I really
>want it anyway, so just taking one isn't wrong because I would never have
>bought it in the first place, right? I realize there is a difference in
>scope here, but where do you draw the line? The only real difference I
>see
>is that I can't easily make a copy of a car whereas copying CDs has become
>ridiculously easy.
>don't make excuses for your actions or blame your actions on the "evil
>record companies". It's wrong, and that's all there is to it.
-------thanks Craig - well put ---------------------
If you have no moral qualms about stealing music, then all my arguments in
the world
won't change you and I won't even try. But, you *are* stealing from me if you
copy one of my CD releases or upload it/make it available to others without
compensating my label and my artists, and that's all there is to it.
Steve
Cuneiform Records
