Do you download music in the internet?

music

sorry, if this is not interesting for you, but i want to discuss the problem of free music in the internet.

[Spam message removed by Administrator]

i used so many links just to check BB-code... actually i've neevr used it before...
there is nothing interesting there. don't click.

SteveO

I don't agree with you. Certainly it could probably be made cheaper but definitely not free.

Someone has put time and money into getting that music out there and they need some way of getting money back in. You certainly wouldn't work for free???

And saying it should be free because some people can't afford it? I can't afford a new ferrari but I would like one, should I get a free one? The same would go for any other luxury.
Plus you're saying that someone can afford a DMP costing $$$ but cannot afford the couple of cents it costs for a song.

Now if this argument were about basic necessities like food and water then I would agree that these should be free.

Shenpen

This is an interesting philosophical question. The difference between information and the Ferrari is that for information the cost is only the design cost, and the reproduction cost of each unit is zero. Therefore, it is questionable that charging a per-unit price is either ethically OK or economically maintainable facing the filesharing networks etc.

I can think of two solutions. One is a service-oriented approach: people could charge only for services and use information produced and freely distributed as a kind of marketing. F.e. we could write free software and only sell customization services for them, musicians could distribute free music and use it as a marketing for gigs, concerts or DJ sets, etc.

Another solution can be a subscription-oriented way: instead of per-unit fees, a general, unlimited subscription fee could cover the design costs. This even could be a form of tax included in the price of hardware, MP3 players etc. - however, in this case, the correct distribution of revenue might be hard to organize.

Eugene

I must agree with Shenpen that information is different from material things and most crucial is the ease of replication (it was not exactly the case until we came from analog to the digital world) - that is information is unlimited resource while all material things are finite and thus limited.

Imagine someone invented a replicator for material things - would it be bad to replicate ferrari and drive your own copy of it ?

ease of replication makes selling products much harder - you cannot sell first copy at full price to let every next copy be freely distributed, on the other hand when you sell at lower price you may fail to sell enough copies to return your investment. This dilemma is very serious but software developers are better off than artists because software can be blended together with security measures very easily (and so enabling us to control the distribution/replication) whereas films and music cannot be protected so easily (will u ban microphone and video-cams, plug in chips into ears and eyes to take control ?).

On a deeper philosofical level - once you have heard the song you have copied it into your brain , does the info in your brain belongs to you or the author of the music? Is private property just a result of scarcity of resources (so we are forced to decide who will take control of what is available) or should it also be allowed for unlimited resources like information (that are available enough for everyone by default)

Eugene

Steve wrote:

Someone has put time and money into getting that music out there and they need some way of getting money back in. You certainly wouldn't work for free???

I sometimes do work for free. Open source projects (take a look e.g. at SourceForge.net) is a live example of what can be done for free simply because people like to do what they do and have free time for it.

I do not say it should be free, i just say if you cannot take control of distribution it is your problem not mine
Owning something means having the packet of rights on it AND being capable to realize and protect those rights. I can claim i own the Moon but noone will ever listen if i cannot realize that claim and effectively protect it.

SteveO

Hi Eugene,

Very good points.

Yes, I fully agree with you wrt to the working for free thing. What I meant was that for most music artists, record producers etc. this is their full time job so they are relying on getting paid in order to pay for stuff.

Imagine all you ever did was opensource projects and never had a paying job at all. I know that downloading free music isn't going to deprive musicians of money altogether but if everyone did it...

I think that they could probably make downloads way cheaper than what they currently are based on the volume of sales. But then that is the topic of your first post.

P.S I know what you mean about the moon, I can't get NASA to stop trespassing on SteveWorld (AKA Mars)!!!!

Shenpen

Steve,

there is actually a third thing to take into consideration. I was more than willing to buy the Black Album from Metallica or the Selected Ambient Works 89-95 from Aphex Twin, or Brasilia from Panacea, because I felt they mean real value - something I will listen to 10-20 years after too, and they provide a deep, immersing musical experience which well worths the cost.

However, such records are rare, and those typical DJ mixes from people like David Morales or John Digweed that you use as a background music for working or driving, becase they do not worth paying attention to, and use this records this way once or twice and then quickly forget them because they get too boring for even that - well, they don't really worth $20 / album.

It's a lot more difference between valuable music and between typical party/driving/background music. The price of the latter should be radically lower, kinda $3 or so. Or, a subscription-based approach or something like that.