Piracy survey, RIAA and DMCA

[ccooper]

I'm doing a research paper on the DMCA and the RIAA and the effects they have on piracy. I want to ask people some question on what they think about it. Everything will be anonyomous.

1.Do you think that it should be legal to download your media that you bought but own. (Music and Videos and Software?)

2.What type of media do you commonly download?

3.Do feel that the government should stay involved in it or should the use their resources to try to crack down on piracy?

4.Are P2P networks to blame for the lack in sales in the media industry?

5.If you were a famous artist would it make you mad if people where “stealing” your work?

6. Any other comments?

Thanks

[gamehead200]

1.Do you think that it should be legal to download your media that you bought but own. (Music and Videos and Software?)

YES.

2.What type of media do you commonly download?

Won't say!

3.Do feel that the government should stay involved in it or should the use their resources to try to crack down on piracy?

Get the hell out of here...

4.Are P2P networks to blame for the lack in sales in the media industry?

No... Piracy made Microsoft popular... Without piracy, there wouldn't be Microsoft... (Just setting an example )

5.If you were a famous artist would it make you mad if people where “stealing” your work?

There's a spelling mistake there... where...

Ummm... Hey, as long as I was getting paid, no harm done...

6. Any other comments?

I live in Canada... There is no DMCA, there is an RIAA (RIAC, I think?)... I think its only illegal to UPLOAD music...

[sven]

HE WORKS FOR THE RIAA

1. Yes

2. like gamehead, and music

3. i think they should get out, its a failure

4. no, its the lack of good media

5. well, id first be p***ed that im not getting payed much for my talent, second, good advertising, third, sign that i need better music

6. comments: if i get sued over this, ill have your head, second, this is a failing battle, and theres nothing they can do about it, third, the artist have to see that they need good music, not just padding songs.

[neosapience]

Here's an article I wrote a while ago -

_______________________________________

Warez for everyone!

The warez scene is a booming industry. Despite all the crackdowns, people continue

to share illegal copies of their favorite software. The software giants have been

screaming 'Pirate!' so loud and for so long, my ears hurt. So why all the fuss?

According to the media, the software industry loses Billions of dollars every

year to pirates. There are litterally factories where pirated copies of various

software are manufactured, and thousands of web sites that distribute them. How

can the software industry not be losing money?

Well, it's not as simple as you might think. First off, there's more than one

type of pirate. There's the pirate that cracks the software and then there's the

pirate that downloads it. But exactly which one is causing the industry to lose

so much money? The answer isn't so simple. For example - Someone makes a copy of

Adobe's Photoshop and puts it on a public web site along with a serial number.

Adobe doesn't lose any money if nobody downloads it, right? Let's say 100,000

people download it. Photoshop costs about $600 a pop, so that's about 60 MILLION

dollars that Adobe lost to this one pirate, right? Wrong.

Of all the people that download pirated software, how many of them actually use

it? There's no way to be sure. Some people are just curious about the program or

maybe they're just using it to learn the software. More to the point, how many of

these people would have actually payed for the software if they had not

been able to download it for free? A likely answer is - almost none of them.

Just where does a software company get it's projected sales numbers? How can a

company know how much money it's losing to pirates if their product has always

been pirated? How can you even guess at such a number? There's no way for

them to know just how many people would have bought their product, it's

just not possible. The fact of the matter is, the software industry is driven by

the honest people that actually buy the software. Those people would most

likely continue to purchase their software, even if they were offered a 'dishonest'

alternative.

Don't get me wrong, I don't advocate pirating in any way. But the software industry

probably wastes more money on their anti-pirate campaigns than they actaully lose to

the pirates themselves. The best way to prevent pirating is to make your programs

mores secure. By adding better software encryption and forcing users to register,

software companies could significantly decrease the pirating of their products.

But what do I know, I've never even written a real program before.

[sleepnmojo]

1.Do you think that it should be legal to download your media that you bought but own. (Music and Videos and Software?)

I should at least be able to make a copy. If I have bought the song, then I should be able to get another copy of it. Let's say my original cd got scratched. It is in an unusable state, and I have no way of getting the music, unless I buy another cd.

Technically, we do not "own" the music, we own the media it is printed on. We are licenced the music.

2.What type of media do you commonly download?

No comment

3.Do feel that the government should stay involved in it or should the use their resources to try to crack down on piracy?

If the issue was piracy, I would say the government has a role to play. The issue, at least with the RIAA, is that it is copyright infringement. Two seperate things. That is why all the cases for the RIAA have been in civil courts, not criminal.

4.Are P2P networks to blame for the lack in sales in the media industry?

Look at the music first. I'd have to say I haven't seen much decent music coming out in the past couple of years. Also you have price, people are finding that online music stores are sometimes cheaper, and more convienent. Top that off, if there was a boycott going on, then no one would know, because the blame is placed on P2P.

5.If you were a famous artist would it make you mad if people where “stealing” your work?

Depends on what I am in it for. If it were me, then I would be doing it because I love my music. I would rather share my music, than make money. I know that if people like my music, then they would support me, by buying an album.

6. Any other comments?

Music is meant to be free, otherwise we wouldn't have ears and a mouth.

[sven]

i read the article

probably wastes more money on their anti-pirate campaigns than they actaully lose to the pirates themselves

this line keeps showing up, even in the riaa piracy problem

[XPerties]

1.Do you think that it should be legal to download your media that you bought but own. (Music and Videos and Software?)

This question make no darn sense. If you own it why the heck would be downloading it since it's already on your desk.

2.What type of media do you commonly download?

Are you kidding me? A better question is have you ever killed someone? err, sure officer.

3.Do feel that the government should stay involved in it or should the use their resources to try to crack down on piracy?

The government can do what they want to do. The fact is no matter how many billions and billions of dollars they waste on this crap they will never win. Let's not feed the starving children of the world. Let's not help get our of debt. Let's not take care of our vets that fought for their country. Instead let's go around and chase IP addresses. oh boy get a grip.

4.Are P2P networks to blame for the lack in sales in the media industry?

No. Crappy singers like Britney spears are.

5.If you were a famous artist would it make you mad if people where “stealing” your work?

Nope. In fact wouldn't be apart of the corporate level sponsors, instead make my music down loadable but add special features to my cds.

6. Any other comments?

How many monkeys does it take to drive a train?

[utln]

1.Do you think that it should be legal to download your media that you bought but own. (Music and Videos and Software?)

Yes. I believe its in the spirit of the FairUse Act.

2.What type of media do you commonly download?

Videos, usually. I'll occasionally go after a one-hit wonder from the 80's.

3.Do feel that the government should stay involved in it or should the use their resources to try to crack down on piracy?

I feel the government should be involved in protecting its citizens from the billion dollar mob.

4.Are P2P networks to blame for the lack in sales in the media industry?

No. Record sales increased every year and continued to break sales records from 1995 - 2000. MP2s and MP3s were available during this time period. Granted, in '95 few people heard of MP3 (and fewer heard of MP2s). The late 90's saw the rise of Napster. Even with 40 million users, records sales continued to climb. The problem is that Top 40 model is failing and the economy is weak. RIAA got used to breaking sales records, and now believes its their God given right to do so yearly. Failure to break the current sales record indiccates a 'loss'. Then there's the are the people, such as myself, who have finished converting all their records and tapes to CD. My purchases helped over-inflate the music sales numbers. Since modern music is so poor, my money stays in my wallet.

5.If you were a famous artist would it make you mad if people where “stealing” your work?

No. Stealing is when someone takes a physical object from me. I would no longer have it to enjoy or sell. Since MP3s do not cause CDs to disappear from store shelves, the disc remains available for sale. Also, a downloaded MP3 does not indicate a lost sale. There's is no way to look at a data stream and determine if the person has this song in their archive of music or if they would have bothered to purchase the song for any amount of money.

6. Any other comments?

I think the way RIAA and the US government are acting shows just how corrupt government is. Take note, both Democrats and Republicans are happily joining this turd-fest. Look up Fritz Hollings. He's the Democrat that wanted to give RIAA the right to hack into traders computers and delete files and sharing services. Fritz has been the loudest mouthpiece. There are Republicans in the mix too. Greed extends across all party lines.

[Chaosratt]

1.Do you think that it should be legal to download your media that you bought but own. (Music and Videos and Software?)

Yes, what happens if I damage my cd? I still have it but it is unusable to me.

2.What type of media do you commonly download?

Movies, dont care much for music.

3.Do feel that the government should stay involved in it or should the use their resources to try to crack down on piracy?

I feel that the government should take a back seat and let the parties involved deal with the problem amongst themselvs.

4.Are P2P networks to blame for the lack in sales in the media industry?

There have already been good answers to this.

5.If you were a famous artist would it make you mad if people where “stealing” your work?

I would consider it a good thing. The more people downloading my songs proly means the more popular I am. People that truly like music tend to go and buy them anyway.