Who is More Evil: Online Music

After a discussion in the forums last night about what online-music store and music-playing hardware one should or shouldn't use and why, I thought I'd poll the general public to see what the general attitude on the subject is.

Check whose online music store or mp3/aac/altrac player you would not buy because of the company's reputation. You can select more than one company.

~Ulrika~

Can you post a link to that shady looking one you stealthily pushed a while back?

*Nevermind, there goes the poll.

It's www.allofmp3.com. It's where I shop.

~Ulrika~

Me 2!

Cowboy Neal

Furious that there is no "pie" option, Logan takes his car keys out and scratches the poll, and then runs off to try to convince himself it's morally and ethically alright to download music for free if he pays $25-$50 per concert to see the artists perform live.

Uh... I use eMule

Interesting. So far almost all of them have about the same amount of people who don't like them!

coco

I shop at limewire.

And use a 40gb ipod photo.

Demonize me........ now.

Limewire!

I agree. I am a musician with MANY musician freinds, and personally, I think when u do something you should make your money on it when you do it. 30 years of royalties for 1 day of work doesn't work for most skilled laborers, and artists do it for love, so I support bands by seeing them live, and will not support the recording industry by paying them $0.90 on the dollar

Ulrika,

You left off Real - with both their own music store and their Rhapsody service, and also Yahoo's music service as well.

Bah! I knew I'd forget some. Sorry.

~Ulrika~

I can relate.

I'm wondering why Sony's so high. All this stuff about the rootkit, perhaps?

I'm still upset with them for that whole MD/Altrac thing.

~Ulrika~

LOL, on that note, I was reading an article somewhere about how sony makes decisions. Basically a lot of their employees in the DAP development area end up quitting out of frustration. Turns out the japanese head honchos are extremely distant and removed from the company and make decisions on what they should produce based solely on what the japanese market wants. Hence the no-mp3 support in many of their DAP products, while their product developers made players that would have competed with the ipod, they were shot down by executive management in favor of putting out a player that would only play THEIR format on THEIR device. It failed massively in the US market, and of course these same execs aren't paying attention to that failure and will arrogantly keep shooting sony in the foot.

Erm, yeah... just like with authors. They should only get paid when they read their book aloud. Everyone should be able to have a copy of it for free! It's all about the love of their craft anyway. It's not like they have families to feed or anything. And obviously musicians who are only studio artists... well, they're just stupid for not touring! Fuck em' I say. they owe me!

It amuses me to hear people try and rationalize why theft is okay for them.

We just downloaded a movie using BitTorrent. We recognize this is against the law but choose to do it as a form of civil disobedience. If we were to see or purchase the film, the money would support corporate special-interest groups such as the RIAA and MPAA which seek to eliminate our right to do what we will with our own property. Because of their lobbying, we've seen grandmothers sued, will see an entire generation of computer hardware encrypted from disk to speaker and monitor, and the further extension of already unusually long copyright terms.

What's interesting is that this movie has characters in it that should have been released into the public domain decades ago but Congress continues to extend the length of the copyright simply to keep this company's IP protected.

~Ulrika~

That explains Memory Stick.

I did a research presentation on Sony. When they started, they were very determined to meet consumers' needs. But today, they're all about the big dollars. It's really too bad.

And why do you suppose they're now fucking everything up with DRM schemes and destroying fair use? Which came first, the massive theft of their IP or their admittedly ham handed attempts at trying to put a stop to it? It's this mentality that if you don't like a company and its business practices that should somehow give you an entitlement to steal from them that's the reason everyone is suffering now. They're reacting because we steal from them, and I can't say that I blame them.

I download songs too. I just don't pretend it's anything other than theft, or justified by anything other than the fact that it's easy to get away with. If you're going to do it, do it. Don't try and rationalize it as being somehow something other than what it is. You're stealing. It's not that part that I mind so much. It's the lame ass excuses.

When individuals provide a narrative in regards to their illegal activities, sometimes it is the truth (a rationalization) and sometimes it is a lie (an excuse). Rationalization comes from conviction whereas excuses come from lack of conviction. Don't mistake a rationalization for an excuse and don't dismiss a person's convictions as a lack thereof.

Just a little advice from the politically active.

~Ulrika~

Calling it "civil disobediance" as if it were somehow a noble Ghandi-esque thing to do is at least a new one. If people are going to make excuses they should all be that funny.

Sorry. Playground-grade mockery has no effect on my convictions, especially when it comes from someone who admits committing the same crime for no other reason than selfishness.

~Ulrika~

What other reason could there possibly be? We do it because we can't keep our hands out of the cookie jar even though we know we're not supposed to eat the cookies. It's purely selfish. Dress it up in whatever high minded subterfuge you can think of. It doesn't change the truth of it.

Impressive convinction. You don't like the company, so you are fine with stealing from them. I'm still back reeling from the audacity of a lecture about consumerism from someone bragging about her 23 inch Apple monitor and dual processer G5.

right, and they guy who spent 12 hours a day in 100 degree heat paving a road should be paid every time someone rides over the road

you do a days work, get a days pay

don't try to charge for its use for eternity becuase some people put them on a pedastal because they are "artists"

if you want a musician to be paid every time thier song is played, you better be willing to pay the guy who paved the road everytime you drive over it

a days work is a days work

and im not even gonna bring up that the guy paving the road worked far harder than the "artist" who snorted his blow is a cool air conditioned studio for a few days (and wrote it in a few hours), yet the artists is somewhat elevated to being paid forever, where the road paver has to go pave another road to feed his family tommorow

how do you justify the difference?

and again, i Pay $50+ a ticket to see them perform live

i feel ok with that because they went to work, didnt sit in thier mansion and demand more blow and diet coke

but paying someone for life for a days work (more or less) doesnt make sense because your celebrity worship elevates them above the common working man just because you can groove to their tunes

pay the guy who sweat and worked his ass off to pave the road you drive on every time you drive on it, and I'll agree with you

but someone, his days work which is more beneficial to you is deemed lower class than the elite artist who helped you boogie to the macarana in your favorite club, has to find more work the next day

they cant have their cavier based on a #1 hit they wrote and recorded 10 years ago

why do celebrities and "artists" get more leeway than a working man?

if you are going to pay royalties to a song written and recorded 5 or 10 years ago, why doesn't your conscience pain when you drive over a road made the same time ago when they guy who made the road wont ever see another dime for his work (which, unlike popstars, makes civilaiztion, the economy, and life as you know it actually possible)?

how do you justify that?