Warner exec Twitters that blogger is 'stupid brat'
In the Land of Fjords, the Pirate Bay verdict has made everyone rattle their sabers.
Or, at least, tweet their turbulence.
An 18-year-old Norwegian student called Even felt his hackles rising beyond the waterline because he was unable to download the new Dave Matthews album on iTunes.
His misfortune was to not live in the United States, a misfortune that made him somewhat miserable.
According to blogger Thomas Moen, Even tweeted this approximate translation in Norwegian: "I'm pissed! iTunes is only allowing downloads of the new Dave Matthews Band album if you live in the US! And they complain about pirating."
It was heartfelt. It was eloquent. It was topical.
You might have imagined that his followers would tweet back their touching concern, putting a socially networked arm around his troubled shoulders.
But you might not have imagined that Warner Music Norway's Terje Pedersen was on to Even's Tweet like a mountain lion that suddenly gets a taste for canary.
He apparently replied, again according to Moen's translation: "Then I suggest you steal it and write about the process in your stupid brat blog. We don't want you to get upset."
Ah, customer service. It's not dead. It's merely expanding its humane boundaries in the people-cuddling Kingdom of Norway.
Interestingly, both men's Twitter profile pictures show them looking as if they mean business, their arms folded, ready for an aggressive act.
One can, however, only surmise Pedersen's logic.
Perhaps he thought: "What the hell is an 18-year-old doing getting emotional about Dave Matthews? We're targeting Dave at alfalfa-chewing, pot-smoking, Lecithin-on-their-cornflakes-sprinkling 35-year-olds. This bugger's going to ruin our marketing."
Or perhaps: "My special corporate management training has taught me that, at the very mention of the word 'pirate', I must unleash my Twittering sword and thrust it in the direction of any Twitterer wearing a hoodie, a baseball cap or a brand new Dave Matthews T-shirt."
However, one can only become excited at the fun that will now ensue throughout Norway, Sweden, and the rest of the Twitterate world.
I see Sen. George Mitchell being sent out to deal with this one.
Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. 
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If you can afford a PC with terabytes of disk space and high speed internet access, I don't think a buck for a couple tracks is going to set you back much you punks. This isn't about the rich people either, its about the little guys like me that will never be a millionaire, or even make a million bucks in my entire career. I'm just trying to feed my kids and you a-holes like to steal the food off my table. I hope this Even guy gets crabs.
he wanted to get album that wasn't sold where he lives
he has to fly over to the us, buy it, and return to Norway
estimated cost of song: $5k+
It is ever so apparent that rrod182 didn't RTFA, if he did he would have noted that Even wasn't complaining that he
couldn't "Pirate" the music, he was upset over not being able to purchase said music because of where he lived.
He also made the point that not allowing the sale of said music to other locations in the world might encourage
"Piracy" but yet the artists and record companies will complain ad nauseam about "Piracy". It looks as though the
restricting of the sale of this album on ITunes to only the USA has caused a loss of a potential revenue stream
for the Artist/Label, and also a reduced revenue stream when they finally decide to release it to the rest of the
world due to their actions causing these potential customers to get their product in other ways, be they legal or illegal.
The overall tone of your posting is also telling, you present a long winded diatribe about "privileged little crap monsters" who "don't want to fork out a couple bucks from their coffers and trust funds". Just how many people do you think as a percentage of society have trust funds, not nearly enough to have any affect on the music industry if they were to all suddenly stop purchasing music and start "stealing" it.
Lastly "This isn't about the rich people either, its about the little guys like me that will never be a millionaire, or even make a million bucks in my entire career."
Really..assuming you started working at age 25, college and all...and lets say you retire early at say 60, that's 35 working years, you would only have to average
28,571.43 dollars a year to make your million. Surly someone in the software industry with lots of friends in the entertainment industry should be able to achieve these
amazingly high wages.
This is the real problem - the entertainment industry has stopped trying and instead of making money with good product they would rather sue for money or just have the ISP's give them money.
Evan complained that he couldn't PURCHASE the album off of iTunes because of where he lived.
The exec called him a brat and told him to pirate it.
Who's advocating piracy here? It's certainly not Evan.
Oh, you still think it is? Maybe you should try using your head for something other than toilet paper.
From the article:
"I'm pissed! iTunes is only allowing downloads of the new Dave Matthews Band album if you live in the US! And they complain about pirating."
Frankly, ***! Under what circumstances should a company not complain about piracy. Should Apple say, well its we don't sell it in Norway, so we can't complain when they steal it? NO! You guys are exactly the problem. Your mentality is that if you can't have something then steal it. What the hell is wrong with this world.
Did he say he had? No. Did he say he will? No.
He wanted to put money back into industry hands and the exec spoiled it by being a ****.
Ah, yes. Now I have some sympathy with your view....
Chris
Anyway, the executive here was clearly wrong, and his mentality is a mere reflection of the aging business model that music, movies, and television companies continue to follow. Eventually it will fail on them and they'll have to radically reform similarly to how Napster forced MP3s into a position of dominance.
I subsequently had to buy the two CDs for like 7000 yen (They were J-Pop CDs) instead of the half-price I could have received had I purchased it digitally at the iTunes store and the other record finally arrived here in my country after a year or two. I believe wholeheartedly that there are people out there, like the guy mentioned in the article, that want to legally purchase digital music, movies, etc. but are unable to do so and that is why they pirate.
Although I will admit that there are some people who will never pay money for these types of media, entertainment and media companies could make a whole lot more money opening up there content to people all over the world to purchase and enjoy.
http://eirikso.com/2006/05/23/the-future-of-tv-distribution/
http://www.eirikso.com/2005/06/06/how-bob-the-millionaire-became-a-pirate/
Whenever you buy a CD, this is the type of person whose paycheck you are paying.
I don't really condone piracy. However, I don't think it's truly evil, either. Yeah, if some college kids download your music or your app, so what, they probably wouldn't have bought it anyway. Theft is different from piracy: the author isn't losing physical matter, as he still has his original digital bits. He's losing potential profit -- which he likely wouldn't have had anyway. I have a problem with people pirating software and then making money using that software (e.g. pirating web design software and then freelancing), but that's a specific case. Should people pay? Yeah. Is it as bad as rrod182 makes it out to be? No.
Your examples of lost sales is really dumb actually. There is really, morally no difference between piracy and theft. Neither are justifiable. A true thief would probably never buy a bunch of jewels, but he steals them for profit anyway. If society uses a "fuzzy" definition of the law then it will crumble. You can't say its ok for one guy to be a pirate and not others, thats total hypocrisy. What's worse is hold some of these schmucks up, like some sort of digital robin hoods.
You continue not to accept what everyone OUTSIDE the music industry already knows... that MOST people who illegally copy content ALSO buy significant quantities of it. There are numerous examples of this out there. You claim a 'true thief' would not pay for jewels, but the facts clearly substantiate that most downloaders buy music (just not every bit of it they acquire).
It is not ok, or morally justified, to illegally copy content; however it is in many cases logically a sound decision, as in this example in Norway. There is no legitimate (fundamental) reason why the DMB album is not available in Norway while it is available in the U.S. It is denied to that market unnecessarily as a decision the content owner has made (whether it was to do nothing about alternative distribution rights in that country, or a deliberate decision not to market it there). Having someone illegally copy content that you do not intend to sell to them is NOT DAMAGING TO YOUR INDUSTRY. No logically argument can be made that it is.
The global markets must take action to move with technology and the future of distribution mediums. The music and movie industry has been complaining non-stop for a decade about digital content distribution but is still sticking their heads in the sand and refusing to make real headway in solving the issue of how to profit from it.
In any case, you cannot hold up some idiot like this Warner Executive and say it is ok for him to behave as he did toward someone who did nothing but voice an opinion that HE WANTED TO PAY FOR CONTENT HE WAS DENIED. To say that is proper behavior for that man is utterly absurd.
- by BraveNewWolrd April 24, 2009 10:10 AM PDT
- Hey KID! Ever heard of TOR?!
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(33 Comments)(redirect from the EFF).
http://www.torproject.org/
Just download TOR---acquire yourself a U.S.A. IP Address, and download to your hearts content.
Although REMEMBER---you are going through someone else's proxy server---so, I'd use a "Gift Card" or some other form of Card (that's not tied to your PERSONAL Bank account---so you don't get robbed blind if that Proxy is stealing numbers, etc.). Yeah, you'll be using Encryption---but still.
Anyway, use TOR---great way to "spoof" where you're coming from (and can get the American IP address you need to download to your hearts content).
Hey Time Warner Jack off! At least I'm showing him how to pay for it---vs going
HERE: Pandora or Playlist.com, for example and getting for FREE!
bunch of clueless C.E.O. Jack Offs! to busy playing with their own fiddle...to know how to sell to 21-st century Consumers!