Comments on: Photos: Making noise at P2P hearings

Supporters of both the music industry and file swappers demonstrated their causes before the Supreme Court hearings.

LOL @ Poverty Signs

In looking at the pictures of the demonstration I could only laugh to myself... HA! Feed a musician? I am all for paying for what I get, but lets be serious, don't cry poverty when your holding a $3000.00 Taylor Acoustic Guitar, and the girl directly after him holding a Martin. These guys' salaries are way to inflated as it is, this is nothing more than a reality check of what "traffic is willing to bear" The record companies have stepped on the consumer long enough.

As a mutimedia designer

and web programmer, I'm typing this on a $3,000 PowerBook
with $1000's of dollars worth of LEGIT software. And guess
what? Though I'm very busy, my wife and I struggle every month
to make ends meet. Your logic is laughably devoid of logic - the
best tools are not a perk but a requirement, and a sign that one
takes their craft seriously. Pay for your music so they can
continue to do so - that is, unless you're happy with Britney
Spears or what ever the RIAA's flavor of the week is...

she plays good music with that strange guitar

http://165.29.91.7/DolphinStock/99-00/Drift.mp3

Or not...

Listen to some more if you would like (not suggested)
http://165.29.91.7/DolphinStock/99-00/audio.htm

I don't think you have to worry about securing a big RIAA contract hun, and since when did folk artists even care about making money. This isn't very hippyish of you now is it...

[rob tomba]

disingenuous bunch....

I know you can rent protester, but couldnt they have cast a more believable bunch.

[P Ross]

My first-hand account

I spent all morning on the Supreme Court steps yesterday. Neither protest group was spontaneous. The pro-Grokster crowd consisted mostly of CEA employees. The pro-content crowd was a group of songwriters (not performers, although some also perform) from Nashville, and yes, some in this group has worked with the content industry in the past. Many of these songwriters work second jobs, none of them are wealthy from songwriting. You can argue that the fault for that comes from many sources, but they honestly believe that if people didn't download songs without paying for them they would be doing better. I think that's a reasonable position for them to take. They are quick to point out the differences between them, of which there are many, and the handful of ultra-wealthy performers whose success seems to generate so much hostility among CNET posters.

What future?

These musicians are either fakes, stupid or deluded.

Swapping files does not affect these no-name musicians in a negative way. If anything, they get a chance to finally reach a wider audience. Maybe if they supported a little fileswapping and got their music out there then we might actually know who they are.

Musicians are so brainwashed by the Record industry that even when its staring them right in the face, they can't realize that filesharing is the opportunity for them to finally break free of their pimps.

Right.....

If I am devoid of logic you sir must be devoid of reality. You, like many of the population have been brainwashed by the RIAA and the rest of Corporate America to believe that these artists are actually being hurt and that the american public is doing the hurting. Those musicians are not poor by any means, they come on TV and cry about how they are being stolen from. The real theives are the RIAA, they are the ones stealing from the artists. There is a fundamental principal of economics, and it is "what the people will bear". This has been a long time coming, and its about time. Gone are the days where the American public will bear to pay twenty dollars for a cd with only two songs that they like on it. That same cd that costs about 2 cents to make, and the artist ends up getting a few dollars for... who gets the rest of the money? Thats right, the greedy RIAA. Even while the RIAA is robbing the musicians blind and pointing the finger at the American public, these musicians are living in 2 million dollar mansions... Is that a necessary tool of the trade? Please sir, before you talk to me, educate yourself.

Have a sparkling day.

[P Ross]

Again, they're songwriters

They make money when an artist licenses their song and performs it; they get a percentage (albeit a small one, it should be larger) of every sale of the song. If you download the song for free, they don't get paid. Simple mathematics. P2P as a marketing tool doesn't apply to them.

Its the technology stupid

regardless of who gets what out of all this, the issue that can't
be solved is a technological issue. As long as there are
computers and the internet, file swapping will occur in one or
another... My cable modem just went to 7MB per second xfer
speed...you think I will only be downloading what AOL or
corporate/judicial America says I can download... f ck off!

[TimeBomb]

Give me a break

I would literally bet that those sign-carrying idiots are RIAA shills, placed there to spread more of their propagandist crap. "Ooo... She is carrying a string instrument. She must be a REAL musician!"

I'm so incredibly sick of this war. On one side you have the filthy scumbags in the recording industry, who preach the utmost respect for the law when THEIR pocketbook is on the line, but who also hypocritically engage in illegal price-fixing to screw the consumer over. And on the other side, you have whining thieves who ***** incessantly about how they're somehow owed free music, not realizing that the only right choice would be to forego the product entirely.

But still, penalizing the technology itself would be perfectly idiotic.

I am that girl - and I AM a musician

My name is Erin Enderlin and I would just to clarify that I am the girl in the picture holding a sign saying "Don't steal my future" and I make my living as an artist and songwriter in Nashville, TN. I was not "placed" at the Supreme Court, I simply came to give a human face to the matter at hand. This matter has very important implications on my career and the careers of many other creative people.
The fact is real people are not being given money they have earned by working to produce create product; I do not believe that reflects the beliefs and principles that our nation was founded on and stands for today.

Good, someone who understands.

Aside from your first paragraph, I think you captured this whole issue in a nutshell.

It's about balancing the rights of the artists, middlemen, and consumers. Neither side of this issue is completely right, and that's what makes this debate so ridiculously disgusting.

Whine, file-swappers, because the medium you use to steal music, movies, and other works is under attack. Don't expect your justifications to be accepted by anyone who truly understands what's happening. You make this a fight between you and the record companies, while meanwhile, many artists are indeed suffering because you're so cheap.

Record companies, you are idiots for fighting this legally as opposed to adapting to the situation and using P2P as a new tool in your arsenal. You are also hypocrites for bringing up the whole issue of artists not being paid when your abusive contracts don't even pay them fairly. It's a joke to pay them only about 10% of the profits you make from their work, and only after your own costs are covered. What, you think you're the only ones taking any risk in this business? When you start saving money due to new technologies, do you actually plan to give more to the artists? I doubt it--you love the current system too much.

And file swappers, this is not adequate justification for screwing the record companies. You screw the artists so much more when you do this. The record companies will simply squeeze them harder as their profits fall. These are your victims, not the middlemen.

[TimeBomb]

Sure you are, sure you are...

First of all, I don't quite believe you.

Second, how many of your recordings have been scooped up on P2P networks?

Third, don't you think the recording industry is screwing you dry already?

[killerpenguinz]

It isn't Fileswapping. Its the Record Companies.

I run a record company, and i can tell you, P2P does not affect our business. In fact, it has increased it. There is no reason for the major labels to complain. They are not losing anything.

Artists picketing out in front of the supreme court, you are wasting your time and digging a hole for yourself. The record companies don't pay artist's as it is. What makes you think you suppporting them, will allow them to give you a few more cents for that CD, because they take the bulk of the profits?

its no secret that artist's hardly get paid on CD sales, yet there are exhorburent amounts of money being paid for people for "Royalties" by the radio industry, who is being charged for paying what the industry doesen't want to pay.

These are the same labels, who just got in trouble for holding 300 million from artists. What makes you think for one second they are on your side?

Artists need to rethink their position. P2P gains loyal fans. Fans who go to concerts, fans who buy the merchandise, etc. Even if the majority of your fans download your works, they cant experience the live show online, they cant bootleg the posters, or other merchandise. Maybe artists need to learn that music is an artform, to tax it the way the industry and the government has, is to say that it has a price. Who determines a song is worth 99 cents?

Stop supporting the Major record industry, and start learning its tricks, to learn how to defend yourself, and make money. But demanding royalties from Radio stations is not the answer, after all, they are your primary point of advertising. Without them, you wouldn't sell 99% of the cd's you do now.

Down with the RIAA.

[zeroplane]

Right to the point, thank you

Thank you, I have gotten right to the point. LEARN ABOUT THE INDUSTRY. Just spending half an hour and reading about the history of the American music industry should be enough for artists to know where they should stand. Just read about how artists have been raped and abused for over 100 years by slight of hand, back stabbing, snake oil salesmen who built an empire from the talent of the few.

The RIAA is not in existence to support artist. Far from it, it exists to support the mega corporations that make 98% of the profit on every CD sale. Like a medieval land baron record companies tax the artists and trap them in huge credit and loan deals that rob the ignorant artist of their livelihoods through high-interest loans that artists can't pay off.

Sometimes, being unknown makes a better living than being known.