Nearly all music downloads illegal

"The music industry is a 74 billion dollar industry" claims soon, and the inherent claim of "if they hadn't got it for free they would have bought it"

They talk and complain alot. They tie up the courts, extort ( Verb:
to obtain money or favours by intimidation, violence, or the misuse of authority )people. They have never shown any PROOF !!! They just make up numbers and buy off politicians. If piracy is really a problem why doent they go back to cassetts or were we all pirates then aswell ?

that the record companies offer their new artists so we can see who is really ripping off the bands.

If you go to LimeWire or others like this and look up something popular you will find hundreds of downloads. Well likely 90% are spam or bad copies. Even if you are used to this it still usually takes a few tried to get the song you want. Then even some that get the right song still go and buy the music if they really like it. I figure that realistically about half are leagal now. Just not too many people are computer geeks and can not handle things like hunting down LimeWire and installing it. People have just lost the drive now that more things are avaluable for resonable prices. Amazon is one example.. Apple sucks :). The question of the day though.... is it illegal to download a digital copy of a song you have on an old worthless casset tape? What about music videos? Those were classified as advertizements (otherwise MTV would never have servivied it early days and the music industry would not have grown so much during that time). Is it illegal to to sopy music videos? If not what is to stop you from stripping the audio from it? Not much will stop the geeks out there, but most people are reverting to legal means because it is easier to do than non legal means and does not cost too much. If the RIAA was able to get the $3 a song they wanted then a lot more people would still be downloading the songs illegally. Since the digital downloads are a good chunk of their proffits as there is NO overhead for them, then they better just shut their mouth and do anything to help this market, not hurt it.

The "music industry" no longer crucifies. Now they bomb Swedish music schools. (And if you didn't happen to catch that headline last week, you need merely expand the scope of the euphemism to understand why.)

@interested_party : indeed, how much do artists get for each album sold, 19 CENTS?
Or has it gone done even further?
Sounds like a pimp/prostitute relationship to me ...

"is it illegal to download a digital copy of a song you have on an old worthless casset tape"

Well, if you ask the RIAA, the answer will obviously be a resounding "YES". Even if you ask a lawyer, you just might get the same answer, since the RIAA/MPAA/MAFIAA has been buying laws like a kid buys candy.

But if you ask Pirate Bay users, they'll shout a whopping "NO" - whether they are right or not.

As for me, I don't really care. I haven't bought a CD for the past 15 years now - and I don't download music either. I have the music I'm interested in at home, and nothing they have made since 1993 has interested me enough to get a copy of it - legal or illegal.

I have to say this is mostly the music companies fault, during the days of Napster, they did their best to shut down all the legit online music sites. Remember MP3.com? They would let you download your music while waiting for the CD in the mail. Music industry successfully sued because the MP3 was technically not from your personal CD, MP3.com was shut down.

Another point. I am an engineer. If I get a patent, I get my work protected for 20 years. With music, at least in the United states, protected at least 70 years after the authors death! Give me a break -- You can not be sure a work is out of copyright, unless it was recorded before 1926! Do musicians really deserve to have their works protected so long?

No you didn't.

... what do you expect? The crap is so overpriced it just begs to be downloaded free.

If a song sold for its true cost plus a reasonable profit margin the stealing would go WAY down. I neither buy nor download music because I refuse to pay such ridiculous prices. But if the prices were reasonable I might restart my Peter, Paul and Mary collection.

Oh well, I just save my would be music money and buy Glocks.

Are they still making a shitload of cash? Yes. Have any of them gone bankrupt? No. Are the artists still making enough cash? From watching MTV it seems they do...

Listen if I can make 50million a year talking about how I'm going to beat/kill/rape someone then I really wouldn't care about a few extra bucks flowing around on the net... should be seen as promotional perhaps?

The RIAA are idiots to think that they were going to make money off of file sharers in the first place. Even if the RIAA had a completely foolproof system those who were file sharers were usually never going to pay for your product anyway.

Remember folks, when you assume you make an ass out of you and the RIAA.

The Chinese pronounce RIAA like "liar".

As the title suggests, the music artists are well aware of the people's plight and when they are wilfully not heard. They also resent the fact that their works is cut down to only one sided communication.

Universal language = music, Everybody must be included in this universe right?
Including customers and their welfare.

But with reservation. I exclude rap (others of this genre), because this is mostly talk about bad news of rape/violence antisocial and so forth. A form of auditory terrorism.