JesusIsLord said:

sVs said:

JesusIsLord said:

newsflash - stealing is illegal

---

God forbid the record companies miss their $0.90 per song.
And I say this is as someone with plenty of legally-purchased music.

---

stealing is stealing. don't be pullin that Peter Gibbons penny tray garbage.

That'd be like if you were pissed at me for taking your car just tellin you what I only put like 30 miles on it.

---

Diploid said:

Whoa... and I thought I was kinky.

---

HeadTripVertigo said:

JesusIsLord said:

sVs said:

JesusIsLord said:

newsflash - stealing is illegal

---

God forbid the record companies miss their $0.90 per song.
And I say this is as someone with plenty of legally-purchased music.

---

stealing is stealing. don't be pullin that Peter Gibbons penny tray garbage.

That'd be like if you were pissed at me for taking your car just tellin you what I only put like 30 miles on it.

---

no, it's more like if someone created an exact replica of your car and drove 30 miles on it.

---

it's stealing. you justify it however you want.

i sleep well at night

sVs said:

Good for you. I'm sure everyone who torrents is losing sleep over the horrid moral and legal implications of their actions.
If you really want to support the musicians, go to a show or buy a t-shirt. More of that money goes to them than record sales.

---

No I'm sure they don't lose sleep because they have seared consciences so it's all twisted to be ok in some crazy string of justifications.

They'll figure it out when they're shoplifting something (what's the big deal? It's only a steak you guys have hundreds of them) and get arrested.

JesusIsLord said:

sVs said:

Good for you. I'm sure everyone who torrents is losing sleep over the horrid moral and legal implications of their actions.
If you really want to support the musicians, go to a show or buy a t-shirt. More of that money goes to them than record sales.

---

No I'm sure they don't lose sleep because they have seared consciences so it's all twisted to be ok in some crazy string of justifications.

They'll figure it out when they're shoplifting something (what's the big deal? It's only a steak you guys have hundreds of them) and get arrested.

---

JesusIsLord said:

sVs said:

JesusIsLord said:

newsflash - stealing is illegal

---

God forbid the record companies miss their $0.90 per song.
And I say this is as someone with plenty of legally-purchased music.

---

stealing is stealing. don't be pullin that Peter Gibbons penny tray garbage.

That'd be like if you were pissed at me for taking your car just tellin you what I only put like 30 miles on it.

---

Newsflash-- torrents aren't the same thing as stealing. Copying isn't the same thing as stealing. The RIAA hasn't been able to demonstrate that illegal downloads even result in lost sales, and apparently, you're absolute shit at analogizing as well.

CidneyIndole said:

Newsflash-- torrents are the same thing as stealing. Copying isn't the same thing as stealing. The RIAA hasn't been able to demonstrate that illegal downloads even result in lost sales, and apparently, you're absolute shit at analogizing as well.

---

So torrents are the same thing as stealing. My point exactly. Apparently you're absolute shit at proof reading.

Humility said:

stealing NECESSARILY requires that one person lose an item while another person gains it.

---

you can't physically hold the files in your computer can you? the software that powers it? no. yet, those things take time and money to create. downloading them without paying the source in whatever roundabout way is stealing.

if I break up a bag of weed I stole from a dealer hand it to 3 friends then meet up at home and recombine it, I didn't steal it, did I. I "shared" it. What the fuck you people are amazing! So if I commit perjury to congress by recombining like 12 different alibis and testimonies, I'm not lying? Whoa!

JesusIsLord said:

Besides all these semantics, you're just being an asshole to the people that make music. There's a reason shows cost money, albums cost money, it takes time and money to make music.

---

Quote:

This story is about a bidding-war band that gets a huge deal with a 20 percent royalty rate and a million-dollar advance. (No bidding-war band ever got a 20 percent royalty, but whatever.) This is my “funny” math based on some reality and I just want to qualify it by saying I’m positive it’s better math than what Edgar Bronfman Jr. [the president and CEO of Seagram, which owns Polygram] would provide.

What happens to that million dollars?

They spend half a million to record their album. That leaves the band with $500,000. They pay $100,000 to their manager for 20 percent commission. They pay $25,000 each to their lawyer and business manager.

That leaves $350,000 for the four band members to split. After $170,000 in taxes, there’s $180,000 left. That comes out to $45,000 per person.

That’s $45,000 to live on for a year until the record gets released.

The record is a big hit and sells a million copies. (How a bidding-war band sells a million copies of its debut record is another rant entirely, but it’s based on any basic civics-class knowledge that any of us have about cartels. Put simply, the antitrust laws in this country are basically a joke, protecting us just enough to not have to re-name our park service the Phillip Morris National Park Service.)

So, this band releases two singles and makes two videos. The two videos cost a million dollars to make and 50 percent of the video production costs are recouped out of the band’s royalties.

The band gets $200,000 in tour support, which is 100 percent recoupable.

The record company spends $300,000 on independent radio promotion. You have to pay independent promotion to get your song on the radio; independent promotion is a system where the record companies use middlemen so they can pretend not to know that radio stations — the unified broadcast system — are getting paid to play their records.

All of those independent promotion costs are charged to the band.

Since the original million-dollar advance is also recoupable, the band owes $2 million to the record company.

If all of the million records are sold at full price with no discounts or record clubs, the band earns $2 million in royalties, since their 20 percent royalty works out to $2 a record.

Two million dollars in royalties minus $2 million in recoupable expenses equals … zero!

How much does the record company make?

They grossed $11 million.

It costs $500,000 to manufacture the CDs and they advanced the band $1 million. Plus there were $1 million in video costs, $300,000 in radio promotion and $200,000 in tour support.

The company also paid $750,000 in music publishing royalties.

They spent $2.2 million on marketing. That’s mostly retail advertising, but marketing also pays for those huge posters of Marilyn Manson in Times Square and the street scouts who drive around in vans handing out black Korn T-shirts and backwards baseball caps. Not to mention trips to Scores and cash for tips for all and sundry.

Add it up and the record company has spent about $4.4 million.

So their profit is $6.6 million; the band may as well be working at a 7-Eleven.

---