If you'd rather not read all this it basically breaks down into....
Does art promote a better society, and do the seemingly normal business goals of big business interfere with the growth of ethics, morals, and art forms in society?
What do you think are the motives of the RIAA for taking a hard ass approach towards free music downloading? There isn't any proof from the RIAA that can stand without shady/contrived statistics for them losing money in the past few years. I mean, the USA has a bad economy compared to the late 90's...yet the RIAA is bitching about how its industry is losing money. Most of the statistics in favor of the RIAA's case were comparing a crappy economy to a thriving one.
and you may want to consider this: the value of art and music according to young, file sharers vs. US copyright law according to the music industry.
There are lots of questions about why the RIAA (Recording Industry of America Association) is willing to bring law suits to hundreds of people (about 250 last month, and more are promised to come) when the organization claims it has lost over $2 billion dollars to file sharing. One question that glares so brightly is why lawsuits are being settled out of court for a couple thousand dollars when the original suit was for $150,000 a song shared, and the people sued are the ones sharing 1000's of songs. The RIAA is trying to deter people from sharing music by posting some ridiculous money figure and suing people for it. Being sued for $150,000 per song shared will ruin the life of the defendant, it would put them into poverty for the rest of their lives.
Although the stakes are high for the penalty, we have seen deterrence strategies do not work when the people who are thinking about committing the act are opposed or just don't care about the morality/ethics of the crime. The death penalty is a prime and tried example. The law will take your LIFE if you kill, but we (the USA) still have one of the highest murder rates of the world. When a person doesn't care about the why a law is the way it is, they will most likely overlook the high penalties. How many people who seriously thought about murdering a person do you think changed their mind because they might lose their life if they are caught? The same reasoning is for file sharers. They do not have any problems with the ethics of disobeying the laws about copyrighted material, and they think the songs they are getting are worth the risk of being singled out of millions of other people. Suing a select few people will ruin those people's lives, not gain back the $2 billion the RIAA has "lost," or have a significant impact to deter other file sharers. The RIAA’s legal fees are probably making them lose more money than they already have.
The bulk of file sharers are younger folks, college age and younger. What this controversy over file sharing sheds light on are the issues of today’s youth’s ethics. Why does breaking the law appeal to so many file sharers, particularly the young ones? The answer might as well be they think today’s music is worthless of monetary value (or priceless if you’re the glass-half-full kind of person) and deserves to be freely available. This issue is far from the reaches of politicians and lawyers, who manipulate the law to suit their needs, so where did these ideals spawn from?
It would be most likely be from the extreme commercialization of music since music videos became a staple in marketing to the RIAA’s best customers – young people. The 1990’s brought a fury of video marketing to teens through MTV which showcased pop culture, tailored and fitted for the music industry’s profit making. Maybe it was after the short-lived “grunge era” of music in the early 90’s that the industry realized they could easily lose record sales to artists who care more about the art of music than buying 3 exotic cars with their money.
My spin on the music marketing and its history, it's more for background info than making a point:
As with every ‘era’ of popular music, recording companies would copy cat a formula for success until a new formula was discovered. That formula is called pop music, no matter what genre or decade it came from. Although unlike previous decades of pop music, in the 90’s record companies utilized music videos and MTV as their main element of pop music, and radio play time a lesser factor of record selling success than a video regularly played on MTV. If a song didn’t have a good video, it would not sell. But overexposure is one factor that will always remain constant. And as TV as done in the past, it gives its viewers someone and something to hate when they feel angry. In this case when the audience was tired of a song, they could see the artist on the TV and take their frustration out on them.
In 1999 the RIAA had its recording breaking year for record sales which was practically all attributed to a major success in the pop music formula and successful marketing to teens through MTV. But around 1999, the aggression of pop music’s best consumer, teens, was focused on the artists and the integrity of the pop music formula. Overexposure of the formula had turned ugly. The music industry quickly dropped their so called “manufactured bands” from the top spotlight and went for singer/songwriter and punkish types of artists, who are more easily marketed as having artistic integrity to teens. It was too late for the change though. File sharing programs had become common and the downloading had begun.
The music industry is taking heat for commercializing their top prospects and profit making artists, so consumers are glad to take a less commercialized approach to getting their music, through file sharing. This raises more questions, a lot more.
The music industry has always been a little sleazy, but is their pursuit of banning file sharing programs an attempt to dominate the art form of music? Meaning, does the RIAA want to crush all independent artists….what are the motives behind their extremely aggressive approach towards shutting file sharing down? Could this be the turning point, a much needed reform of morals and ethics of big business in America’s consumer market? The RIAA is putting its balls on a chopping block here, with its aggressive lawsuits and outlandish remarks towards file sharing….they could very well be castrated by the US courts. It’s too early in this controversy to predict how the court systems will view it….purely legal or from an ethical viewpoint.
Does art have a value in America’s morals anymore? Paintings belong in museums with rich people, and music/movies belong to organizations (it could be considered a monopolies) of recording companies? Are ‘normal people’ entitled to art without having to be strung along the consumer-buying game of the US’s market economy? Maybe art shouldn’t have a value in society, or maybe it should…such as $14 for a CD and $10 for a movie viewing.
Does mass sharing of music freely over the internet signify a change in an upcoming cultural attitude? File sharing may the tip of what the Internet has to offer society. The cultural/regional gaps in America will significantly decrease as the internet become widely available and usable in areas. Sharing music bypasses the controlled flow of the RIAA’s music. The marketing of pop music, or the formula for profit, might be seeing it’s last days if file sharing becomes big enough an ethical issue.
The RIAA is trying to keep music listeners in their demographics by discouraging file sharing. But when cultural and musical diversity is encouraged on the Internet, the demographics merge together and the lines of who’s a “rap lover” or “country lover” are blurred. Marketing to those blurred types of consumers costs much more because you have to spread your resources over a larger area than focusing your efforts and money towards the formula that will clearly bring the most profit. There are hundreds of quality albums produced through the RIAA but are never released on a full scale because those albums don’t fit the profit making demographics, and god forbid the RIAA loses money in taking a business risk! While trying to keep their strangle hold on the art form of music in America, the RIAA risks stifling a cultural awakening that is beginning with file sharing.
This is kind of a rough draft for a paper, but more for me sorting out some things that were bothing me. Sorry, but it may read like a term paper. I just jotted down what I thought of this issue. It's been pissing me off lately.
So, do you think if the courts rule in favor of shutting down file sharing because of the music controversy, the US will have missed a chance to grow as society, where art and information is valued more for integrity than it's materialistic value?
Does art promote a better society, and do the seemingly normal business goals of big business interfere with the growth of ethics, morals, and art forms in society?
What do you think are the motives of the RIAA for taking a hard ass approach towards free music downloading? There isn't any proof from the RIAA that can stand without shady/contrived statistics for them losing money in the past few years. I mean, the USA has a bad economy compared to the late 90's...yet the RIAA is bitching about how its industry is losing money. Most of the statistics in favor of the RIAA's case were comparing a crappy economy to a thriving one.
and you may want to consider this: the value of art and music according to young, file sharers vs. US copyright law according to the music industry.
There are lots of questions about why the RIAA (Recording Industry of America Association) is willing to bring law suits to hundreds of people (about 250 last month, and more are promised to come) when the organization claims it has lost over $2 billion dollars to file sharing. One question that glares so brightly is why lawsuits are being settled out of court for a couple thousand dollars when the original suit was for $150,000 a song shared, and the people sued are the ones sharing 1000's of songs. The RIAA is trying to deter people from sharing music by posting some ridiculous money figure and suing people for it. Being sued for $150,000 per song shared will ruin the life of the defendant, it would put them into poverty for the rest of their lives.
Although the stakes are high for the penalty, we have seen deterrence strategies do not work when the people who are thinking about committing the act are opposed or just don't care about the morality/ethics of the crime. The death penalty is a prime and tried example. The law will take your LIFE if you kill, but we (the USA) still have one of the highest murder rates of the world. When a person doesn't care about the why a law is the way it is, they will most likely overlook the high penalties. How many people who seriously thought about murdering a person do you think changed their mind because they might lose their life if they are caught? The same reasoning is for file sharers. They do not have any problems with the ethics of disobeying the laws about copyrighted material, and they think the songs they are getting are worth the risk of being singled out of millions of other people. Suing a select few people will ruin those people's lives, not gain back the $2 billion the RIAA has "lost," or have a significant impact to deter other file sharers. The RIAA’s legal fees are probably making them lose more money than they already have.
The bulk of file sharers are younger folks, college age and younger. What this controversy over file sharing sheds light on are the issues of today’s youth’s ethics. Why does breaking the law appeal to so many file sharers, particularly the young ones? The answer might as well be they think today’s music is worthless of monetary value (or priceless if you’re the glass-half-full kind of person) and deserves to be freely available. This issue is far from the reaches of politicians and lawyers, who manipulate the law to suit their needs, so where did these ideals spawn from?
It would be most likely be from the extreme commercialization of music since music videos became a staple in marketing to the RIAA’s best customers – young people. The 1990’s brought a fury of video marketing to teens through MTV which showcased pop culture, tailored and fitted for the music industry’s profit making. Maybe it was after the short-lived “grunge era” of music in the early 90’s that the industry realized they could easily lose record sales to artists who care more about the art of music than buying 3 exotic cars with their money.
My spin on the music marketing and its history, it's more for background info than making a point:
As with every ‘era’ of popular music, recording companies would copy cat a formula for success until a new formula was discovered. That formula is called pop music, no matter what genre or decade it came from. Although unlike previous decades of pop music, in the 90’s record companies utilized music videos and MTV as their main element of pop music, and radio play time a lesser factor of record selling success than a video regularly played on MTV. If a song didn’t have a good video, it would not sell. But overexposure is one factor that will always remain constant. And as TV as done in the past, it gives its viewers someone and something to hate when they feel angry. In this case when the audience was tired of a song, they could see the artist on the TV and take their frustration out on them.
In 1999 the RIAA had its recording breaking year for record sales which was practically all attributed to a major success in the pop music formula and successful marketing to teens through MTV. But around 1999, the aggression of pop music’s best consumer, teens, was focused on the artists and the integrity of the pop music formula. Overexposure of the formula had turned ugly. The music industry quickly dropped their so called “manufactured bands” from the top spotlight and went for singer/songwriter and punkish types of artists, who are more easily marketed as having artistic integrity to teens. It was too late for the change though. File sharing programs had become common and the downloading had begun.
The music industry is taking heat for commercializing their top prospects and profit making artists, so consumers are glad to take a less commercialized approach to getting their music, through file sharing. This raises more questions, a lot more.
The music industry has always been a little sleazy, but is their pursuit of banning file sharing programs an attempt to dominate the art form of music? Meaning, does the RIAA want to crush all independent artists….what are the motives behind their extremely aggressive approach towards shutting file sharing down? Could this be the turning point, a much needed reform of morals and ethics of big business in America’s consumer market? The RIAA is putting its balls on a chopping block here, with its aggressive lawsuits and outlandish remarks towards file sharing….they could very well be castrated by the US courts. It’s too early in this controversy to predict how the court systems will view it….purely legal or from an ethical viewpoint.
Does art have a value in America’s morals anymore? Paintings belong in museums with rich people, and music/movies belong to organizations (it could be considered a monopolies) of recording companies? Are ‘normal people’ entitled to art without having to be strung along the consumer-buying game of the US’s market economy? Maybe art shouldn’t have a value in society, or maybe it should…such as $14 for a CD and $10 for a movie viewing.
Does mass sharing of music freely over the internet signify a change in an upcoming cultural attitude? File sharing may the tip of what the Internet has to offer society. The cultural/regional gaps in America will significantly decrease as the internet become widely available and usable in areas. Sharing music bypasses the controlled flow of the RIAA’s music. The marketing of pop music, or the formula for profit, might be seeing it’s last days if file sharing becomes big enough an ethical issue.
The RIAA is trying to keep music listeners in their demographics by discouraging file sharing. But when cultural and musical diversity is encouraged on the Internet, the demographics merge together and the lines of who’s a “rap lover” or “country lover” are blurred. Marketing to those blurred types of consumers costs much more because you have to spread your resources over a larger area than focusing your efforts and money towards the formula that will clearly bring the most profit. There are hundreds of quality albums produced through the RIAA but are never released on a full scale because those albums don’t fit the profit making demographics, and god forbid the RIAA loses money in taking a business risk! While trying to keep their strangle hold on the art form of music in America, the RIAA risks stifling a cultural awakening that is beginning with file sharing.
This is kind of a rough draft for a paper, but more for me sorting out some things that were bothing me. Sorry, but it may read like a term paper. I just jotted down what I thought of this issue. It's been pissing me off lately.
So, do you think if the courts rule in favor of shutting down file sharing because of the music controversy, the US will have missed a chance to grow as society, where art and information is valued more for integrity than it's materialistic value?
