Downloading Music and Rights

[judd stephens]

Very interesting. I guess that makes sense on a strict legal /copyright level. It somehow seems weird though. It feels (there is that word again) as if one should own the data for oneself if one legitimately purchases an album, even after the hard copy is subsequently sold.

If you don't like the CD enough to keep then why would you want a copy of it? From my understanding when you purchase a CD and you make a copy of it to another format you are media shifting, which is legal. The idea is you make a copy so you can play it in the car or your ipod. If you then sell the CD or vinyl, or cassette, then you are not entitled to have that shifted copy of it because you no longer have the original media.

Hmmm, so if I lose the original copy or it's stolen, or wears out, then I have to erase the shifted copy?  Guess so...

[michael sandler]

Is listening to some music that you're not going to end purchasing because you didn't find it good enough that much of a crime? It could be considered as a "spiritual crime" perhaps, but if some guy meets Steve Roach tommorow and tells to the man "Hey, I've downloaded most of your music and I was deeply affected by it, it changed the way I see music" do you think he'll be mad at him? I don't know, I can't speak for the man.

I can't really speak for Steve, but I feel pretty certain he would be shocked to have someone tell him this.  If someone told me they were "deeply affected" by my work, but they had never bothered to purchase a single CD, I'd think here's a pretty selfish person who not only doesn't purchase most of their music, but doesn't even support the work that really means something to them.

I honestly CAN see how people can rationalize pirating the newest Britney Spears album or whatever... she's already a millionaire, how much of a difference will it make if I buy one copy, the major labels are giant evil corporations anyway, etc. 

I can even see how people can take a "try before you buy" attitude, downloading a lot of material and buying legit copies of the stuff they like most.

But the idea that people can rationalize pirating the music of an indie artist or label that's bringing in so little money as to barely break even, one of their favorite artists or labels... how does that rationalization go, exactly?  The $12 is more important to me than it is to him, besides they didn't actually SEE me download it so there's no proof, anyway the record industry is so corrupt you have to fight against ALL commercial releases, or what?

I know you were just offering an example, but I'd say you probably shouldn't walk up to Steve Roach or anyone else and say "Your work deeply affected me but not enough that I was willing to sacrifice anything at all in order to obtain it."

I recall a fan asking Neil Peart a question in Modern Drummer magazine, and in the course of the question the fan said he had bootlegged a concert, and Neil blasted him with both barrels. He did answer the question though.

Just my 2cents on the meaning of art and what that has to do with any of this: nothing. Steve Roach's music is product. That's not a bad word. It simply means something produced with the intent of generating financial profit. So it is no different than a box of cereal. You have to pay for Froot Loops, and you have to pay for The Magnificent Void.

I hope no one takes offense that I refer to Froot Loops as "product."  

MikeS

[judd stephens]

I recall a fan asking Neil Peart a question in Modern Drummer magazine, and in the course of the question the fan said he had bootlegged a concert, and Neil blasted him with both barrels. He did answer the question though.

Just my 2cents on the meaning of art and what that has to do with any of this: nothing. Steve Roach's music is product. That's not a bad word. It simply means something produced with the intent of generating financial profit. So it is no different than a box of cereal. You have to pay for Froot Loops, and you have to pay for The Magnificent Void.

I hope no one takes offense that I refer to Froot Loops as "product."  

MikeS

Nope, it's far more offensive that you compare The Magnificent Void with Fruit Loops...

[michael sandler]

I recall a fan asking Neil Peart a question in Modern Drummer magazine, and in the course of the question the fan said he had bootlegged a concert, and Neil blasted him with both barrels. He did answer the question though.

Just my 2cents on the meaning of art and what that has to do with any of this: nothing. Steve Roach's music is product. That's not a bad word. It simply means something produced with the intent of generating financial profit. So it is no different than a box of cereal. You have to pay for Froot Loops, and you have to pay for The Magnificent Void.

I hope no one takes offense that I refer to Froot Loops as "product."  

MikeS

Nope, it's far more offensive that you compare The Magnificent Void with Fruit Loops...

I knew I was gonna get it for that...

[jkn]

But what about Fruity Loops?   Oh - wait - they changed it to FL to sound more legitimate at some point... ;-)

[LNerell]

Hmmm, so if I lose the original copy or it's stolen, or wears out, then I have to erase the shifted copy?  Guess so...

Good point, I have no idea. Lots of gray area here.

[mgriffin]

Hmmm, so if I lose the original copy or it's stolen, or wears out, then I have to erase the shifted copy?  Guess so...

Good point, I have no idea. Lots of gray area here.

I would say no -- in Judd's example, he purchased a copy and owned the rights to it.  If the physical disc is lost or stolen but he still has the mp3 rip, I'd say he retains the right to keep listening to it -- even to burn an audio CDR from the mp3 files if he wants.  Why not?

That's very different from selling the CD used, but keeping a high-quality rip or a CDR copy.

[cromag]

Hmmm, so if I lose the original copy or it's stolen, or wears out, then I have to erase the shifted copy?  Guess so...

Good point, I have no idea. Lots of gray area here.

I would say no -- in Judd's example, he purchased a copy and owned the rights to it.  If the physical disc is lost or stolen but he still has the mp3 rip, I'd say he retains the right to keep listening to it -- even to burn an audio CDR from the mp3 files if he wants.  Why not?

That's very different from selling the CD used, but keeping a high-quality rip or a CDR copy.

I am not a lawyer, but this is an area of some interest to me.

First, the RIAA has, in the past, argued that you don't have the right to "media shift."  That argument was moot -- they already fought and lost that battle in the '70s, with cassette recorders -- but a major part of their market was (re-)selling CDs to people who wanted to "upgrade" from perfectly good LPs, so they gave it a try.

In an interview on NPR last year (I think -- I can find it if I have to) they argued that if you had made MP3 or other copies of a CD, and the CD was subsequently lost or stolen, then you should have to destroy your copies.

I think that copyright law trumps them on this.  In this case it seems to me that "media shifting" is the same as making an archival copy.  The purpose of an archival copy is to safeguard your investment if the original is lost.

In the case of theft, it's even more clear.  You cannot lose title to property through theft.  If you bought the CD it's your CD -- even if it's stolen, it's still your CD and you have a right to the music.



As a hobby (which I haven't had time to pursue nearly as much as I'd like) I record LPs to digital files, clean them up, and burn them to CD -- and some songs wind up on my MP3 player.  I keep the source LPs safely in my basement, just in case.

[Wayne Higgins]

So, if I buy a CD for $18, copy it to a blank disc, sell it for $3, keep all of the receipts, can I keep 5/6 of it?

OR....
If I buy a cd($22), burn it and then sell it($6), and then buy it on vinyl($28), should Eric Clapton send me $16.

You know I have owned in my life time (2 examples) Grand Funk Railroad "Closer to Home" on cassette, cd, and now the three copies on vinyl and King Crimson "Larks Tongues in Aspic" on 8-track, cd, remastered cd, cassette, and now the three vinyl copies.  I could argue that if Capitol records and Atlantic (WEM, EG, ect) would have gotten the pressings right the first time, I wouldn't have to keep buying them.  Nick Mason once said that a possible reason for "Dark Side Of The Moon" selling so well was that many people who bought it wore it out and had to buy a second copy.  Should they all get their money back?

Besides, it's not like Mark, Don and Mel got more money from the multiple copies.

[9dragons]

I am curious to ask the musicians out there, which of the following two situations do you think is preferable (if you had to choose one):

1) I buy the hard copy release when it comes out, new, paying full price (direct from the artist or otherwise), decide I don't want to keep the hard copy for whatever reason, then rip it and sell the hard copy.

OR

2) I pay for a legitimate download from Itunes, Amazon, etc.


I don't know what it's like to be a musician with an album out (though I am working with a musician to put an album out, so I will get an idea very soon), but from the perspective of the musician, I think I would prefer option number 1. It gets somebody buying my actual physical album, then subsequently gets it into a place where it might not normally be found (like a used record store or someone buying off of Ebay thousands of miles away), thus hopefully sparking more awareness of and interest in the product. Like a mini advertisement.

To answer Loren's question, I usually sell and album when I no longer like it or listen to it, or if I am in need of money (and sometimes in need of money because I spent too much on music). There are occasions however when the packaging is so crappy, so little effort has gone into it, that if I like the music enough I might rip it and sell the original. In this case, the artist has put so little effort or care into the packaging, why should I care? And why should I keep such an ugly thing around? I could have just bought the download but at least in ordering the hard copy I gave myself the choice. After all, on the net, we don't get to really see the packaging before hand.

Again, I just don't see this resell thing affecting ambient or underground music in a big way.

From the consumer perspective, I most definitely prefer number one. I have bought a maximum of two downloads in my life, and though I like both albums, I never listen to them because a download just isn't really real to me, as I listen to my music on the stereo, so like to go through the ritual of touching the actual album, opening up the packaging, instead of just looking at an anonymous burned cdr. The way I see it, I pay somewhere around $15-$20 for a hard copy cd, including tax and shipping and whatnot, and if I sell it for whatever reason, I get $1-$4, which means I have "lost" $10-$15. So if I ripped from the original, then sold it, I am still paying more than if I had bought the download. Now, Mike's dystopian vision of everyone buying everyone else's used copies and the artist getting nothing kind of made sense to me, but needs further clarification (and since Mike is a label owner and distributor, I should probably defer to his experience...), because  in the case of ambient or other underground music, I see the extra promotion of the cd going back into the retail stream as outweighing the detriment that another person buying the used cd (thus no more money for the artist) would cause.

I have actually sold some of my ambient cds to the local record store, and there are a couple specific ones that still haven't sold after I think two years. I think most people buying ambient or underground music are buying it from the online distributors.

[Paul Vnuk (Ma Ja Le)]

Well...#2 is legal, #1 is not. I guess I don't understand why everyone is trying to look for loop holes and justification.

If you want a hard copy buy the CD...if you only want a digital copy buy the download. Seems pretty simple to me. When it is ambient music or something I consider that sound quality is worth it, I buy the CD. If it was something like say the new U2 or Depeche Mode album, I BUY the 256k files from Amazon or iTunes.

Paul

[ffcal]

I don't have a problem with #1, and could see how it might be a form of indirect advertising.  I think there is danger that putting too many restrictions on what consumers can do with their music may ultimately backfire by leading to even more declining sales (e.g., the DRM debacle).  I agree, though, that it is a trade-off in that having more used copies of your CD circulating around may ultimately put a dent in your CD sales.  Still, I think the greater risk of lost sales comes from the circulation of unauthorized digital copies.

I am fortunate that there are great record stores in the Bay Area like Amoeba, and still like go there to look for obscure CDs.  I think it's somewhat impractical to expect someone to hang onto a CD if they only like/want to keep a single track or two (and/or dislike the actual packaging).  Also, what if they simply want to throw the CD away and go digital?

Forrest

[judd stephens]

Well...#2 is legal, #1 is not. I guess I don't understand why everyone is trying to look for loop holes and justification.

If you want a hard copy buy the CD...if you only want a digital copy buy the download. Seems pretty simple to me. When it is ambient music or something I consider that sound quality is worth it, I buy the CD. If it was something like say the new U2 or Depeche Mode album, I BUY the 256k files from Amazon or iTunes.

Paul

This is gonna be one of those crazy posts...  if you hate math, you're gonna hate this for looking complex and boring.  If you're a mathmetician, you're also going to hate this because it's gotta be flawed somehow   enjoy    Just read the bottom little paragraph if nothing else.

You already mentioned that it's okay to question a law in a democratic society, and looking at the consequences of breaking the law is one way of doing that.  Where is the harm being done of breaking this law?  Who can benefit from breaking the law?  Can they be compared in any way?  Those are some of the scenarios that being touched upon. 

There are other musicians here who seem to have a more nuianced opinion than just "the law is the law and it should never be broken unless it's life or death".  Some have conceded that if it doesn't harm the musician, as in affect their sales of music, or "doesn't hurt the scene", it's okay, and the intent of the law is not betrayed. 

I'm still not sure if ripping a cd and selling it is harmful.  There seems to be so many unknowns and variables that it's hard to assume one way or the other that it's good or bad. 

To make a really simple math equation- this is going to be difficult for me, but simple in terms of trying to solve the bigger problem, please bear with...  Let's say I as Citizen 1 have  90 dollars to buy cd's, and I decide to buy new cd's, rip them, then sell them.  For simplicity, let's say each new cd costs 12 dollars, and every time I re-sell, I gain 6 dollars back - sometimes it really would be more, or less, but probably more.   In this case I also reinvest the 6 dollars back into new cd's- I had 90 dollars to start with, and any money from sales go back to buying new music. 

On this model, I can buy 14 new cd's, until I run out of money.  Now let's say I follow the law and don't rip the cd's, and therefore I don't sell them (because if I can't rip and sell, I have to hold on to the cd in order to archive).  If I only buy new, without recoupping money, then I can only buy 7 new cd's with my budget.

Okay now to citizen 2, who has bought some of my used cd's.  Let's say citizen 2 likes bargains, and has a smaller budget, so every other cd he buys is a new, then a used, and so on.  His budget is only 60 dollars (this is over a period of time most likely- I'm not sure that part matters right now).  In the buy-rip-then resell model, citizen 2 resells both the new cd's and used he bought, recovers 6 dollars for the new, and 4 dollars for the used, so he gets 6 dollars back on his 12 dollars, and only 2 dollars back for the used.  Based on this he's able to buy a total of 7 new cd's (and 6 used).  If he didn't rip and consequently didn't re-sell, his budget would allow him to buy 5 new cd's.

As you can see the 2nd tier was a much lesser margin of new cd's bought, and the "further down you get", the situation maybe reverses itself, so that following the law generates more new cd's?  I can't really fathom that part.

Basically the bottom line is this:  if you follow the law, your budget can afford less new cd's, but there's less used cd's in the market, which encourages a higher percentage of new cd purchases.  However, breaking the law by ripping a newly bought cd and reselling it generates money to buy more and more new cd's, but also fills the market with more used cd's.  Which is worse if any? 



 

[Wayne Higgins]

 

As a musician who did put out an album, and then find a copy of it in a used rack:  the first feeling was, "Damn, I guess they didn't like it that much", followed by "I'm glad they didn't just throw it away", finally "I hope someone else buys it."  Once, I even autographed the used copy so that the guy in running the used store could tell people it was autographed and sell it.  So, from this musicians standpoint, once it was bought, it was bought.  If they copied it before they sold it, so what.  What pissed me off was to find that the guitar players little brother made a few cassette copies of it and gave it to his friends.  I ate his diner one night before he came home for that!

One more question.  Lets say you buy a record from the SST label (let's say Husker Du "Zen Arcade", produced by Spot (who never received any money for his work and lives in a mobile home outside Austin) and sell the cd after burning it.  The SST label no longer exists due to those "four guys from Ireland" who decided they didn't like a particular single that was released by Negativeland on the SST label, consequently putting SST out of business.  Do you send the money to Negativeland, Spot, or those four guys who used to live in Ireland but decided to move out of the country when the laws of the country changed so that royalties were subject to taxation.  Why do I put up such a ridiculous post, because it's a ridiculous subject.  Believe it or not, people who buy cds faithfully sometimes have horrific money problems and are in a situation where they need money for groceries, and they have decide to sell a bunch of cds.  Before they sell the discs, they make copies so that they can listen to the music at a later date and then, by some good fortune, they get a bit of money, get out of the bad financial situation and buy back hard copies of the discs that they loved but were forced to sell.  Jesus Christ, its the record companies that are going to make the money anyway.

While I'm ranting, why don't the companies offer the people who bought the cd when it came out a percentage buy back policy when they remaster the cd because the first printing sounded like shit?

[Stellar Auditorium]

Immersion, I think I'll write a few words in response to your posts, mainly because I think the gap (generational, ideological, etc) between the rest of the people that post here and yours is so huge, that is seems impossible for a conversation to happen at this point. You're mistaken in some things you try to present as facts: it's very rare that musicians get such a low percentage of the sales, which is actually the policy of corporate labels and not small/medium size independent labels such as Hypnos. These kind of labels treat the artist in a much fairer way, because they want to give incentive to the artist to sign with them. Besides that, the size of the independent scenes is so small, that BOTH artists and labels can hardly make a living, the earnings are pocket money comparing to a "real" job, and very often these people spend equal and perhaps even more hours per day to this than they would (and they do, of course) at a regular job (do you think that an ambient 1000 copies cd release gets sold right away? It might take even years, if ever). So, I think you should perhaps re-think the concept of "charity" that you seem to look into with contempt: spending 10-15 euros or dollars to buy a recording of an artist (or even label) you are very fond of not only achieves you a personal connection to them, but it ensures that they'll be motivated to continue to produce excellent art in the future, as so many times we have said in this thread. Of course you can't buy everyone's album, but at least try to support these that are truly "important". Which should perhaps also include the labels that made their music known to you, and spent a lot of money (which might not get back) manufacturing the product and promoting it. And all of this hardly has to do anything with illegal downloading.

[Stellar Auditorium]

I think if you start as an artist, you could not expect anything in turn, you ask how the artist is going to survive on music, I think maybe you have wrong expectations, to survive on music is only a dream, and a reality for a very few.  To be a musician is not a work, it is not a way to make money as I see it. If you need to pay the bills and get food on the table and still want to be and free/independent music you should take some part time job, maybe a few days each month. Or come up with some other idea.
If you accept to live in an lower living standard you really do not need an full time job, a full time job would of course be an total disaster for every creative musician, freedom I think is an important element for every music, as I have said before, it is an lifestyle.


The problem is that the quality of the music we are listening today is a product of this "capitalist" system, or the commercialization of music, in other words, and will be deeply affected if the current system collapses, and professional musicians stop to exist. It's not so much about the artistic impulse, I'll actually agree on you on that most musicians do not create their art under the basic premise that they want to make a living out of it (which is still a great factor, let's not forget). There are also many things that come between the process of creating the art and you, listening to it at home. Professional studios for example, will vanish; why should someone pay a huge amount of money at a professional studio when it's impossible to get the money back? Or why should someone continue to massively produce expensive hardware processors and consoles if everyone's working with free, low quality vsts? Or actual instruments? Or pretty much everything that is a part of the music industry? Everything will dwindle or even vanish, and without professional musicians, the quality of the music will never be the same. We'll have instead of one Steve Roach, a million of Steve Roach wanabee composers writing mediocre music in their bedrooms with mediocre means in their free time, and exchanging mp3 files via myspace or something. Think about it.

That is why I am saying we need no labels in the future, we need no labels in the future that will steal the money from the artists. The artist deserve the big majority of the money, the labels are the real thieves in my opinion. I would feel way more motivated to buy music If I did know the money did get the the artist, If I buy from Steve Roach and Robert Rich I can feel kind of confident that the money goes directly to the artist.  This is why I recommend every artist on this planet, to create their own label...

Oh, and about the evil-label thing. Just remember that not all artists have either the money or the time to produce and promote their releases. That's what a label is supposed to do: to take in their hands all the menial work that has to be done while the artist is left to do what he/she does best: create art: It would be much better if the relationship between artist and label was improved, rather than totally severed. I feel a lot of independent labels are actually going in the correct direction concerning this, most of these people are working hard and receiving much less in return. Which means that what they're doing is very helpful to the artist, and at the same time there is a fair relationship economically between them.

[Stellar Auditorium]

I do not understand the logic why because of no money is involved the product quality would be low ?....there is no evidence for that.  your logic must be based on an short-term perception... In the future the whole humanity will work together in open source projects on an non-commercial basis, this has been proven that this is the most creative and best way to create software....prove me wrong... I think is the right path to go.

Ι definitely have my doubts about that, although I see it as an interesting perspective, that still hasn't grown up so much as to convince me that it's a viable solution for the future. Profit has been the deciding factor for the formation of the whole western society, including the arts, and in the presence of capitalist economy, will continue to do. Music is not exactly operating systems anyway... as for the rest you've written, it will have to wait for another day, goodnight for now.

[APK]

REMEMBER THIS:
The BIG winner in this downloading p2p (etc) frenzy is the BIG internet companies who simply sell access to downloadable files by bandwidth. They are the new capitalists. They of course WANT plenty of free stuff available to download. It's straight money to them.   

Same for chinese and russian music download sites that charge a dollar or two per album ... they are riding on the backs of other people's labour. They are what the modern internet leads to and they are the scammers -- they are getting paid for the "free" albums and programs you download

You make it sound like the only reason why internet exist is because of illegal file sharing ?
Internet can be used to other things aswell.

Luckily I do not live in usa, so I do not pay for what I download, we have no traffic limit etc.
In Sweden we have actually very reasonable price for internet access, to call them greedy or capitalists in not right.

I pay like 40 dollars each month for 100 mbit internet connection, it is worth every penny.... Next Year I got 1000 Mbit

That was a lot of posting today !   

Just a quick note on this particular post.
(BTW, I pay about the same as you per month for internet in Canada.)
You misunderstand me. My point is not that the internet is bad, but that a large sector of the internet is concerned with charging people for content they themselves do not produce, but merely make available and charge access to. Like newsgroups or other ftp sites for example, where the "free" content is not actually free because there is an access charge (plus the initial internet monthly charge). And where there is not an access charge there is a sign-up and advertising revenue to be made by whoever is allowing access to the content. Much of the growth of the internet is via supposedly offering stuff for free ... when its not actually free. To think this model will continue indefinitely is probably naive and very short-sighted.

[Seren]

I think if you start as an artist, you could not expect anything in turn, you ask how the artist is going to survive on music, I think maybe you have wrong expectations, to survive on music is only a dream, and a reality for a very few.  To be a musician is not a work, it is not a way to make money as I see it. If you need to pay the bills and get food on the table and still want to be and free/independent music you should take some part time job, maybe a few days each month. Or come up with some other idea.
If you accept to live in an lower living standard you really do not need an full time job, a full time job would of course be an total disaster for every creative musician, freedom I think is an important element for every musician, as I have said before, it is an lifestyle.

You misunderstand my words here. I was not asking how would a musician survive on music, I was pointing out that living off the work of others is neither respectful nor freedom. In a way it is the ulimate expression of capitalism - which grew out of the idea of 'benefitting myself at the expense of others'. You may choose to live a less 'luxurious' life but if you do nothing to put energy or life into the society that feeds you are no better than the fatcats that make huge profits out of the labour of others...I know as I have lived that less luxurious life and worked with homeless people, vitims of rape and abuse, animals being experimented upon etc etc. As I explained in my post the anarchistic principle which is the end version of what you describe as the way to be, did not include people living for nothing. It allows for everyone to do what they can and recieve what they need without laws, financial exchange or any form of 'control' - everything could be free in the sense that you had whatever you needed and this works because you give everything you can.

I do not expect to survive on music, partly because my creative drive is neither towards money nor a genre of music that might make me that sort of money. But your perception on music and art is only half the story. I don't know how many people become musicians to become rich or famous, but many musicians do see it as 'work' if it is something they spend a lot of time working at. I doubt there is a session musician or soundtrack writer in the world who regards their music as not work and which should be free to everyone.

I may be being generational here but my experience is that usually musicians have to work bloody hard to make their music known and heard. Perhaps the ease of technology and internet know makes that less the case and I am living in the past - but many of the big bands that still play gigged and played and recorded like fuck to get where they are. I always had huge respect for such artists, and include early blues etc musicians who became maestros at their art through long hours of practice, living as bums if necessary, but very open to making money if it came their way. I have respect because I know how much effort it takes to become even competent on a musical instrument. becoming a musician and making a go of it - especially if you are gigging etc takes a lot of determination and commitment - perhaps even obsession, putting everything else second - and at present I don't have the sort of Life I could make that sort of choice to do, nor, perhaps more telling, would want to if i could.....

I do agree that a full time job can be very detrimental to making music - I have one and have to carefully juggle everything to give myself the time to make the music. I also know that without it my wife (who has been unable to work following major surgery) and I would have gone down the pan without it and I would not have been able to afford the equipment to start making music again.

[judd stephens]

Unfortunately, it is true however. According to the law, the minute you sell a cd, you no longer have the rights to own said CD and it is actually illegal to burn it to your library and sell it. Again, it does not matter what you think or feel is right, the law is the law.

PV

I would say no -- in Judd's example, he purchased a copy and owned the rights to it.  If the physical disc is lost or stolen but he still has the mp3 rip, I'd say he retains the right to keep listening to it -- even to burn an audio CDR from the mp3 files if he wants.  Why not?

That's very different from selling the CD used, but keeping a high-quality rip or a CDR copy.

Making a copy of a entire CD freely available in digital form to be enjoyed on another person's iPod or to be burned to CDR, though, is a different kettle of fish.
Forrest

I'm sorry I keep coming back to a side-point of the discussion, but it's really a part that bothers me.  Now I know you guys aren't holier than thou, based on the discussion.  So I have a question for the musicians here, (if you're still reading this at all). 

If you truly think ripping a cd before selling it is detrimental to what you do, would you prefer that people not buy new music from you at all, if you knew in advance that's what they're going to do?   This is more of a question for Mike and Forrest, because the above quote Paul says "ufortunately" this is the law... maybe Paul you don't see it as a negative, but then again, maybe the question is for you too, for the reason that these people are going to break the law once they buy your cd.

Again, if you'd say no, I understand it's not from a self-righteous position, but only if you really contend that it's detrimental to the scene, or the musician.  So would you take their money?

Not trying to trap you guys... just seein' where your principle is...