Key Post: IRMA Should we Be Afraid

Hey

So you can download Music from the Net Illegally I never knew...

With the increase in Broadband usage most users have done this or tried to do it. They might be going after the iPod gang with their white ear phones this I can live with........

What way can it go ? They said they have 17 'massive uploaders' so Mountjoy will have to open a cresh as its all spotty teenagers

What can IRMA do can they obtain downloaders info from ISP's ?

Discuss

Re: IRMA Should we Be Afraid

what can IRMA do when someone decides to share their 60GB ipod hardrive with a friend, it's so easy it's almost ridiculous.

IRMA should start working on collecting royalties from pubs and clubs in Ireland using proper forms to be filled by the DJ's so that the artists that get played get their moneis like their counterparts do in Europe.

Re: IRMA Should we Be Afraid

What's makes you think the iPod is any more associated with piracy than any digital music player?

It's not that easy to share your iPod with a friend (Sure, it CAN be done, but the casual user won't find it too easy.) And remember Apple actually runs a legal music download store (the iTunes music store), so it's hardly in Apple's interest to encourage piracy.

As for IRMA, those guys are chasing their tails at the moment. They dithered for so long, delaying the deployment of legal download stores trying to protect the retail music industry here. They hadn't got a CLUE about where the market was going.

IRMA exec 1: "I Don't like the internet as a music delivery channel."
IRMA exec 2: "Fine, we'll just ignore it!"

You still can't get new irish releases on iTunes. And in Irish law it's ILLEGAL to make a copy of your OWN music to play on your digital music player (e.g. your iPod or your mp3 player or your laptop or your desktop computer -- that's just plain nuts.)

I'm a music fan and I don't condone illegal downloading because I want musicians to be able to make a living so I can continue to enjoy their work. But I also think that the music industry's efforts to get us to pay over and over again for the same piece of music (eg replacing your vinyl collection with CDs, now they expect us to replace our CDs with paid downloads of the same music) is a head-in-the-sand stance. As a result of their dithering they are way behind the technology and are struggling to recover.

Widespread availability and fair prices will keep everyone happy and stamp out a lot of the illegal activity. That's what we need.

Re: IRMA Should we Be Afraid

Note, the IRMA action is a civil action and not a crinimal action so no people should end up in Mountjoy.

At the moment they are targetting those that share music illegally. They have threatened to then go after those who download illegally.

C

Re: IRMA Should we Be Afraid

I do agree that people should pay for the music they obtain online and think iTunes is the way to go. But the IRMA is sounding like the publicans, blaming everything else for the drop in sales and not looking at the real reason, price!!
Concerts and CD's cost a fortune nowadays, the last CD I bought cost €24.99 and I promised I'd never spend that much on one again.

In any case the IRMA and other music companies lost the first one of these battles years ago when the dreaded "recording music off the radio" almost finished them. Just like back then they all must be wondering if they can afforded another new Ferrari this year Poor sods!

Re: IRMA Should we Be Afraid

Get an app called peer guardian . It blocks known IPs from being able to access your disk, it blocks spyware, adware and lets say "other organisations"

As to those that receive a letter, do you have a wireless router in the house? if not, Id get one now.

I had a worried dad ringing me this evening to say his kids have been downloading like good things and will they be in trouble, Id say quite possibly yes if the "dont upload" button hasnt been clicked. As for names being given out if requested, the landline ISPs will probably fold if they come under pressure, dunno how NTL or IBB will fare though.

Think about it long term. Ok, the uploaders can be caught if they broadcast their IPs and dont block access but how are they gonna catch downloaders?
Do IRMA send a letter to ISPs and ask them for names of people downloading large files? Do me a favour. I read recently that torrent files were recently estimated to be taking up a third of ALL internet traffic, how are they going to stop that?

Heres a couple of posers.

If I order and pay for an album from cdwow, then download it from kazaa using P2P while waiting for the delivery, do I have an illegal copy of it?

If I bought 10 cds, left them in the car, the car was robbed with my cds still in it, so I then download the albums from kazaa, are they illegal copies?

Re: IRMA Should we Be Afraid

i for one think sharing music is excellent as I get to hear lots of stuff I never even heard of...people like sunny ade, fela kuti, ahmad jamal...all these artists i first heard as mp3's shared from other people ipods and I went on and bought CD's from amazon(for the record, Sunny ade 'juju music', ahmad jamal 'awakenings', fela 'best of'). In this sense sharing music broadens the artists chance of making money.

Re: IRMA Should we Be Afraid

Wavejumper you are absolutely right. I have found live concerts on the net that you would never get anywhere else.

I recently noticed Paul Weller released his new album on his website. You were not able to download the songs but could stream the entire album off the net!! I guess many musicians are embracing the entire concept.

Re: IRMA Should we Be Afraid

my suspicion is that the big whoohaa about internet downloads is that people are getting exposed to so much new and wonderful music from across the globe that they are probably realising what kind of cack its being shovelled down their throat by the majors hence the fall in CD sales. Just my opinion, an optimistic one at that.

Small labels, especially indy ones, are well ahead on the digital downloads side of things. Also club Dj's are coming around the bend, dropping vinyl and turntables for laptops with mixing software, a lot of dance labels starting to release tracks as digital download only. It's all changing very fast, IRMA is just sitting there, waiting for the majors to be told what to do.
In Italy last month a DJ was fined something like 2000Euro by the SIAE(the Italian IRMA)for playing MP3's he could not prove he had bought. If IRMA was really after looking after the artists that's what they should be doing.

Re: IRMA Should we Be Afraid

Right in one, wavejumper...