wikifonia

[Jan Civil]

people who use notation now have this for free:

wikifonia

[Chris Alpiar]

Not sure if I think its cool or just a terrible way to rape artists, Ill have to ruminate

[Jan Civil]

it seeks to open-source notation files for people who want someone else to mark it up for whatever reason.
Legally, it would be impossible to do it I think, any other way. You can keep a private version and copyright that, but on their terms. I would suggest reading the fine print there for sure.

I doubt they're going to enter the music business with the aim of stealing some gem that happens on there.

Doesn't matter to me, it isn't how I'd collaborate with anyone, if I had to make someone play some exact notes that's something to notate, notation isn't a process for me in creation.

I make decisions based on sound; checking 'is that sound right?' by a visual sign is just odd to me now. Earwax buildup vs pencil blisters.



Chris Alpiar said:

Not sure if I think its cool or just a terrible way to rape artists, Ill have to ruminate

[Chris Alpiar]

Well the problem I'm having is the word "free". "Publish" your works for "free" and millions of people can download it for "free". Seems like one step up on P2P sharing that is destroying the remaining semblance of the music industry. Of course when its 'the man' getting screwed I have to giggle, but in our business 'the man' getting screwed trickles down to the tens of thousands of composers and songwriters and artists and the hundreds of thousands of support personell (and these suport people are generally the incomes of the more intense, less commercially palatable artists who need to make a living with their craft somehow - orchestrators, copyists, arrangers, etc, etc)

So anytime someone demonstrates a service for the music scene that is FREE and lets you distribute your product for FREE it sets off a buttload of alarms for me

[Jan Civil]

If you only knew how many arguments about this I've seen, a few of which I've joined in on.

The people who want something for free fall into two camps: people who are going to buy it besides the freebie if they like it, and WOULD NEVER KNOW ABOUT IT if there was no freebie, or for whatever reason of convenience can use a copy of something they have bought but that file is elsewhere; or, people who are NEVER EVER going to buy it.

So, the damage is done by the latter camp if they have the idea to distribute to all the other people who are never ever going to buy anything.

I think that's what you weigh.

In a recent - yesterday - version of this argument, it was pointed out to me two acts which now make oodles of lucre - Linkin Park and Lady Gaga - got where they are today from internet exposure, which I would guess means some shit got downloaded for free. But NOW, they're kvetching about free downloads, and are upping their ticket or whatever prices. According to the person who posted this story. If that is true, beyond their suckiness, they're jerks. If the market will bear high prices for that junk, that's that, but you get these people, or Metallica talking a lot about y'all didn't pay, we have to punish you somehow, that's the old model trying to eat their cake and have it too.,

Chris Alpiar said:

Well the problem I'm having is the word "free". "Publish" your works for "free" and millions of people can download it for "free". Seems like one step up on P2P sharing that is destroying the remaining semblance of the music industry. Of course when its 'the man' getting screwed I have to giggle, but in our business 'the man' getting screwed trickles down to the tens of thousands of composers and songwriters and artists and the hundreds of thousands of support personell (and these suport people are generally the incomes of the more intense, less commercially palatable artists who need to make a living with their craft somehow - orchestrators, copyists, arrangers, etc, etc)
So anytime someone demonstrates a service for the music scene that is FREE and lets you distribute your product for FREE it sets off a buttload of alarms for me

[Chris Alpiar]

There is a third group as well - exploiters. People who may or may not have purchased an item who now do not and never will because they found a way to get it free. The entire face of the industry is hosed now because of the incredible massive loss of revenues from illegal downloading. And now it has changed the shape of the business models that rule it to value a piece of music in digital form at zero. Worthless. There are groups out there trying to further exploit this by pushing for the abolition of copyright in the US. ALL OWNERSHIP of intellectual property gone. I have written reams on this subject in many places outside of this forum. I dont really want to get into it all over on this subject, but maybe start a new thread to discuss free vs. paid. The short term is a cool outlook to screw the man but the long term is a social annhialation of money streams for anything other than mainstream pop singer/songwriter or bands that can grow a fan base that will pay for their merchandise. It is exactly the demise of any support for non-commercial art in our society and after much thought over the last 5 years I believe the only way to save our ship is with unified governmental action against illegal downloading and a blanket ISP level internet 'arts levy' that gets paid as performance royalty on all internet downloading.

Jan Civil said:

If you only knew how many arguments about this I've seen, a few of which I've joined in on.

The people who want something for free fall into two camps: people who are going to buy it besides the freebie if they like it, and WOULD NEVER KNOW ABOUT IT if there was no freebie, or for whatever reason of convenience can use a copy of something they have bought but that file is elsewhere; or, people who are NEVER EVER going to buy it.

So, the damage is done by the latter camp if they have the idea to distribute to all the other people who are never ever going to buy anything.

I think that's what you weigh.

In a recent - yesterday - version of this argument, it was pointed out to me two acts which now make oodles of lucre - Linkin Park and Lady Gaga - got where they are today from internet exposure, which I would guess means some shit got downloaded for free. But NOW, they're kvetching about free downloads, and are upping their ticket or whatever prices. According to the person who posted this story. If that is true, beyond their suckiness, they're jerks. If the market will bear high prices for that junk, that's that, but you get these people, or Metallica talking a lot about y'all didn't pay, we have to punish you somehow, that's the old model trying to eat their cake and have it too.,

Chris Alpiar said:

Well the problem I'm having is the word "free". "Publish" your works for "free" and millions of people can download it for "free". Seems like one step up on P2P sharing that is destroying the remaining semblance of the music industry. Of course when its 'the man' getting screwed I have to giggle, but in our business 'the man' getting screwed trickles down to the tens of thousands of composers and songwriters and artists and the hundreds of thousands of support personell (and these suport people are generally the incomes of the more intense, less commercially palatable artists who need to make a living with their craft somehow - orchestrators, copyists, arrangers, etc, etc)
So anytime someone demonstrates a service for the music scene that is FREE and lets you distribute your product for FREE it sets off a buttload of alarms for me

[Jan Civil]

deleted then reposted, server barf during edit:

that's true, but I include that in group two. It's a done deal. That model is over. (the new model is bandcamp to the iTunes type paid downloads, to a type of 'per hits' remuneration on a website. That's what's the deal we're dealing in.)

There is a pirate party in the netherlands and/or germany now, and that's their platform, no copyrights. There is a Dutch musician at the KVR Audio forum whose sig is 'copyleft - no rights reserved'. I think it's nuts, but what are ya gonna do.
There are people now, lotta 'em, who want their plugins all for free, and there are freeware devs who cater to them; and quasi-communist devs making DAWs such as Reaper now. The Rubicon is well crossed. Digital audio is very nearly worthless. The fact is, to charge money for content, is going to require more tangible content than one's Absolutely Mahvelous Gem of an audio artifact, pretty soon. It's a brave new world. How long are you willing to stick to your guns against an historical force such as this?

I think that legislation against downloads, number one is redundant, it's already quite illegal to download protected content and has been enforced, in a couple cases overzealously IMO, and number two this is quite extreme anyway.

I'll give concrete examples for my position: If I want to watch a Zappa video at youtube, some creative thing somebody made - not to make money from, but like somebody's school project in film or puppeteering they'd like to share - but which happens to use material in release - if I click on the play button, I have technically downloaded protected content and am liable to be prosecuted under your way. Which, tbh is insanity. It's already not just civilly, but criminally prosecutable. (I don't know about creating a technology on top of this for collection purposes that watches ISPs, it seems Big Brother Exploitable to me on the face of it.)

2nd example of my pirate activity, perfectly prosecutable if the Rolls Royce driving Gail Zappa got a big enough hardon against me: yesterday I linked a friend and fan to one of these videos. One, for entertainment purposes, two to turn him on to some music and bring him around to the Jan way of life, for my own nefarious promotional purposes in the long run. Since he has more fans, he gets to sound more like me, already happening actually, good for me. He may even make GZ mo richer and buy Joe's Garage or some record. Fact is, I have the entire catalog, I'm in group one of my initial example, and I feel practically above reproach, in that I'm championing FZ music all over the place anyway.

Current model, hypothetically has me going to jail if I can't cough up a million bucks - there are cases already prosecuted beyond this amount, which aren't dissimilar - to Gail. Screw that.

There has to be a middle way. You can't have a one size fits all model.

You criminalize a behavior with a one size fits all model, you create criminals where there weren't criminals before.


Chris Alpiar said:

There is a third group as well - exploiters. People who may or may not have purchased an item who now do not and never will because they found a way to get it free. The entire face of the industry is hosed now because of the incredible massive loss of revenues from illegal downloading. And now it has changed the shape of the business models that rule it to value a piece of music in digital form at zero. Worthless. There are groups out there trying to further exploit this by pushing for the abolition of copyright in the US. ALL OWNERSHIP of intellectual property gone. I have written reams on this subject in many places outside of this forum. I dont really want to get into it all over on this subject, but maybe start a new thread to discuss free vs. paid. The short term is a cool outlook to screw the man but the long term is a social annhialation of money streams for anything other than mainstream pop singer/songwriter or bands that can grow a fan base that will pay for their merchandise. It is exactly the demise of any support for non-commercial art in our society and after much thought over the last 5 years I believe the only way to save our ship is with unified governmental action against illegal downloading and a blanket ISP level internet 'arts levy' that gets paid as performance royalty on all internet downloading.
Jan Civil said:

If you only knew how many arguments about this I've seen, a few of which I've joined in on.

The people who want something for free fall into two camps: people who are going to buy it besides the freebie if they like it, and WOULD NEVER KNOW ABOUT IT if there was no freebie, or for whatever reason of convenience can use a copy of something they have bought but that file is elsewhere; or, people who are NEVER EVER going to buy it.

So, the damage is done by the latter camp if they have the idea to distribute to all the other people who are never ever going to buy anything.

I think that's what you weigh.

In a recent - yesterday - version of this argument, it was pointed out to me two acts which now make oodles of lucre - Linkin Park and Lady Gaga - got where they are today from internet exposure, which I would guess means some shit got downloaded for free. But NOW, they're kvetching about free downloads, and are upping their ticket or whatever prices. According to the person who posted this story. If that is true, beyond their suckiness, they're jerks. If the market will bear high prices for that junk, that's that, but you get these people, or Metallica talking a lot about y'all didn't pay, we have to punish you somehow, that's the old model trying to eat their cake and have it too.,

Chris Alpiar said:

Well the problem I'm having is the word "free". "Publish" your works for "free" and millions of people can download it for "free". Seems like one step up on P2P sharing that is destroying the remaining semblance of the music industry. Of course when its 'the man' getting screwed I have to giggle, but in our business 'the man' getting screwed trickles down to the tens of thousands of composers and songwriters and artists and the hundreds of thousands of support personell (and these suport people are generally the incomes of the more intense, less commercially palatable artists who need to make a living with their craft somehow - orchestrators, copyists, arrangers, etc, etc)
So anytime someone demonstrates a service for the music scene that is FREE and lets you distribute your product for FREE it sets off a buttload of alarms for me

[Chris Alpiar]

Well tbh I think you are a criminal unless you have permission to use or trade that material and you are doing so. Just because everyone is doin it, does not make it right. And the spiral downward for composers has gone through the roof (or the floor) as a direct result. Yes there is still some people paying for downloads on iTunes and similar. But I am certain that if this trend remains unchecked then we will see that go away comepletely and making even a penny on a download of your music will be riches beyond riches. The industry has only supported the ever popular short term gains concepts and they fail continuously to plan for the future.

IMO what needs to happen is

1. continued prosecution for copyright infringers
2. development of ubiquitous, seemless, non-obtrusive audio-wise tracking (TuneSat is a good start!)
3. continued pressure to shut down P2P networks
4. a coalition of governments that support a blanket arts tax (or levy or license fee or whatever you want to call it) at the ISP level, so a portion of every persons Internet bill goes to the 'arts tax' much as the phone/telecom billing system works today
5. founding of a global non profit org (maybe run by UN or similar) that uses tracking data to payout 1:1 for every music piece used and downloaded and streamed anywhere on the web

In my opinion, this is the only path that will save the arts and the careers at stake for musicians, composers, engineers, songwriters, librettists, etc

Jan Civil said:

deleted then reposted, server barf during edit:

that's true, but I include that in group two. It's a done deal. That model is over. (the new model is bandcamp to the iTunes type paid downloads, to a type of 'per hits' remuneration on a website. That's what's the deal we're dealing in.)

There is a pirate party in the netherlands and/or germany now, and that's their platform, no copyrights. There is a Dutch musician at the KVR Audio forum whose sig is 'copyleft - no rights reserved'. I think it's nuts, but what are ya gonna do.
There are people now, lotta 'em, who want their plugins all for free, and there are freeware devs who cater to them; and quasi-communist devs making DAWs such as Reaper now. The Rubicon is well crossed. Digital audio is very nearly worthless. The fact is, to charge money for content, is going to require more tangible content than one's Absolutely Mahvelous Gem of an audio artifact, pretty soon. It's a brave new world. How long are you willing to stick to your guns against an historical force such as this?

I think that legislation against downloads, number one is redundant, it's already quite illegal to download protected content and has been enforced, in a couple cases overzealously IMO, and number two this is quite extreme anyway.

I'll give concrete examples for my position: If I want to watch a Zappa video at youtube, some creative thing somebody made - not to make money from, but like somebody's school project in film or puppeteering they'd like to share - but which happens to use material in release - if I click on the play button, I have technically downloaded protected content and am liable to be prosecuted under your way. Which, tbh is insanity. It's already not just civilly, but criminally prosecutable. (I don't know about creating a technology on top of this for collection purposes that watches ISPs, it seems Big Brother Exploitable to me on the face of it.)

2nd example of my pirate activity, perfectly prosecutable if the Rolls Royce driving Gail Zappa got a big enough hardon against me: yesterday I linked a friend and fan to one of these videos. One, for entertainment purposes, two to turn him on to some music and bring him around to the Jan way of life, for my own nefarious promotional purposes in the long run. Since he has more fans, he gets to sound more like me, already happening actually, good for me. He may even make GZ mo richer and buy Joe's Garage or some record. Fact is, I have the entire catalog, I'm in group one of my initial example, and I feel practically above reproach, in that I'm championing FZ music all over the place anyway.

Current model, hypothetically has me going to jail if I can't cough up a million bucks - there are cases already prosecuted beyond this amount, which aren't dissimilar - to Gail. Screw that.

There has to be a middle way. You can't have a one size fits all model.

You criminalize a behavior with a one size fits all model, you create criminals where there weren't criminals before.


Chris Alpiar said:

There is a third group as well - exploiters. People who may or may not have purchased an item who now do not and never will because they found a way to get it free. The entire face of the industry is hosed now because of the incredible massive loss of revenues from illegal downloading. And now it has changed the shape of the business models that rule it to value a piece of music in digital form at zero. Worthless. There are groups out there trying to further exploit this by pushing for the abolition of copyright in the US. ALL OWNERSHIP of intellectual property gone. I have written reams on this subject in many places outside of this forum. I dont really want to get into it all over on this subject, but maybe start a new thread to discuss free vs. paid. The short term is a cool outlook to screw the man but the long term is a social annhialation of money streams for anything other than mainstream pop singer/songwriter or bands that can grow a fan base that will pay for their merchandise. It is exactly the demise of any support for non-commercial art in our society and after much thought over the last 5 years I believe the only way to save our ship is with unified governmental action against illegal downloading and a blanket ISP level internet 'arts levy' that gets paid as performance royalty on all internet downloading.
Jan Civil said:

If you only knew how many arguments about this I've seen, a few of which I've joined in on.

The people who want something for free fall into two camps: people who are going to buy it besides the freebie if they like it, and WOULD NEVER KNOW ABOUT IT if there was no freebie, or for whatever reason of convenience can use a copy of something they have bought but that file is elsewhere; or, people who are NEVER EVER going to buy it.

So, the damage is done by the latter camp if they have the idea to distribute to all the other people who are never ever going to buy anything.

I think that's what you weigh.

In a recent - yesterday - version of this argument, it was pointed out to me two acts which now make oodles of lucre - Linkin Park and Lady Gaga - got where they are today from internet exposure, which I would guess means some shit got downloaded for free. But NOW, they're kvetching about free downloads, and are upping their ticket or whatever prices. According to the person who posted this story. If that is true, beyond their suckiness, they're jerks. If the market will bear high prices for that junk, that's that, but you get these people, or Metallica talking a lot about y'all didn't pay, we have to punish you somehow, that's the old model trying to eat their cake and have it too.,

Chris Alpiar said:

Well the problem I'm having is the word "free". "Publish" your works for "free" and millions of people can download it for "free". Seems like one step up on P2P sharing that is destroying the remaining semblance of the music industry. Of course when its 'the man' getting screwed I have to giggle, but in our business 'the man' getting screwed trickles down to the tens of thousands of composers and songwriters and artists and the hundreds of thousands of support personell (and these suport people are generally the incomes of the more intense, less commercially palatable artists who need to make a living with their craft somehow - orchestrators, copyists, arrangers, etc, etc)
So anytime someone demonstrates a service for the music scene that is FREE and lets you distribute your product for FREE it sets off a buttload of alarms for me

[Jan Civil]

Well, if it makes you more comfortable to see the world in black and white to this degree, I'm a criminal, you're a cop, you gotta do what you gotta do. My comfort level is exceeded by someone hanging that jacket on me beyond where I can relate or wanna work with, know what I mean?

Somebody smokes some pot in a certain state, they're a criminal. There are people interested in intrusive action and prosecution/enforcement of those laws too. In certain states, historically at least (not currently up on it because I fortunately live in an enlightened corner of the world where this point is moot, in fact the feds collect taxes on it here), you possess the tiniest amount and you're punished to the full extent of the law, which IMO is not dissimilar to the lady who was fined millions of dollars for sharing files with a very few people. It's HARSH. Protecting the status quo zealously involves strenuously identifying with; you draw a line in the sand and pick a side, do you not?

So, you are aligning yourself with the industry. My initial response to 'or maybe it's a good way to rape artists' was, "I thought you had to get the record company to get some of that action". I figured that was a touch strong, but here you go.

What composers have "spiraled down?" I never heard of that, maybe I'm ignorant. I'm very serious, if you want to make that argument to me, I go for concrete and not theory. (If theory, formulate a worst case scenario.) If you know of any, you could straight up describe it, and relate to me a true story. You have managed to relate to me your world view...and it appears to be quite entrenched for some reason. I do know from your own words, you want the money. That's completely mainstream capitalist status quo stuff.

Beyond this absolutist view of right and wrong (which I never had, I never got to live in that world. Y_M_M_V. I don't make real commercial stuff. I don't buy into the necessity of supporting an entourage or needing a copyist or hiring drones. You know why? I am dealing with my own reality. Brass tacks time. I'm not pretending to be in advance of the guard here, It's the fact of my very life.); beyond this world view, there is a bigger picture. We're well past the rubicon. The old rules don't apply. Whether or not one has the capacity to overcome the upset to one's comfort level, or not, this is the reality.

To be perfectly candid, you're not going to become a rock star, Chris. You're not going to sell a whole lot of downloads any more than am I. You're best chances are as a film composer, a workaday pro, a modern day version of a Phil Kelly.

Film work, how is that going to be impacted by this? A theatrical motion picture release, is content at a level that enough people have to get their kicks with the immersive experience. The iPhone experience isn't going to kill the theater going experience in the very near future. That's what I mean by tangible content. People buy CDs; if you don't believe me, you're free to research it. People are going to find out about more adventurous music online. They find out about me because I GIVE IT TO THEM. Because I give them ways doncha know, to find out about things in the history of music they don't get at school, even at Berklee.

If you start making that a TOTAL PAIN IN THE ASS, which it does appear you're invested in arguing for, at least, you shoot your nose off to spite your face, if you're interested in promoting your own music per se.


Police the internet to a Total Orwellian level to protect LIBRETTISTS?! A librettist makes something for an experience which isn't rendered to 92mbps .mp3 files. The tangible, palpable realtime thrill in a theater or a movie house. While that experience may get to be recorded and made available as an Original Cast Soundtrack etc, and that could end up on a P2P network, let's ask ourselves, is the market for that going to seek that out in order to get it for free on low res files? Are you serious?

If it's a three ring circus Pink or Lady Gaga opera, maybe so. Who's going to make out the most from this action? Her librettist?! OR is it MTV? Rachel Zoe and crew? The RIAA maybe? Who's interested the most in prosecuting that little eventuality? The RIAA + you? Are y'all going to hire some hard core lobbying firm and hire Congress to legislate it? That's what's the deal you're dealing in.

Lookit: Google has already exploited loopholes in various laws, New Zealand for instance, in order to get an expansive online *FREE!*, 'Absolutely Free' Library up. I'm sure that's a concern to somebody's vested interests. And Google is going to profit from it bigtime. I would imagine there is some kind of argument to be made that it's wrong, it's criminal; in fact I've already seen the argument that it's like colonialism, with the dramatic RAPE metaphor and evvy damn thang. But there's a big picture here, and it does indicate that the smart money finds out which way the wind blows.

As far as all these careers being supportable, that tide has already turned. I am acting accordingly, I saw the writing on the wall around 15 years ago. To tell you the gods honest truth, I'm not at all unhappy about it. In my life I have watched certain models (the people in science I watch btw build models and extrapolate from the workings of, rather than postulate grand theories and try to fit other ideas to it), in addition to my own experience. And I've done some crimes Chris. I have forged half a million dollars of insurance to do a show. IT COSTS LIKE THAT to do a show in the big time. I'm fucking proud of that, it was ART baby, it's Avant Garde to "steal" half a million to do a show and get a standing ovation from the Big Time Art Crowd and feed people LSD in the same big ass expensive classical room. CRIM-IN-AL behavior. LOL.

OTOH, also some crime in The Music Union. And the union crew there to set up all the chairs and cartage, that's getting paid scale to do nothing while the poor schmuck composer pays for it, and will call "TIME!" before the work is complete because they can, and don't give a shit. Criminal in my book, only the art suffered there rather than was born.

This is why God created the DAW and the internet download.

Chris Alpiar said:

Well tbh I think you are a criminal unless you have permission to use or trade that material and you are doing so. Just because everyone is doin it, does not make it right. And the spiral downward for composers has gone through the roof (or the floor) as a direct result. Yes there is still some people paying for downloads on iTunes and similar. But I am certain that if this trend remains unchecked then we will see that go away comepletely and making even a penny on a download of your music will be riches beyond riches. The industry has only supported the ever popular short term gains concepts and they fail continuously to plan for the future.
IMO what needs to happen is
1. continued prosecution for copyright infringers
2. development of ubiquitous, seemless, non-obtrusive audio-wise tracking (TuneSat is a good start!)
3. continued pressure to shut down P2P networks
4. a coalition of governments that support a blanket arts tax (or levy or license fee or whatever you want to call it) at the ISP level, so a portion of every persons Internet bill goes to the 'arts tax' much as the phone/telecom billing system works today
5. founding of a global non profit org (maybe run by UN or similar) that uses tracking data to payout 1:1 for every music piece used and downloaded and streamed anywhere on the web

In my opinion, this is the only path that will save the arts and the careers at stake for musicians, composers, engineers, songwriters, librettists, etc

[Ray Kemp]

Hey!

Can you two not clear all the previous posts and just leave the one you're addressing.
I'm losing track here.

LOL

[Jan Civil]

done, per my last post.

I cannot edit the others. actually I'm addressing most of what he wrote, the whole thread. but it isn't necessary to duplicate it all a third time is it... :)

Ray Kemp said:

Hey!

Can you two not clear all the previous posts and just leave the one you're addressing.
I'm losing track here.

LOL

[Chris Alpiar]

Film work is incredibly affected by this. The entire industry is - all the parts that make money that are related to music in any way are. The money being gone trickles down into every crack there is. Of course some people buy CD's still, some people still by '33s also! Some people pay for downloads too using iTunes or other types of methods. But the loss of money to people who just dont pay for anything because its so easy not to is overwhelming. If you look through the archives of the FMPRO list, you will see my posts from a year or so ago with links to reports from the major reporting firms showing clearly the loss of revenue and things like 14 year olds in England who think that it is legal and ok to download from p2p for free is at some sickly figure.

Yea you pegged me, I want the money. I want the value of a 2 month around the clock film scoring gig where they want a full orchestra to pay more than 35k like it did 10 years ago. I want the musicians union to not be on the edge of bankruptcy and losing its pension fund money, which is based compeltely on CD sales. I want the tons of jobs that used to be part of music for media scene to stop being strangled by undercutting budgets. The future for this is not in anarchy, nor is it in totalitarianism. But its rather found in reason and compromise - a serious and global attempt on techonological and legislative level at making shareable what should be and protecting what shouldnt be, and finding a technology to do it so the consumers arent upset.

Im not against sharing files. I am against people abusing the ability to share what they have no right to. You can share you Ray Dio piece to the extent that pleases you. But I DO NOT have the right to post it in another music forum or on a P2P network. It is YOUR WORK and you are entitled to rights of ownership of that work.

p.s. I deleted your post with ray dio, there was no point in a thread stating 'listen to this' and then locking it down. It came across as a tantrum to this debate and nothing more

[Chris Alpiar]

Also I would like to mention that while the laws allow for prosecution at the millions of dollar level, the RIAA, while yes they have been an asshat, have also made very reasonable offers to people before they went to trial. Like that lady that was recently prosecuted, whom they had researched and found that she illegally shared on P2P networks terabytes of music, wanted something like a few thousand dollars as payment to settle out of court - to make a point and not end her life. Then SHE refused and went to court and then the court set the price of her fines where it amounted to millions.

Its like you are speeding at 100mph in a school zone and you get stopped and get a chance to pay your ticket, but you get a bug up your butt to make a scene demanding that the sign that says 20mph wasnt clear and you didnt see the flashing colored lights indicating a school zone so you take it to court and your 150 dollar fine now becomes 4000 and 100 hours of community service...

Of course they have to have high end limits to the fines so they could prosecute a big time black market exploiter when found, but IMO they have been relatively reasonable in the last period