RIP OiNK

[Wood]

Originally Posted by Senior

why not just give the artist $2 or $3 for being able to download the album from them directly?

or better yet, give the artist NOTHING and steal their music from Oink.

[Silverwinged]

Originally Posted by alla

my bf is having a shittiest day of his life

because he cant download music?

im certain there is a lot worse that could happen in order to have the shittiest day of your life.

[Senior]

I'm not saying that the music industry will be able to swing into some new model that is just as profitable. what I'm suggesting is that the old model of tours supporting record sales is crumbling fast and that likely in the near future it will be the other way around.

and touring can be very profitable. why do you think all those old bands from the 80's and 90's are doing it? lots of them don't even have new albums, they're just going on tour.

[Senior]

Originally Posted by Wood

or better yet, give the artist NOTHING and steal their music from Oink.

a lot of people will always chose not to pay, that I agree with. but given more options than free or $19.99 for a CD some people would choose to give the artist $2. even iTunes still charges $1 for one song working out to basically the same price.

if a web site guaranteed safe reliable downloads for cheap with 100% of the money going direct to the artist some people would chose that option. I for one would be happy to plug in CC and get music like that knowing it was supporting the artist and costing me hardly anything.

[Wood]

no arguments from me on the music industry having to adapt it's business model. that's a no brainer.

i just don't see that as a justification for stealing music. and the thing is, no matter how they eventually adapt, there's always gonna be ppl like the Oink guy trying to circumvent paying for intellectual property. And in the end it is the artists who suffer most, because they'll have to tour more & risk serious exhaustion in order to keep an income or even fulfil their contractual obligations to their labels.

I could count on 1 hand the amount of music I have gotten for free... they were either sent by friends OR available from the artist for free.

I don't have a problem paying $1-$2.50 for a track. Maybe because I grew up buying cd's (before you could even get a full listen) and vinyl.

You cant find an excuse for down loading for free. Its steeling and ripping off the artist who worked hard to entertain you. If artists cant be successful by selling their own music, than the only artists who will be successful are those who make money by marketing and being popular with the media. IOW expect more britney spears and 50cent makes.

[narc]

hmmmm

[shift]

My biggest problem with the whole "digital revolution" thing is that ultimately this is going to result in lower quality music for the consumer, both currently in format (mp3 instead of wav/CD audio), and ultimately in the quality of recordings/mixing/mastering.

If artists in the future can only make money from shows and merch at shows it will result in corners being cut in the recording process. Low quality gear; recording, mixing and mastering done in poor accoustic enviroments by people who have little idea what they are doing... these situations are already becoming more frequent as budgets are cut because of lower sales. Eventually only bigger artists who can charge top dollar for thier shows, and people who are willing to eat the costs, will be able to do things properly. This isn't just taking power away from major labels (which I have no issue with), it's taking resources away from musicians, and ultimately resulting in poorer sound quality for the end user.

As an additional point, I think that djs charging money to play music they didn't pay for is heinous. If you are going to profit from someone else's hard work, the least you can do is compensate them.

[Phrenetic]

why dont people just join user groups, cd pools and get promo cd's like i do?

[Wood]

Originally Posted by Senior

a lot of people will always chose not to pay, that I agree with. but given more options than free or $19.99 for a CD some people would choose to give the artist $2. even iTunes still charges $1 for one song working out to basically the same price.

again, i think your reasoning is flawed because you're assuming the money from those sales that doesn't comprise profits for the artist is just lining the pockets of some label execs or retailers. What about production costs? Marketing? Who's going to set up & manage this online store where all the money goes to the artists - the artists themselves? I wouldn't assume that most musicians have the skills, time or knowledge to do such a thing. You have to realize that most of these artist would never reach the public eye without the labels, distributors & other business people who work hard to market & promote them. Or producers who help artist refine their sound & present a product that's worth paying for. Under your proposed system, all that is out the window. So, like Shift said, all measure of quality control would disappear.

[Senior]

Originally Posted by R Wellbelove

I could count on 1 hand the amount of music I have gotten for free... they were either sent by friends OR available from the artist for free.

I don't have a problem paying $1-$2.50 for a track. Maybe because I grew up buying cd's (before you could even get a full listen) and vinyl.

You cant find an excuse for down loading for free. Its steeling and ripping off the artist who worked hard to entertain you. If artists cant be successful by selling their own music, than the only artists who will be successful are those who make money by marketing and being popular with the media. IOW expect more britney spears and 50cent makes.

here's the thing though, file sharing is not theft. Judge: File sharing legal in Canada | CNET News.com

[Senior]

Originally Posted by Wood

again, i think your reasoning is flawed because you're assuming the money from those sales that doesn't comprise profits for the artist is just lining the pockets of some label execs or retailers. What about production costs? Marketing? Who's going to set up & manage this online store where all the money goes to the artists - the artists themselves? I wouldn't assume that most musicians have the skills, time or knowledge to do such a thing. You have to realize that most of these artist would never reach the public eye without the labels, distributors & other business people who work hard to market & promote them. Or producers who help artist refine their sound & present a product that's worth paying for. Under your proposed system, all that is out the window. So, like Shift said, all measure of quality control would disappear.

I'd imagine you'd be able to make some decent money in advertising revenues from a web site like that, that could help cover the cost of running it.

as for quality I've been listening to boot legged mix tapes/CD's for my whole life and enjoyed them just fine. I think that the mass popularity of mp3's just under scores the fact that most people really aren't that picky about sound quality. I'll leave this up to others to judge whether it's a good thing or a bad thing.

anyway I don't have all the answers I'm just throwing some ideas around.

[Wood]

^i wasn't meaning quality as in generational loss, like from dubbing casette tapes. i mean like if a band can't afford to hire a proper studio, an engineer, a producer... the end product will suffer. It's not just an issue of audio fidelity, it's the overall quality of the end product. You could have a great band who are all incredible musicians but they might not have a clue how to translate their live performance into a listenable album.

my point is... no matter how the industry adjusts to these changes, there will always be people working 'round the clock to find a way to get their products without paying (ie - stealing). and as long as consumers can use excuses like 'oh the industry isn't keeping up' to rationalize it, the problem will still exist & the artists will still pay the price.

and just because one judge found a loophole in canada's copyright laws that apparently makes downloading copyrighted files legal doesn't negate the fact that it is stealing. besides, it says in there that uploading is NOT legal. So if you're downloading torrents, like from oink, you're also uploading the moment you start downloading. so it isn't all that simple.

[Senior]

great post.

read the whole article though, uploading is also legal.

Originally Posted by Wood

^i wasn't meaning quality as in generational loss, like from dubbing casette tapes. i mean like if a band can't afford to hire a proper studio, an engineer, a producer... the end product will suffer. It's not just an issue of audio fidelity, it's the overall quality of the end product. You could have a great band who are all incredible musicians but they might not have a clue how to translate their live performance into a listenable album.

my point is... no matter how the industry adjusts to these changes, there will always be people working 'round the clock to find a way to get their products without paying (ie - stealing). and as long as consumers can use excuses like 'oh the industry isn't keeping up' to rationalize it, the problem will still exist & the artists will still pay the price.

and just because one judge found a loophole in canada's copyright laws that apparently makes downloading copyrighted files legal doesn't negate the fact that it is stealing. besides, it says in there that uploading is NOT legal. So if you're downloading torrents, like from oink, you're also uploading the moment you start downloading. so it isn't all that simple.

[narc]

after discussing the logistics of copyright, usage, user terms conditions, sales etc...

on another topic...

OiNK Questions - Raw formatted IRC Log


Q: What happened?
A: On Tuesday, OiNK was arrested at his house in a "raid", they also "raided" his fathers house and work place. His computer and various other items were taken (including his xbox, but atleast they left the Wii). Later on Dutch Police seized the OiNK.cd servers hosted in the Netherlands. A few hours later OiNK was released on bail, but not charged. His father is fine too, he was not arrested.

Q: Do I have to worry about my password?
A: Passwords have never been stored as plain text anywhere. Only as salted MD5 hashes. Also, police or industry agencies do not care about your password. If it lets you sleep any better, change it on all other trackers and such. But it is not required at all.

Q: Do I as a normal user need to be scared?
A: No. The logs stored were not enough to incriminate any of our users. They have better things to do than hunt down 180,000 Britney Spears fans.

Q: Did you log IP adresses with all the transfers?
A: No of course we did not.

Q: What about those who donated?
A: Honestly, we do not know. Of course you cannot expect to get any donated money back. Accounts have been seized, so far nobody knows whats gonna happen. If you did not donate like thousands of dollars, you should not worry too much.

Q: What about that other admin?
A: The former staff will not comment on any questions regarding the situation of him.

Q: Where can I donate?
A: Stop right there. OiNK has not been formally charged with anything, and it is by no means certain donations are needed. If you see any sites advertising as a "Legal Defence fund", it's probably a scam. If there ever is a need for such a fund, you will read about it here.

Q: Now what?
A: OiNK has been bailed until 21st December pending further investigations, no charges have currently been brought against him. The Police will go through the seized material.

Q: The future of the OiNK community?
A: To be frank? We don't know. None of the moderators had access to either the code or databases, and OiNK's possessions were confiscated. We have a boat, just we don't have anything to paddle with.


Kind regards,

your former staff of OiNK's Pink Palace

[Wood]

Originally Posted by Senior

great post.

read the whole article though, uploading is also legal.

right you are. although i'm not sure that just because the act of sharing files is legal that it is necessarily legal to posess the files being shared. The article seems to indicate that file sharing is legal because the law can't assume that just because someone is sharing a file, that they or the ppl they're sharing it with don't have a legal right to own it (like if they already had it on a recorded media that they'd purchased). but is it not still illegal to posess those files if you haven't paid for them? i couldn't find anything in the article to back that up, but i honestly can't see how any court could rule that it's legal to own copyrighted material without paying.

[Senior]

I'm pretty sure it actually is. that's why all blank media storage devices (CD, DVD, MP3 players) have a copy right surcharge placed on them.

Originally Posted by Wood

right you are. although i'm not sure that just because the act of sharing files is legal that it is necessarily legal to posess the files being shared. The article seems to indicate that file sharing is legal because the law can't assume that just because someone is sharing a file, that they or the ppl they're sharing it with don't have a legal right to own it (like if they already had it on a recorded media that they'd purchased). but is it not still illegal to posess those files if you haven't paid for them? i couldn't find anything in the article to back that up, but i honestly can't see how any court could rule that it's legal to own copyrighted material without paying.

[decypher]

I can't believe they took his xbox.

[Senior]

Originally Posted by decypher

I can't believe they took his xbox.

what fuckers...