dslreports logo
 
    All Forums Hot Topics Gallery
spc
Search similar:


uniqs
1452

Paul416
Premium Member
join:2003-07-25
Brampton, ON

Paul416

Premium Member

Pirates crap

Some of you might of not been around for this but how come back in the days we used to copy music from vinyl records onto cassettes cd , even the radio itself and pirates was never an issue ?

La Luna
Fly With The Angels My Beloved Son Chris
Premium Member
join:2001-07-12
New Port Richey, FL

1 recommendation

La Luna

Premium Member

It wasn't as widespread and the powers that be didn't have the means to deal with it. How were they to stop people from making copies in their own homes with no media protection and not wired to anything like the internet? There have always been copyright disclaimers on media products. At that time, technology wise, saying "don't do it" was the best they could do.
NoHereNoMo
join:2012-12-06

NoHereNoMo

Member

Audio quality of copies could also be said to suffer somewhat from the original, which was itself suspect for some sources. Copying a file doesn't result in the same diminished audio quality.

PatPatate
join:2008-02-10
Sainte-Julie, QC

PatPatate to Paul416

Member

to Paul416
1- Pirating cost more money in the past. Unless they were very good friends, people often asked you money for the copy. (price of the media + an extra for the time) I'm sure it limited the amount of illegal copies. Today with the Internet it is free and you don't need to buy a media for each thing you download.

2- Making copies was slow. Copying cassettes was somewhat long and you wouldn't want to make a copy of a copy because of the quality loss. So to make 10 copies of 1 cassette, it would take you 10 hours or more. Even the first CD writers were expensive and slow.

On the internet downloading an album can take about 5 minutes, more or less, depending on your Internet connection and the quality. BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE! All the people who downloaded it can also share it and in a few hours, thousands of people now have the full album.
NoHereNoMo
join:2012-12-06

NoHereNoMo

Member

And the problem is that the copyright owner only sees a thief (aka "pirate") getting something for nothing--meaning he, the copyright owner, is "losing out on money he could have gotten", when mostly the "pirate" typically falls into two major categories: (a) those who weren't going to buy anything regardless (no money lost at all) and (b) those who like to buy before they try (so the copyright owner is really getting money that he would have lost out on). Altogether, the copyright owner makes more money from "piracy" than he "loses".

PatPatate
join:2008-02-10
Sainte-Julie, QC

PatPatate

Member

You forgot the most popular group :
(c) Those who don't give a fuck and download everything.

(because it's the case of A LOT of people in (a). Many are interested in the product and would have bought it if piracy wasn't an option. )

ilikeme
Premium Member
join:2002-08-27
Stafford, TX

ilikeme to Paul416

Premium Member

to Paul416
There was no way to really track it.
NoHereNoMo
join:2012-12-06

NoHereNoMo to PatPatate

Member

to PatPatate
Your (c) group is just a sub-group of (a)--people with nothing better to do and believe that he with the most by the time he dies wins (wins what I don't know, but I don't really care either). The percentage who pirate as an alternative to buying isn't even significant. By and large people believe in paying a fair price for something when they're allowed to.

Thane_Bitter
Inquire within
Premium Member
join:2005-01-20

Thane_Bitter to Paul416

Premium Member

to Paul416
It was an issue; up here they (record and artist lobby) added a special levy to the cost of media.

The record companies hated people doing it, however the quality of cassettes meant that the copy was poor, thus it wasn’t cutting too deeply into their profits. Furthermore law allowed people to make recordings for personal use. Bootleggers needed access to better equipment to make good copies which helped lock out mass production. Once other recordable media came out the same industry group demanded additional fees got placed on media.

Even before advent of home based recording equipment you use to have to pay a radio tax to our dearest government just for owning a radio set.

If you missed it the reoccurring theme is pay, pay, pay and pay even more, even if you never break the law.

Johkal
Cool Cat
MVM
join:2002-11-13
Pennsyltucky

Johkal to Paul416

MVM

to Paul416
I guess you're not old enough to remember reel to reel or copying records to 8-track. Copying to 8-track was a chore with track changes in the middle of a song. The trick was to re-arrange the songs so you didn't have a track change in the middle of a song. It took skill. Recording anything from a record was time consuming. If you wanted the recording clean, you needed to clean the record 1st. I used to clean the record and then play it through once to rid the grooves of dirt. I would say by the time you did all of this, you earned a recording.

J E F F4
Whatta Ya Think About Dat?
Premium Member
join:2004-04-01
Kitchener, ON

J E F F4 to Paul416

Premium Member

to Paul416
Kids today wouldn't understand the effort, time and love being put into a mixed tape. I had higher end equipment, recording from CD or LP usually resulted in sound superior to buying a pre-recorded tape from HMV. It got good when I would use a mixer...though a 90 minute tape still took 90 minutes no matter how much prep work you did!

PatPatate
join:2008-02-10
Sainte-Julie, QC

PatPatate to NoHereNoMo

Member

to NoHereNoMo
said by NoHereNoMo:

Your (c) group is just a sub-group of (a)--people with nothing better to do and believe that he with the most by the time he dies wins (wins what I don't know, but I don't really care either). The percentage who pirate as an alternative to buying isn't even significant. By and large people believe in paying a fair price for something when they're allowed to.

Well... IMO, group A could be separated into 2 groups, and they're different enough to not be considered sub groups.

Like I already said :
- Those won't don't give a fuck. (May or may not have the money to buy)

The other group would be :
- Those you would buy it but don't have the money. (like students or people with low income). These guys may start buying your stuff legally once they get a good job.

DigitalXeron
There is a lack of sanity
join:2003-12-17
Hamilton, ON

DigitalXeron to Paul416

Member

to Paul416
The spurring behind "piracy" (which word's origination implies that music stores have been raided and money stolen out of the register and shelves looted, which isn't the case — but no other label has as sufficient implications behind it without outright calling people criminals) comes down to access.

The issue is that rather than looking to review the market to see what is happening, the content industry is largely just glancing at the big picture and jumping to conclusions simply because people are acquiring a copy of the product for free.

For instance, if you purchased a car and reverse engineered it, then made the parts yourself for another of the exact same then gave the copy car away, would that be pirating a car because you deprived the auto industry money?

But I digress, "piracy" comes down to access, people are finding the current model of content distribution to be too full of red tape and restrictions that in fact downloading/copying content proves to be more effective than to purchase the content. Among the restrictions?...

Geographic licensing - Often times content will be licensed by the jurisdiction simply because of differences in copyright law, look at hulu and how it is only accessible in the US.

Regional restrictions - Most DVDs for instance have a region flag set on the discs, which means you can only play it in one region or another, so you can't purchase a foreign version which may be cheaper.

Tariffs/Law - Often times if you want foreign content you either have to pay highly for it, or in some cases even it is prohibited through customs unless you purchase it through a highly expensive supplier or pay exorbitant tariffs.

Account required distributors - Many online suppliers of content require you to register an account to purchase content, the process of this is a hassle to do in many cases as some suppliers even want you to "tie" a credit card to your account permanently.

Programs to purchase content needed - Case-in-point: iTunes. Some services require that you download and install a program in order to begin purchasing content, this can deter some potential customers who just want content, not an entire program or service tied to it.

Limited Releases - Limited releases are often more harmful than they are good. It creates an artificial scarcity that ultimately leads to customers wanting a copy of content being turned away because all of the copies have already been sold.

Limited Selections and Flooded markets - Many times licensed distribution channels will have all the popular content and often be saturated by it to the point the range of available content will be restricted to what popular culture dictates. This results in content not seen as part of popular culture becoming unavailable for purchase quickly (say pop culture items being available for months in stores while non-pop culture stuff being available for a week or two).

The overall problem is that there is a high amount of red tape between the content industry and customers' money, and then the content industry complains when people "pirate" content instead of paying for it. In reality, people are largely just seeking content and will obtain it with the most available means necessary. The current markets do not facilitate ease of purchase beyond the pop culture items. Why this is the case is an exercise for the reader.

The solution is easy: For the content industry to instead of lobbying for copyright reform, to lobby for tariff reform and import law changes as well as to require the distribution channels to provide "open purchase" methods of online payment for content (e.g. programs optional, accounts optional). Further a part of the solution is to require distribution channels to have more diversity available in the selections and to ensure that diversity is achieved by providing sufficient product. The final part would be the hardest: To remove the geographic licensing/marketing model.
Sukunai
Premium Member
join:2008-05-07

Sukunai to Paul416

Premium Member

to Paul416
said by Paul416:

Some of you might of not been around for this but how come back in the days we used to copy music from vinyl records onto cassettes cd , even the radio itself and pirates was never an issue ?

Oh it was an issue, but the lack of an internet prevented most of society from any way of being able to comment on it all the time.

Cthen
Premium Member
join:2004-08-01
Detroit, MI

Cthen to Paul416

Premium Member

to Paul416
Also keep in mind that back then the media came with a tax from the *IAA's that was included in the price of the media.

These days the media that those things are kept on are used for many other purposes aside from storing music.

Then all the other stuff that has been mentioned already.

AVD
Respice, Adspice, Prospice
Premium Member
join:2003-02-06
Onion, NJ

AVD to Sukunai

Premium Member

to Sukunai
said by Sukunai:

said by Paul416:

Some of you might of not been around for this but how come back in the days we used to copy music from vinyl records onto cassettes cd , even the radio itself and pirates was never an issue ?

Oh it was an issue, but the lack of an internet prevented most of society from any way of being able to comment on it all the time.

it also gave them the time to sit and make ten copies of a 72 minute LP at 1:1
BoulderHill1
join:2004-07-15
Montgomery, IL

BoulderHill1 to Paul416

Member

to Paul416
It was an issue back then.

But as some have already said there was no internet back then for everybody to talk about it in an open forum as this so word didn't spread like it does today.

I remember magazine articles for HIFI enthusists which described the record industry bitching and moaning about home cassette recorders and how it gave the consumer the ability to record from LP vinyl to tape.

There were calls for surcharges on blank tapes and to LP's to cover the "loss" the record industry claimed they had.

So it was an issue back then, just not very well heard about.

Fast forward to today and with the internet, digital media, filesharing and so on;

One can have this conversation with literally hundreds of people where back in the day you discussed this with the few friends that were hanging out with you while you taped that album.

Now instead of taping that album once (most likely for yourself) you rip a CD and can upload it to the net where thousands can grab it.

Piracy extrapolated.