A very sad story tonight on 60 Minutes concerning thieves downloading major motion pictures from the internet. When you consider that this will potentially cut "hollywood" revenues by up to 50% (or so execs claim), can you imagine the hit this will give to Democratic Party fundraising? But, I am a bit confused. You see we used to consider the results of the craft of our favorite stars of stage and screen to be ART. And ART can not be regulated unless done voluntarily. ART is something much different than say a thumbtack or a wood board, ART is a gift from the stars of stage and screen to the unwashed masses. ART is protected as a form of "speech" and therefore JD can get all the ART he wants at any theatre or bookstore as long as he has a membership card Local entities could regulate when you could sell alcohol or where you could sell used cars, but not ART! ART was beyond regulation, b/c of the Constitution of the United States! So, how can you steal ART? You can't regulate it, you can't blame it on any societal ills (unlike "product"), ART could uplift and "help" people, but not "hurt". I'm really torn between considering this theft of a product and what we have come to understand ART to be, which is an ARTIST gift to all of us. Beyond regulation, beyond the understanding of most Americans.
LOL! That's a good one. But I felt there is too much voilence in The Terminator(s) and too much use of tobacco products in Bedtime! Which brings up another point, we can regulate guns and tobacco on shelves, should we regulate them and their use on stage and screen?
While sales have been hurt somewhat I beleive the industry exaggerated their figures. Just because someone downloads a movie or cd album that doesn't mean that they would have bought it anyway. Sales have been hurt some but I just don't beleive the figures that the RIAA and MPAA put out. You also need to consider the fact that the number of new cds published in the last two years has been decreasing therefore there is less new material to even purchase, there has been a economic downturn and music and movies are not neccesities to live. Plus there is no big pop group right now, as soon as the next Backstreet Boys or NSync hits, them and all their copy-cats will all sell several million copies. The RIAA and MPAA are spinning their stats, there is truth in there, its just buried.
You hit the nail on the head there BayouBengal. I have almost every song I ever liked but there is no way I would have ever bought a lot of it. When I was still buying CDs I had to be selective about it because of the cost of walking into a store and buying every CD I was even remotely interested in. There is very little new music I give a damn about having and now that its getting hard to find music to download for free because RIAA has scared the shit out of the people who made the files accessable if I do hear something new I like I'll buy it. Most of what I have is classic rock, blues, jazz and some country but I feel sorry for the younger people who want the newest releases by musicians I mostly have never heard of.
And what the record companies should have done sooner instead of trying to ignore it is the pay-for-music web sites like iTunes, BuyMusic, The New Napster. But the problem is these services aren't all inclusive. The selection is still very limited. Now when the selection becomes better I might give them a shot.
