Do you think the paranoia of the recording industry is justified?

As audiophiles, we generally deplore the restrictions that the music business is trying to impose on new formats and equipment, such as watermarking and restricting digital outputs. But does the recording industry have a leg to stand on with their suspicion that we all might be potential pirates?

Do you think the paranoia of the recording industry is justified?
Yes, they are doing the right thing!
5% (13 votes)
They are kind of right
5% (13 votes)
They may be right, but are going about it all wrong
25% (66 votes)
They are a little off base here
20% (52 votes)
They are completely wrong
43% (115 votes)
Other
2% (6 votes)
Total votes: 265

COMMENTS
David Gray's picture

Have a good product at the right price and they would not have to worry

Harold B.  Roberts's picture

The recording industry is stealing work from live musicans. Example is LasVegas where most of the music for the shows is recorded

Glenn Bennett's picture

They have to be the greediest bunch of people on the face of the earth!

Frosty Clark's picture

I am innocent until (or unless) proven guilty. If they can PROVE me guilty of stealing their work AND PROFITING FROM IT, then prosecute me to the fullest. But they MAY NOT just assume that, because I have an HP CD burner in my Dell, a standalone Marantz Pro CD burner, and a 3-burner CDExpress CD Copier, I am doing anything illegal. I have a home-based recording business which makes copies for the performers of the live concerts I record. Go find the pirates that are eating the majors alive, and leave the rest of us alone. Good old American GREED -- too bad THAT isn't illegal!

John J.  Pluta's picture

Most of us who are real music nuts not only sample our favorite music, but as Lisa Astor so often writes, part of this disease compels us to own what we like to hear as well!

PRITHVIRAJ M.  VEDPATHAK's picture

If you see, there aren't many audiophiles who would like to copy a CD, he would never compromise on the recording quality, he would surely go in for a brand new CD, than copy it from his friend, or the net.

tpnoland@hotmail.com's picture

By making such a big deal with copyright protection, they are practicly throwing down the gauntlet and challenging hackers who probably wouldn't have given much thought to breaking a CD's code to break it. Therefore, they are making the problem potentially worse than if they did nothing at all.

Dennis's picture

The greed of the entertainment lawyers is only exceeded by their paranoia

Javier's picture

Piracy helped Microsoft become the world's PC software standard. The user-base became so big that companies were forced to use their software. Home recording helps to sell records the same way. If they want to stop wholesale piracy, they just have to make their products cheaper.

Emil Davis's picture

As much as we hate the industry, we have to admit that they do have a viable point: they own the material. They own the music, just like a publisher has the rights to your fine publication, or the books you the library allows you to borrow. On the other hand, the record companies should not have the right to restrict what the group or individual musicians want to do with thier creations. There have been battles in court over the band changing labels and wanting to re-release material published on another label AND THEY LOST! So I say, they may have total control over the artists, but not over the fans. As much as they would like to do, they cannot find that computer nerd in South Africa listening to MP3's of Metallica, or myself, with several Minidiscs full of my favorite Metallica tunes or my copy of the Beastie Boys' Hello Nasty (an excellent choice from your "Records to Die for" section). I say that we need to do away with watermarks (who's going to copy a SACD or DVD-A anyway?) and try to beak away from the mass market crap that they force us to listen too. My Beatles vinyls sound better than the album "1" on CD. Record companies need to back off.

Mr.  Crude's picture

The industry is a little paranoid because they are willing to compromise consumer demand for a controllable product. It will be interesting to see what happens to the industry when downloads become listenable in ten or twenty years. The major label cartels are already charging people to keep their tanks full of low grade downloadable music.

Brian Keane's picture

For the most part I think people are generally honest. I know myself I have heard cd's made from sources like Napster, and the quality of music is bad. In my opinion it is worth spending the money on a cd or vinyl to hear the music as it was intended rather than a cheap copy.

Erik's picture

With every advance in home recording technology, the recording industry has thought it would riun them.This hasn't happened yet, and I believe that the sharing of music on;y leads to the sale of more pre-recorded music in the long run. In no way does the small trade of pirated recordings significantly hurt the recording industry.

rbm's picture

Sure the recording industry loses some revenue from "unathorized duplication". But high prices create the incentive. Those that run illegitimate businesses founded on this principle will always find a why to work around measures the industry introduces. So its the average Jerry that ends up being inconvenienced.

Keith Adams's picture

By and large, the recording industry (the "suits") have been screwing the artist (the "talent") for so long, they can't imagine a world where the listening public screws the talent directly. They just don't like the competition.

Braden Sprecher-Reinke's picture

While I don't like my answer, I think it is true. Most people today (not stereophile readers) just want things quick and cheap, quality is a secondary, if even that, concern. As such, the companies are correct in assuming that unprotected information may be copied and they may lose money. However, I really hate this whole mess. I really wish we could just have good quality and not worry about copy protection.

po'd Rich's picture

Stop overcharging for recorded music and piracy will go away. The big three or four recording and distribution companies control the market. We are paying far too much for CDs at $15.95 to $18.95 a pop, retail. If discounters can reduce these amounters by 30% and still profit, then the original retail price is absurdly high. REDUCE the price of CDs and piracy will disappear!

rbm's picture

Sure, the recording industry loses some revenue from "unathorized duplication." But high prices create the incentive. Those who run illegitimate businesses founded on this principle will always find a way to work around measures the industry introduces. So, it's the average Jerry that ends up being inconvenienced.

Kevin Brook's picture

You can't blame the recording industry for being concerned about "pirates." After all, they need plenty of money to pay their lawyers to protect them from charges of price-fixing, grossly inflated prices, etc. How much does it cost to produce each CD? Yo Ho Ho and a bottle of rum!

Joel Waterman's picture

-MP3: popularity due to the fact that kids don't want to buy entire CD's , just the stuff they like. And it's portable with those cool new machines. -DVD-A: general public , i.e. non-audiophiles, probably don't care enough about perceived audio quality when buying DVD players to make this format succeed. I wonder what the point of DVD-A is. -SACD: nice audiophile format. Ridiculous industry 'support'. 2K disc after a YEAR? Market is too small for serious investment I guess. -CD + 24/96/192: nice audiophile idea, affordable but still non-aduiophile friends look at me if I'm from Mars when I attempt to explain the reason why I split my CD player intwo separates -CD's; make 'em so cheap people will loose incentive to copy music.

Russell Finnemore's picture

Surely the big companies main pirating enemies are the 'professional' pirates in some of the asian countries who are smart enough to work around or ignore watermarking devices which irritate domestic users whose level of piracy probably has little impact to the big companies' revenue. The big companies would be better advised working out ways so consumers can get quality downloads etc cheaply, easily and legitimately

Jonathan Baker's picture

Why now are they making such an effort to restrict the copying of music? Is it because the technology is so good? Is it because people have found a way to enjoy an abundance of music with out paying astronomical amounts of money for what they are recording for pennies? I believe that the recording industry is showing the world, just how greedy they are. Most people want to record compilation CD's or CD's that they just cannot afford to buy. What was so wrong with recording when people were using cassette tapes? Is the principle not the same?

Jared Kline's picture

I own a Marantz stand alone CD-recorder. While I am throughly happy with the machine, there have been times when I have been inconvienced by the watermarks. In fact there is an entire section in the manual devoted to explaining SDMI and what the machine will and will not let you do. I believe that the recording industry has to prevent pirating somehow, but what they are doing is restricting normal use of such machines. I have made recordings of uncopyrighted performances using a small sound board and some mics. When I went to dub a copy of this for a friend I found that I had to use the analog inputs to make the copy and thus, stop the machine at the end of every track and restart it. Clearly the recording was not copyrighted, so I was doing nothing wrong. However, I was inconvienced by the recording industries pathetic attempts at trying to cut down on copyright infringement and the loss of revenue. I would just like to say that if the recording industry would lower the prices of CDs, they would not have to deal with copyright infringement and they might even sell more albums.

Gary P.'s picture

Over-all the majority of music is purchased. I have the right to copy any music that I purchase and these restrictions would infringe on those rights, and the use of my property. Any such restritions on personal copies would cause me to boycott new music purchases.

NA's picture

NA

Fran's picture

Music lovers go to concerts, buy records, and keep the music industry alive. Lawyers and other clerks invent solutions in search of a problem. Soon they will ask to put earplugs with a counter and some password in everybody's ears.

sven felsby's picture

recording other people

Carlo Iaccarino's picture

First: make records cheaper, and more people will think of pirate-shopping as too much of a headache; Second: remember that the weaker the goverment, the harder the punishment Third: it's absolute nonsense to promote "super-digital" at the same time you're constraining those very same means through the narrow passages of watermarking and digital output inibitions (I'm recalling Stereophile's image of "pissing in a purest water pool").

John Hendrickson's picture

Their profit is too high now.

Mick Jones's picture

'Home Taping Is Killing Music' remember that one?

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