KOAR News
Posted August 14, 2007 — in Music News
Study finds kids justify illegal downloads…according to a major European Commission survey, children in Europe are aware of the risks of illegal downloading, but often rationalize their act by saying that everyone — including their parents — is doing it. Almost all of the children surveyed in the 27 European Union member countries as well as in Norway and Iceland said they expect to continue downloading. They also said the risk of downloading a virus was far more dissuasive than the risk of legal proceedings.
Speaking about illegal downloading, KOAR recently posted “Songs at Stake on Myspace“. Why aren’t the artists, major music labels, and myspace fuming over myspacemp3.org? Myspacemp3.org is an illegal website that allows users to hack into myspace and convert song streams into mp3’s. This is theft ladies and gentlemen in its purist form. If these problems aren’t solved, its only time when the United States Government will regulate the internet because of criminal abuse.
Virgin Megastore flexes it’s creative muscles: The Virgin Megastore chain will host its first annual Battle of the Bands contest.Submissions can be made at all 11 Virgin Megastores from Aug. 20 - Aug. 31, and the winners will battle it out with live performances in seven of the stores, including the New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco locations. Fans will be able to vote on the contestants at the Virgin Megastores and online at virginmegamashup.com from Sept. 10 - 21. The grand prize winner, which will be announced Oct. 1, will win travel and accommodations to meet with A&R representatives from Immergent Records and an evening with Virgin executives. (Billboard)
Universal Music Group will incorporate watermarks into its upcoming, DRM-free download experiment. Watermarks will be used to track the path of files after a transactional purchase
Check out the new act on The Last Goodnight. Their new release titled ‘Poison Kiss’ will be released August 28th on Virgin Records. Check out the track Poison Kiss.
Artists to check out: Alternative band My Favorite Highway has sold 4500 more singles on iTunes. 26,000 + for the year to date. Also, Making April will be playing at Pianos (NYC) for Atlantic Records on Wednesday at 9 and Suburban Legends will be performing at the Knitting Factory on Thursday night. For more information contact Dan Friedman.
“Why aren’t the artists, major music labels, and myspace fuming over myspacemp3.org?”
Maybe because they’re realizing that suing everyone doesn’t work? Get rid of one, and another appears. It just makes people mad and less likely to want to buy music - that does a whole lot of good. Plus others just pop up where the one disappears. It’s not as though myspacemp3.org is the only site of its kind. http://myspacevalley.com/mp3dl.php does the same. Even if they managed to sue every one of these sites out of existence, people could still just save the file from the cache. Just look what happened when they started suing P2P sites.
My guess is the labels probably have better ways to spend their time.
Comment by Anonymous — August 14, 2007 @ 12:54 pm
Getting the US Government to intervene in illegal downloading will only justify it to teenagers. Just like underage drinking. They know they’re not supposed to do it, and they might get caught, but they’ll binge drink anyways. There is always a way to avoid the law on the internet. No real blocks or monitering systems have been installed yet that could combat illegal downloading. If the government did crack down on this, it’d be hard to regulate.
Comment by annie — August 14, 2007 @ 1:31 pm
I dont think Government regulation will justify illegal downloading. Studies have shown that strict punishment deters crime. I couldnt think of a better example than China. The US Government needs to regulate the internet. You throw these guys in prison for a long time who are responsible for starting these sites. You also fine or punish the companies that Host these sites.
You shoplift at WALMART, you’re thrown in prison. If you are responsible for an ILLEGAL SITE that allows you to hack and steal –prison. Its a simple process. This will happen..sooner than later..
Comment by KOAR — August 14, 2007 @ 1:53 pm
The problem is that the U.S. government CAN NOT regulate the internet becasue the Internet doesn’t belong to America. The problem with the internet is that it has no physical realestate. There actually has to be some sort of committe formed - and agreed upon by EVERY country in the world to govern the internet.
Until then - it’s fair game.
I disagree with illegal downloading. I’m just stating the issue.
Beau
Comment by Beau Bretz — August 14, 2007 @ 2:24 pm
KOAR, I think it’s about 5 or 6 years too late in the game to be suggesting government regulation of internet music piracy.
Music is free now.
The only labels worthy to live through this are the ones which can re-structure their business models to be a bit more malleable with the times.
OR…
Focus on the fact that there ARE still people out there who think that music has value and that it should be paid for — and sign, develop and market acts that appeal to those people.
If they can’t figure out who ‘those people’ are, then maybe it’s time for them to re-evaluate career choices.
Comment by Stu Gots — August 14, 2007 @ 3:26 pm
The real question should be, why isn’t Myspace picking up on what Purevolume is doing? I haven’t heard of any site on the internet that allows you to do such things. They both use Adobe Flash Player, so I don’t really know why that is…
Comment by Rich — August 14, 2007 @ 5:53 pm
Rich - right, the answer is FLASH players..Myspace is so behind..open to thieves and robbers..
Comment by koar — August 14, 2007 @ 7:12 pm
Even if the music is converted, the quality of the ripped song is not on par. Period. I just think that might be a reason labels are not up in arms about it… (”no such thing as bad press”) Now, if the quality was exactly like the CD…
Comment by Scott — August 15, 2007 @ 7:36 am
Why are labels investing in this junk? I was all set with Mute Math, Augustana, and Fall Out Boy.
Its time to invest in some real music.
Comment by realmad — August 15, 2007 @ 7:37 am
This isn’t a matter of suing these little backdoor sites. How I see it, they aren’t doing anything wrong other than taking advantage of a poorly designed website. Suing them and shutting them down won’t solve the problem.
MySpace didn’t start as a music site, they simply saw an opportunity to increase traffic and cash in, and thats exactly what they did. Unfortunately MySpace is designed as ANOTHER music site…not the ULTIMATE music site.
Traffic and popularity are not always indicative of quality. MySpace is the most popular artist site but that doesn’t make it the best. Would demanding MySpace protect their content make any difference at all? Or are they too big to care?
Comment by AJ-KOAR — August 15, 2007 @ 10:26 am