[lagavulin16]

Good that you listed the link here.

Originally Posted by redvelvetstudios

[top]Piracy - 10 Inconvenient Truths

London, 31st May 2007

1. Pirate Bay, one of the flagships of the anti-copyright movement, makes thousands of euros from advertising on its site, while maintaining its anti-establishment “free music” rhetoric.

What's your point? That they were leading everyone on to believe they were providing the bandwidth out of the goodness of their hearts? They were providing content, granted most of it illegally, but like any other site they have to pay for bandwidth, server hosting, etc. The only way to do that is ads or subscriptions.

2. Allofmp3.com, the well-known Russian website, has not been licensed by a single IFPI member, has been disowned by right holder groups worldwide and is facing criminal proceedings in Russia.

I remember reading about them. I knew no one with IP ever supported them, but I thought what they were doing was technically legal in Russia due to a loophole. I guess the law changed? What happened?

3. Organised criminal gangs and even terrorist groups use the sale of counterfeit CDs to raise revenue and launder money.

Your point being... that once it becomes harder to download music for free, the organized criminal gangs will make even MORE money by selling counterfeit CDs to people who can no longer download them for free? That organized criminal gangs and terrorist groups will do anything illegal to make money? I'm not sure why this is even in this list.

4. Illegal file-sharers don’t care whether the copyright infringing work they distribute is from a major or independent label.

Some do, and some don't. At least, assuming you're talking about the end users and not the hosting sites. But I'll agree that most could care less.

5. Reduced revenues for record companies mean less money available to take a risk on “underground” artists and more inclination to invest in “bankers” like American Idol stars.

It means less money in general. The record companies were never in it for anything but the money, at least as far as the major labels go. They will sign and sell whoever they think will make the most money.

They didn't have a 10% slush fund for vanity acts that they considered a tithe to the arts.

6. ISPs often advertise music as a benefit of signing up to their service, but facilitate the illegal swapping on copyright infringing music on a grand scale.

ISPs also often advertise downloading software and videos as a benefit of signing up for their service. Yes, some people are downloading hacked copies of Photoshop but others are downloading GPL copies of the Gimp, Firefox, and other open source software. Same with videos. Lots of stuff on youtube doesn't violate anyone's copyright, but people still want to watch a video of a pug skateboarding even if NBC didn't produce it.

7. The anti-copyright movement does not create jobs, exports, tax revenues and economic growth – it largely consists of people pontificating on a commercial world about which they know little.

This isn't an inconvenient truth, it's an empty opinion not backed up by any empirical data whatsoever.

8. Piracy is not caused by poverty. Professor Zhang of Nanjing University found the Chinese citizens who bought pirate products were mainly middle or higher income earners.

Really? You mean someone who is actually considered "poor" in China is more concerned with spending a week's wages on food than a pirated copy of the new Britney Spears CD? You mean people who can afford to own computers are more likely than a farmer without electricity to buy a pirated copy of MS Office 2003?

9. Most people know it is wrong to file-share copyright infringing material but won't stop till the law makes them, according to a recent study by the Australian anti-piracy group MIPI.

Same goes with people who jay walk or speed.

10. P2P networks are not hotbeds for discovering new music. It is popular music that is illegally file-shared most frequently.

This is an extension of the Chinese farmer argument listed above. Were you expecting anyone to think that the more obscure and unknown the artist is, the more popular they are on torrent sites? Any statistician can tell you that the volume of pirate bandwidth should be equivalent to the volume of sales/popularity of any artist.

However, the argument suggests that people don't discover new music on these sites. That isn't true. I've never heard of a site that will only allow you to pirate music if it's been featured on MTV 100 times in a week.