what do u guys think of the RIAA suings?

mainly aimed at the americans here since the riaa is american but what do u reckon, should they be suing kazaa users or not?

i don;t use kazaa, never liked the idea of people lifting stuff from my computer even if i gave them access to it but a few of my mates do and i can see the mcps startin to sue people over here for it pretty soon too if the riaa is succesful.

I agree with it. It is at the end of the day a equivelant for stealing. But thats not my main reason the companys sales are dropping so there hiring more crap to boost them again, so we aint getting very many good rock bands anymore just crappy pop hip hop and rnb cause they sell....soo i say sue the ****ers sue them until music gets good again!.

I think its a joke, myself. Music sharing is something that can't be stopped. Its like a flood. Suing people for sharing is like planting a whole bunch of sticks farther downstream and hoping it holds the flood back. It won't. And the fact is that most people only download because CD prices are so high. If record companies would cut some of the crappy bands and drop their prices, they'd find that more people would buy their music.

Adrian

nothing is cheaper than getting it free. unless they release cd's for free, people will still download them. fact.

i can see people coming back with the quality argument but you give a copied cd and the original to an average person and they won't be able to tell the difference.

I'd buy a CD for $5-10. Then I wouldn't have to spend ages trying to download 10-14 tracks with a 56k modem. CD prices have gone up cause the record labels are trying to push horrible bands off on the unsuspecting public. I sincerely believe this is how punk became popular. Sure, people will still download music even if the CDs dropped down to $7 a piece, but more people would buy them, since they wouldn't feel like they wasted a ton of money if they didn't like it.

And also, you download a few songs to see if you like the band, and by the time you're finished, it makes more sense to download the rest of the album than to go out and spend $15 for a few songs you haven't heard yet. That's how I got started on Creed. I would've gone out and spent $7 for a few new songs, and a proffesional CD and jacket, but not $15. That's just ridiculous.

Adrian

You think $15 is expensive for a cd?? Try living here and paying 23 euros, which is about $23 and then complain!

Tash

what a rip off......only a doubledisk should possibly be worth that much

but i guess its better than this....even though it was 1996 but still

people have this stupid perceptin that a CD costs like £1 to make so it should be cheaper.

to go into making a full album u'r talking about actually signing the band, legal fee's, advances, recording time 9this doesnt come cheap even in shitty little studios so when ur hiring places like abbey road ur talking £1000s a day), promotion, producing the CD, artwork, distribution and a couple of other things that add onto the cost.

it gets very expensive very fast to make a pro quality album. it usually takes about 200'000 to half a million album sales to break even, if bands dont break even they get dropped plain and simple.

u lower the price of CDs and its going to jump up another couple of hundred thousand sales needed to break even, not alot of bands can shift that amount of records easilly and music as a result will suffer cos as uve stated, even lowering prices wouldnt stop people downloading for free so it would just mean higher sales targets for the bands with less chance of actually making them.

It doesn't have to lowered that much here, but I think 23 euros is ridiculous. A new cd here used to cost 39,95 guilders, that works out at 18 euros. Prices have risen like anything here and now I only buy a cd that I really want or wait.

Tash

This has nothing to do with file sharing, but... RIAA is greedy. Maybe the same goes for the artists.

Think about this... you buy the album on LP... pay something... then 10 years later CDs are IN and you buy it on CD. Same album, same songs!
And then comes the internet and buying mp3s online and AGAIN they want you to pay for each track you already paid for TWICE!

This is their logic. Is it fair?