Comments on: A Week of Divesting: Media

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 09:15:00 +0000

Fair enough Doug if you are happy with you descision that’s fine by me. By
the way Spotify on the iPhone looks great and if you can get all the music
you want that way it seems like an excellent solution – enjoy!

By: Doug Belshaw

Doug Belshaw — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 06:33:00 +0000

Andy, I think we’ll have to agree to differ as we’re coming from different
philosophical points of view. It’s a moot point in any case, as I’m planning
to transfer to streaming rather than (spuriously) ‘owning’ via Spotify any
day now!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 20:04:00 +0000

The problem with this is that most record lables do not recognise ROMS. I first came across this back in 2005/6 with the rise of AllofMP3, and haven’t honestly looked into it recently.

International copyright is a legal minefield – See BBC iplayer, Hulu, Spotify etc for example which have to restrict access to geographical regions as they only own the copyright in certain regions.

These site may well be legal an above board in Russia – even if a bit nefarious in claiming that they operate basically like a radio station and use the same licence… but this doesn’t imply that the same is true outside of Russia.

If you are morally happy with your decisions that fine. I just wanted to clarify that there is a huge amount of legal doubt surrounding these services and not just from the record companies – In fact back in 2007 AllofMP3 was shut down due to huge amount of pressure put on by various goverments who threatened to vito Russia entry to the WTO.

I would recommend having a read through the history of AllofMP3:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AllOfMP3

and follow some of the associated sources at the bottom.

At the end of the day you have a free choice as to what you do, but by your own admission at present the majority of lables do not collect the fees that would be payable under ROMS (which I believe are less than stadard royalties) so my original point remains that the artists you are buying are not getting paid…

By: Doug Belshaw

Doug Belshaw — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 18:13:00 +0000

Andy, I certainly don’t want to get into an argument with you, but I’m not
entirely sure you’ve got all the facts. The Russian copyright system has
something called ROMS. In a nutshell, this means that artists can and do get
paid. MP3Fiesta and other similar websites set aside this amount for the
labels to collect on behalf of the artists they represent. The trouble is,
because the labels don’t control what goes on in Russia, they don’t like it
and therefore don’t collect these royalties. This means they can paint the
picture of ‘piracy’ and ‘illegal downloads’.

Whilst (obviously) I use MP3Fiesta mainly because it’s cheap, I’m actually
of the opinion that any system I can support that breaks the stranglehold of
the labels is fine. If the labels accepted the ROMS payments, I don’t think
there would be any problem at all. Do you?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 17:36:00 +0000

International purchases are always complicated when the pass though international borders, and depending on the number of CDs bought there would be import taxes etc to pay…

Also the loophole exploited by these companies only exists because there is no clause in the Russian copyright law which applies to digital files.

But the main reason why I would not use these services is that the loophole means they can sell music/films at the price because they don’t pay the artists anything… Which basically means it is ‘legalised’ piracy… If you like something enough to buy it then you probably want to support the artists who made it…

By: Doug Belshaw

Doug Belshaw — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 17:08:00 +0000

Really? Does that mean that if you physically went to Russia and
bought a CD you’d have to re-buy it in the UK?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 16:02:00 +0000

I digitized my CD collection a few years ago but because of the legal implications can’t get rid of the CDs, and for my tastes Spotify and the like do not yet provide a comprehensive enough system as there are lots of tracks I own and listen too that are not yet part of their services… So for the time being they live in a few big bedboxes under the spare bed… Not perfect but acceptable until Spotify/Napster etc have a more comprehensive collection the best solution for me…

I’m definitely not ready to get rid of all the CDs yet – even if I haven’t physically used one of them in the last two house moves… I haven’t even plugged in the CD player since we moved last. iMac runs as a squeezeserver to the two squeezeboxes, taking the music directly out of iTunes…

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 15:54:00 +0000

That loophole is only legal if you live in Russia though…

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 12:59:00 +0000

Just finished doing the same, I have been in the house for 5 years, and all this time my ‘stuff’ has been piled up until ‘I get some shelving’ finally gave up and began to sort the stuff out three weeks ago, i began to throw out old worksheets, but some I just could not part with, even though I know I will never use them, i have a six foot high pile of History textbooks, to be boxed, then they can be put on the shelves (when i get them!). Like you I am in two minds as most of my resources are electronic, but I just cannot bring myself to throw out textbooks and worksheets, as I don’t know what access to technology i will have in the near future.

By: Doug Belshaw

Doug Belshaw — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 15:15:00 +0000

That’s a good compromise – I like that! Still, I think the future of music
acces is streaming via Spotify and the like. The film industry will probably
go likewise – in fact, it’s pretty much already here through my AppleTV. :-)