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NPR Intern Gets an Earful After Blogging About 11,000 Songs

mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com

1–10 of 95 posts

Re: NPR Intern Gets an Earful After Blogging About 11,000 Songs

#3
post #2

Once again, killing (or at least assaulting) the messenger.

I don't actually see it that way. Admittedly, there is always some gray area when it comes to Intellectual Property, but, in this case, the intern's behavior was just disgraceful. Stealing is stealing. Ever since reasonably priced alternatives (iTunes and Amazon) of non-drm content in flexible packaging (per song purchasing) became available - music listeners have no excuse for stealing music.

I.E. This might have been excusable behavior in 1997-2009, but starting January 6, 2009 (The day Apple removed DRM from iTunes), the rationale for stealing music effectively disappeared.

Now, Game of Thrones torrentors on the other hand....

Re: NPR Intern Gets an Earful After Blogging About 11,000 Songs

#4
post #2

Once again, killing (or at least assaulting) the messenger.

I don't actually see it that way. Admittedly, there is always some gray area when it comes to Intellectual Property, but, in this case, the intern's behavior was just disgraceful. Stealing is stealing. Ever since reasonably priced alternatives (iTunes and Amazon) of non-drm content in flexible packaging (per song purchasing) became available - music listeners have no excuse for stealing music. I.E. This might have be…

>Ever since reasonably priced alternatives (iTunes and Amazon) of non-drm content in flexible packaging (per song purchasing) became available - music listeners have no excuse for stealing music.

That's subjective, if it were really the case we wouldn't be talking about it now.

Re: NPR Intern Gets an Earful After Blogging About 11,000 Songs

#5
post #2

Once again, killing (or at least assaulting) the messenger.

I don't actually see it that way. Admittedly, there is always some gray area when it comes to Intellectual Property, but, in this case, the intern's behavior was just disgraceful. Stealing is stealing. Ever since reasonably priced alternatives (iTunes and Amazon) of non-drm content in flexible packaging (per song purchasing) became available - music listeners have no excuse for stealing music. I.E. This might have be…

Correct me if I'm wrong, but songs are 99c on iTunes? Is it reasonable to expect a 20 year old intern to drop almost $11,000 on songs? It would seem being a music lover is an expensive hobby.

Re: NPR Intern Gets an Earful After Blogging About 11,000 Songs

#6
post #2

Once again, killing (or at least assaulting) the messenger.

I don't actually see it that way. Admittedly, there is always some gray area when it comes to Intellectual Property, but, in this case, the intern's behavior was just disgraceful. Stealing is stealing. Ever since reasonably priced alternatives (iTunes and Amazon) of non-drm content in flexible packaging (per song purchasing) became available - music listeners have no excuse for stealing music. I.E. This might have be…

Here's my issues with this line of thought. For one, why is 99c considered "reasonable" for a song? I feel as though this price point has little to do with the economics of the song-making business and a lot to do with the economics of iTunes/etc. Secondly, what is "convenient"? Why is iTunes downloading convenient, but watching GoT on HBO's online service not? I'm not saying they are equal, I think iTunes is easier, but why does the line fall in between them? Basically, the writer in question thinks the line still falls on the other side of iTunes, so why does that make their behavior disgraceful?

Re: NPR Intern Gets an Earful After Blogging About 11,000 Songs

#7
Oh, boy, these threads are going to be a whole bucket of fun. 200-odd commenters competing to see who can most stridently express opposition to the copyright/royalty/license business model of mainstream music, and 5 of us getting yelled at for suggesting that maybe private businesses should be able to pick their own business models, even if they're completely idiotic, and that everyone has the right to simply not buy music provided under business models they find objectionable.

But I'm sure the whole thing will wrap up nicely with Hacker News solving the problem of digital music sales once and for all.

(I didn't flag; the articles themselves are interesting, even if I utterly despair for the quality of debate they'll inspire here.)

Re: NPR Intern Gets an Earful After Blogging About 11,000 Songs

#8
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't actually see it that way. Admittedly, there is always some gray area when it comes to Intellectual Property, but, in this case, the intern's behavior was just disgraceful. Stealing is stealing. Ever since reasonably priced alternatives (iTunes and Amazon) of non-drm content in flexible packaging (per song purchasing) became available - music listeners have no excuse for stealing music. I.E. This might have be…

Correct me if I'm wrong, but songs are 99c on iTunes? Is it reasonable to expect a 20 year old intern to drop almost $11,000 on songs? It would seem being a music lover is an expensive hobby.

I'm in tears.

Is it reasonable to expect a 20 year old intern to have these 11000 songs? Does her life depend on it? What about other things which are unreasonable expensive for a 20 year old intern? The laptop to store the music on, external hard drive, smartphone with data plan to download and so on ... ?

This one has some background on numbers. And myths about royalties: http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/letter-to-emi...

Re: NPR Intern Gets an Earful After Blogging About 11,000 Songs

#9
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't actually see it that way. Admittedly, there is always some gray area when it comes to Intellectual Property, but, in this case, the intern's behavior was just disgraceful. Stealing is stealing. Ever since reasonably priced alternatives (iTunes and Amazon) of non-drm content in flexible packaging (per song purchasing) became available - music listeners have no excuse for stealing music. I.E. This might have be…

Here's my issues with this line of thought. For one, why is 99c considered "reasonable" for a song? I feel as though this price point has little to do with the economics of the song-making business and a lot to do with the economics of iTunes/etc. Secondly, what is "convenient"? Why is iTunes downloading convenient, but watching GoT on HBO's online service not? I'm not saying they are equal, I think iTunes is easier,…

To watch GoT online, you need to have HBO bundled with your cable package, so for someone without cable, that's essentially $100/mo. I would absolutely pay $10-20/mo or $30-40 to watch GoT just on HBO online or streaming through Amazon. So I would say the inconvenience is more aligned with having to sign up for cable than anything else.
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