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

mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com

11–20 of 95 posts

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

#12
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,…

It's very difficult to do 'micropayments' on a credit-card based architecture - card fees are usually a percentage + flat rate cost (say 2% and the first 20 cents of any transactions).

Because of this flat fee anything below around 99 cents quickly becomes unprofitable to sell. It's why companies that do microtransactions do so with other payment methods, like alternative currency (FB credits, etc).

Of course, you can also use service such as Spotify if actually having the files themselves isn't important to you (I'm more than happy to pay £5 per month to Spotify for what's actually a quite impressive library). For large consumers of music that can be quite attractively priced.

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

#13
post #10

Just curious, how does she have 15gb of "legally downloaded" music that she didn't pay for?

She didn't say it was legally downloaded, she said it was not illegally downloaded. Meaning she got it from a source other than downloading it.

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

#14
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've been taking a simpler approach. I buy about 3 albums a week off Amazon or iTunes, which adds up to 150 albums or 1500 songs a year. By the time that 20 year old is 25, s/he'll easily have 7500 songs paid for over 5 years, instead of one gigantic lump sum. I think it's certainly reasonable when you're getting discounts for buying full albums and doing it over an extended period. Keep in mind, if Amazon has an album for $9, and iTunes has one for $10, that's roughly a "free" album every 10, just for using Amazon.

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

#17
All the same, as consumers we are being punished for either (1) desiring and getting music in the means most convenient and historically accessible to us or (2) desire and getting technology in the means most convenient and historically accessible to us.

The historical, political, and mercantile lines draw behind the scenes is a theatre we are not privvy to. Pulling the card "you're actually supporting the big wigs of tech and the cost of the big wigs of music" all to make the point that the big wigs of music could enable artisans assumes that artisans themselves trust and believe in the music industry.

The point I want to make here is that all of this is heavily historical. We're to simply overlook our desires, aforementioned, because of historical and political threads which largely interplay outside of our control? I mean to suggest that, in a sense, reprimanding anyone for jumping onto these historical presentations of music and technology seems like reprimanding one for not staying inside because it _might_ rain, or because aliens might attack. Whether they do or not is a fact of the matter, but should we await for Apple, RIAA, etc. to play their course while they continue to tantalize and bombard us with all sorts of "technology"?

One obvious point is that _that is difficult_. The growing philosophical trend of the counter-culture is this: Hey! Musicians were still making a living out of their music _before_ technology put any of us into this mess!

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

#18
post #10

Just curious, how does she have 15gb of "legally downloaded" music that she didn't pay for?

She does not say that those 15gb where "legally downloaded". They where copied to her iPod by a friend. She also ripped CDs and copied music from other sources, which are not categorized as "illegally downloaded". Seemingly "illegal downloading", in her eyes, is only done via file-sharing networks.

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

#19
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…

Except this article has nothing to do with stealing...
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