Downloading Copywritten Music?

[Telewanger]

I never pay to go on any websites, period! The only password sites that I go on are Guitar Forum Websites. However, I have not bought a music CD or Video in years. I sometimes go to overseas websites in England, Japan, Germany, Denmark, etc. and get tons of mp3 files, games, and movies. Since US copyright laws can't enforce what other countries do, is it illegal for me to download and visit these sites in other countries, even if I don't have to enter any type of password to access the material?

If I pay my DSL bill every month, and I am not hacking into a site, can I not visit any site that I want without breaking laws. Who makes the Laws for the internet? I have no idea who owns the rights to the internet!

I have 3 music CD's of my own copy written material, that I busted my butt to write, record, and master. I was digging around the web a while back, and I found my CD's for sale in Taiwan, Japan, United Kingdom, Switzerland, and fifty other places. My CD's are copy written here in the US, but someone made copies and sent them all over the world without my permission.

How am I supposed to stop overseas governments from selling my music CD's, and every citizen in the world from downloading them for free? Take them to court? I've got $1000.00 and they have $100,000,000,000 dollars.

Here is the bottom line! If you put your music up for sale on the internet, before long, nobody will need to pay you for it anymore. Someone will make a copy, post it on an overseas website, and it is free for the world to have. It will never leave. It will circle the globe millions of times and you can never have it back. So, having said that, I don't feel guilty at all about downloading free music or videos from the internet anymore. Everybody downloads mine, I can't do anything about it!

[deeaa]

Yes, that is rather much what I think of it as well. And it's the way it will be in the future. I don't think people will be buying CD's and such except marginally in the future, Spotify etc. will salvage what can be salvaged for commercial purposes, but...ultimately the is NO money to be made from recordings no more.

A few examples. Like one of my own current bands.
3,940,676 total plays on a single internet site. Not a penny for us.

I just read about the 'royalties' Spotify pays. Lady Gaga, who's been on the MTV and radio all the time, sold millions and had millions of Spotify listens, gets a couple of thousand for it. A local band here has had some tens of thousands of listens on Spotify...get about 30 euros for it.

Also one of my bands got hours and hours of national TV broadcast time having our video in 'super rotation' for nearly a month. Never got a penny for it, because it was a 'pirate' channel who never paid anyone anything. They just shut down after a few years and filed bankrupt and started anew with a different name. No way to get any royalties.

I've quit thinking years ago I could ever get any of my music out there and make money out of it. You just have to be happy about the fact that up to millions of people have heard your music, that's it.

Basically all my music I have ever made is available online if I've only remembered to put it there. Must be a three-number amount of songs easily. Some of the most current stuff is only streamable, but that's because the band members are in the U.S. and want to also sell CD's. I tell them they'l never sell any significant numbers despite the huge listener numbers online and we should just spread the music freely, but I don't really care either way. I know I'll never make a penny with it.

The only way to make money with music is play gigs, but sadly at least over here there is one band around for every 50 people or so and every band also better than the next, so the gig arrangers don't pay the bands, the bands practically pay the arrangers to get to play for an audience.

And still some people even here dream of becoming rock stars. 99.9 percent end up wasting 10 years and 10.000 dollars chasing that and then realize you can only make money and succeed if you have a gimmick and are young and pretty enough to get to the spotlight for other reasons than your music.

[deeaa]

BTW here's one of my bands I put on hold recently: http://www.crankenhaus.com/

Also there I put all the music we made online for free. It's the only way to go.
I actually sold some of our CD's even to U.S. but in the end, it's not profitable by any means. And I never have the willpower to promote my bands in any way anyhow.

[Telewanger]

You guys got me thinking today. I thought long and hard. Now, I know why I am, the way I am. I spent a lot of time in the military. I was in the Gulf War in Iraq. We were taught, "If someone starts shooting at you, shoot back." If someone punches you, punch back!


When the World Trade Center was bombed, what did we do? We went over there and tore the place up.


So, if people keep stealing my music, or takes my stuff, I'm am going to take something back. You can thank Uncle Sam for teaching me this way of thinking. I'm not saying it is right, but that's what the military drilled in my head for many years.