posted
I had a friend recommend it for inexpensive downloads. I've checked it out a bit and googled it and it seems pretty legit. I'm still a little nervous about sending them credit card info.
quote:Originally posted by peterh: Have any of you used it before?
Yes. If you're going to use them (and I've done so quite happily), I recommend using their software, rather than the Web interface; the initial database download takes awhile, but it makes finding and downloading music much easier.
(Edited to note that I'm not addressing the possible ethical issues related to using a gray market service. You'll have to make your own peace with that one.)
Posts: 884 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I don't think Paypal has worked in all the time I've used allofmp3, but I've had no problems with their credit card system; the payments go through properly, and I haven't found any other mysterious charges on my card.
Posts: 884 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Unfortunately, downloads from there are not properly licensed (assuming you're in the US). Any downloads you make from the site are infringing copyright.
I've never heard of anyone having issues with them stealing their credit card; they're not about to steal from you, its just that the content you would be obtaining would not have a legal US license.
Now, it may well be legal to download from it in Russia. Russia's copyright laws are very, very different from the US's, and music companies there have not yet managed to crack down.
However, you being in the US, your possession of content copyrighted in the US is governed by US copyright law, and by that standard allofmp3's downloads are clearly not licensed (as the site owners readily admit).
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
However, you being in the US, your possession of content copyrighted in the US is governed by US copyright law ...which is currently unresolved on this specific issue. The RIAA may well make sure it gets resolved in their favor, but for now, asserting that it's a copyright violation doesn't make it so.
(If it were true that unlicensed material legally bought in Russia could not legally be imported to the U.S., this reasoning would apply equally to physical copies. U.S. law actually states that such "importation, for the private use of the importer and not for distribution, by any person with respect to no more than one copy or phonorecord of any one work at any one time, or by any person arriving from outside the United States with respect to copies or phonorecords forming part of such person’s personal baggage" is not illegal. The big question is what happens when the copy is not a physical copy, but intangible data.)
posted
Even assuming that title applied, it may well be infringing. That exception is only to any infringement occurring due to the importation, not other activities.
Among other things, all the ephemeral copies that you cause to be created and the eventual file copy that you create (wholly inside the US) from bits off the internet would potentially be infringing events (yes, ephemeral copies have been considered very importantly by courts in modern copyright cases).
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
The importation distinction is a valid one. And of course I'll agree with "it may well be infringing"; that's implicit in my calling the law "unresolved." If it were unquestionably infringing, or unquestionably not infringing, it would be resolved; as it stands, I'm unaware of any legal precedent settling the issue one way or another at this point.
In other words, I'm not disputing the contention that it might infringe U.S. copyright law, just the contention that it definitely does.
Posts: 884 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
"the Russian government must significantly step up the fight against piracy"
For some reason, it seems like the RIAA is the pirates here, scalping artists and consumers. Yes, consumers shouldn't rip off artists. But the RIAA just doesn't seem like people who have clean hands.. So the question is that if anyone is going to pirate, it is the RIAA who can do it legally. Nobody else better get in their way.
What does the RIAA do exactly?... I know they use to be distributors of music. But with distribution so easy now, it seems they spend most of their time making sure no other methods of distribution succeed without them getting their oversized piece of the pie (thinking of iTunes music store where Sony keeps fighting to raise prices...)
Posts: 1209 | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged |
You know, the people who put up all the money so that artists can tour a lot and afford expensive recording studios? Those people who lose money on about 95% of their investments?
The music industry does need to change, but honestly, record labels are not the devil. The problem is that because they lose so much, they really can't afford to not try to get every penny they can. Part of the reason why indie labels are becoming more successful is because they usually specialize in one genre and aren't complete morons who sign any and everything because their A&R people are afraid to miss out on the next big thing.
Oh. And did you know that they charge a packaging fee for music you legally download?
posted
The labels themselves have issues, but they're most definitely still needed to promote music and the like.
The big problem is that the RIAA has a blind eye (indeed, sometimes even a helping hand) turned to its invasive and anti-competitive oligopolic practices by Congress.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Sen Orrin Hatch (from Utah :hides in shame:) actually said something to the tune that Congress should pass laws that says it is ok to destroy peoples' hard disks (with bots or something) when they illegally download music. Something like "rm -r /". Being in big businesses' pockets is the thing I hate about Republicans.
pH, What do you mean by packaging fee?
I guess they are all gamblers then, hoping to be the one to sign the next Mariah Carey?
Posts: 1209 | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
In an artist's recording contract, the label charges them something like 25% as a "packaging fee" per CD sold. It's held against them when it comes time to assess if they've recouped the money the label spent on them. Until they recoup, their royalties go to the label so that it can get its money back.
They hold this fee against them even if the album is sold as a download. And it's one of those parts of the contract on which a label will generally not budge, no matter how famous you get.
posted
Wait. So labels charge the artists? And if the artist sales never break even, they get NO royalties and the artist has to pay the label 25% of what the label spent on them???
Posts: 1209 | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
No. The label advances all the money to pay for the artist's recording, promotion, living expenses, etc. If the artist doesn't recoup, that's all he gets. He doesn't see any royalties. Unless he owns the copyright to the song, in which case he gets mechanical royalties for each copy pressed. The artist doesn't have to actually pay the label anything; it just takes him a lot longer to recoup and start seeing his royalty checks.
posted
But it's worth mentioning that, on the vast majority of albums, the artists don't recoup. Which is why most of them tour 200 days a year and hawk soft drinks/clothes/cars/video games and so on.
Conventional wisdom from the artists' standpoint is to squeeze the label for the biggest advance you can, cause you're not seeing a dime from record sales. Except publishing and mechanical royalties (which only apply if you actually write the song).
This is also why more and more artists are producing and pressing their own records (Prince is the most prominent example of this), because if they have a big enough fanbase, or any at all, they can sell their albums for $10-15 and keep all the profits. If you have good home studio equipment, a decent regional following, and some tech savvy you can make a good living this way.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:See also Courtney Love Does the Math. It's long, but good. Honest.
Now my question is: if the record labels are making all of this cash and the artists are making diddly, how is it that the vast majority of bid-war artists are clad in nothing but designer clothing (unless avoiding it specifically for personal taste / image reasons), drive nice cars, and own their own houses (or two, or three)?
Something doesn't add up here.
Granted, there are many other sources of income for anyone that has celebrity to sell, but I highly doubt anyone's getting paid the kind of money it would take for all these stars to have all those toys purely through celeb-whore work.
The rest of the article brings up a lot of interesting points - points that, if my suspicions are correct, are worthless anyway.
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Now my question is: if the record labels are making all of this cash and the artists are making diddly, how is it that the vast majority of bid-war artists are clad in nothing but designer clothing (unless avoiding it specifically for personal taste / image reasons), drive nice cars, and own their own houses (or two, or three)?
(1) Those other sources, like touring and product endorsements, but perhaps more importantly...
(2) Ever wonder why so many rich'n'famous artists end up bankrupt? It's not just the expensive lifestyles.
Posts: 884 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Many of the artists maintain the expensive lifestyles to appear successful -- just as many Hollywood people do, regardless of their actual income.
Trying to remember the artist (one of Destiny's Child maybe?) but in one Behind the Music it was revealed that a best-selling singer with a #1 single went bankrupt because she was living the high life even though she made a grand total of $35k that year.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
At least, she went bankrupt. Of course, the list goes on and on.
Erosomniac, Touring is far and away the most profitable thing an artist does. They make the vast majority of their money that way. As for designer clothes, you think they pay for that stuff? Designers are falling over each other to insure the right people are wearing their crap, cause it's free advertising for them.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Actually, the best thing to do, as an artist, is to take absolutely the smallest advance and spend the least amount of the label's money possible. We have to write eighty-page analyses of these things in Music Finance.
And if you can, it's better to buy CDs at the concert than in the store. Well, sort of. The artist sees more of the money for it, but it doesn't count towards his recoupment, generally.
And before (and during at least part of the first season of) Newlyweds, Jessica and Nick were about one million in debt. The only reason she got limos and nice treatment on the show was that MTV was paying for it.
Also, it's worth mentioning that you can buy houses with money you don't have. It's not like they're shelling out cash for their homes.
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Dont Know]](graemlins/dontknow.gif)
I know they use to be distributors of music. But with distribution so easy now, it seems they spend most of their time making sure no other methods of distribution succeed without them getting their oversized piece of the pie (thinking of iTunes music store where Sony keeps fighting to raise prices...)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
We have to write eighty-page analyses of these things in Music Finance.
