Beaker wrote: 
Deviant from what... your example of your philosophy? It would be worth believing in God, to pray that this is true.
 

 Manbird wrote: 
It's that reptilian mind... ancient and profound. Those who love money enough will find ways to have it. Just don't offend the majority of the time, or they may treat you most non-brotherly.

 Umberdog wrote: 
Money amuses my taint. 

 Beaker wrote: 
If you knew me then you would know that I have given it ALL away. What I sell is for those who enjoyed what I've made and feel obliged to reward me for. I am not creative for money... this is why I so rarely do commissions... why I so rarely CAN do commissions. Money taints my muse.

Just join my forum and participate... everything I've made will be yours.

As I see it, piracy is the best thing that ever happened to art. It changes the dominant paradigm from greed to creativity. I see a world where every artist self publishes, so even the a destitute situation might have a chance at being seen, and all we are allowed to see isn't hidden behind the filter of money and what someone else thinks we might pay for. Those who are loved will still be rewarded, and those who are not at least have their chance to be loved.

Be that as it may, and I don't doubt a word of it, the fact is that just because someone downloads a song, that does not equal lost revenue. That's like saying FM radio broadcasts songs to Xmillion people a day and they all hear 20 songs a day so that's like losing 20Xmillion dollars a day. No the record industry is losing money to illegal downloading and that's too bad, but they hurt their own case when they blatantly make up and overinflate figures like they do. They're losing money also to video games, etc. but it's the end consumer that's the most popular bogeyman with them.

/rehash

I'm on a private international yahoo group of producers and directors. The head of the group posted this Hollywood Reporter article and the following response by a former Capitol Records executive was very interesting and revealing.  Bill G - this one's for you.

Report: Piracy Costs Spanish Film, Music Sectors Billions

MADRID - Piracy in Spain cost legal content rights owners 5.2 billion euros in the first half of 2010, more than triple the 1.56 billion euros in revenue earned by the digital content industry in the same period, according to a report released Wednesday.
According to Observation of Piracy and Consumption of Digital Content Habits study, conducted by IDC Research for the Madrid-based Coalition of Content Creators and Industries, the music sector was the hardest hit, with 97.8% of consumption derived from illegal downloads — estimated at some 2.7 billion euros.
Some 77% of movie downloads, worth 1.87 billion euros, were done illegally, while video games same illegal downloads grow from 52.3% from the second half of 2009 to 60.7% in the first six months of 2010. The study concluded that piracy cost the gaming sector some 262 million euros.
Aldo Olcese, President of the Coalition, blamed telecom operators and search engines for the rampant illegal activity and called on the government to create a comprehensive policy to combat piracy.
"Telecom Operators, search engines and content creators should be sitting on the same side of the table to better develop the information society, along with the users," Olcese said. "Large subjects, like Intellectual Property, web neutrality, fraudulent and massive use of social networks and the distribution of the economic chain of value are some of the subjects that should form part of the agenda for responsible self-regulation."
The sector of digital books, which earned some 778 million euros in the legal market in the first half of the year, lost some 421 million euros to piracy, according to the study.
The study focused only on consumers between the ages of 16 and 55.
One of the novelties of the study was the growing number of consumers — 60% — prepared to pay for content, and the consequential "legalizable" market.
Spain boasts the dubious honor of accounting for some 20% of illegal downloads worldwide on the top 10 films from 2009. Much of the illegal activity in Spain comes from peer-to-peer sites. The study found 85% of 16-24 year-olds admit using P2P sites, while 75% of 25-34 year-olds and 64% of 35-44 year-olds admitted the same.
Even so, more than 75% of 16-24 year-olds also admitted to using direct downloads.
The universe of the study, which is conducted every six months with the next due in may 2011, was online users according to Nielsen Online measurements, with a 1.3% margin of error.

Thank you Hollywood Reporter

Just a quick note on the P.R. nonsense that is the whole "Piracy cost so and so billions."

I used to be an executive for Capital Records. Short and sweet, it's a lie. Do not listen to this nonsense about piracy because it's what they're NOT telling you that's the real issue, and THAT is the fact that they waste even MORE money on all of the following:

1) Being a ridiculously top-heavy industry. In the distribution end, which is only one small arm of the company, their high level execs made a base salary of $400,000 to $1,000,000 a year with satellite cell phone, car, house, computer and expense account all paid for, with a bonus of up to $1,000,000 a year. The mailroom guys (who worked a lot harder than most of the executives, made $12 an hour.

2) Lawsuits. The company had at least 12 documents suits they were fighting for sexual harassment, mostly from the same executives named above. This costs them millions of dollars, when they should fire those people not defend them.

3) Terrible "expenses" like one year when certain unnamed high level executives traveled to a meeting and charged $20,000 in cocaine and hookers to the company credit card and told the people in finance, "if you don't push this through, you'll be fired."

The list goes on. I personally sat in a room where myself and two others warned the executives about file sharing, and the highest level person there pushed back and said, "Honestly, I don't think this whole Napster thing is anything to worry about. Let's move on."

The bottom line is, understand that companies like Capital Records waste BILLIONS of dollars every year on atrocious things, cover-ups and salaries that are through the roof and they turn around and try to blame piracy as the culprit. It's not piracy. Piracy accounts for far less loss then their own greed and horrible business model and don't even get me started on the Spanish and Latin markets of the company.

At the end of the day, they're still spinning lies to cover up their own negligence and bad business model and it's not just the record labels, it's most of the major entertainment corporations.

Daniel