back to article The Pirate Bay punts BitTorrent cloaking device

The Pirate Bay's swashbuckling Swedes have launched their very own VPN service, hoping to combat a new Swedish law that would force ISPs to cough up the personal details of suspected copyright infringers. The new law is called IPRED (Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive). And the new VPN is an IPREDator. "The …

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  1. Andy Barber
    Unhappy

    Public Library

    So I go to a Public Library & take a book out for free, am I then breaching the authors copyright?

    If I listen to the radio, am I then breaching the authors copyright?

    If I watch TV, am I then breaching the authors copyright?

    I don't think so!

  2. This post has been deleted by its author

  3. Cormac O'Donnell

    @andy barber

    While I cannot comment on how the legalities of libraries work. I do know that legit radio stations pay for the songs that they broadcast and TV stations pay for the programs they show. They pay for these broadcasts by advertising. The only exception to this model is the BBC which does not get revenue via advertising.

    I cannot believe I had to point this out. I always thought that readers of this site two shillings to rub together.

  4. John

    Shotgun!

    I don't like this place any more. Everyone thinks i'm a criminal..

    Is there anywhere i can go live where copyright is no more legally binding than calling shotgun?

    I doubt i could afford to re-locate at the moment, what with the recession and all.

    Perhaps i could pop over to Sony BMG and ask for all the £££ i've given them over the years for there music. I'll just say i never actually gave them my money, i was just leasing it to them, and infact it still belongs to me. I'm sure they'll see where i'm coming from.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    iPredator?

    With a name like that it sounds like a tool for paedophiles. It will probably make it easy for the film and music industry to start a smear campaign...

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Add one more to the list

    VPNs are good for more than just filesharing. If there wasn’t some sort of demand, there wouldn’t be so many of them. To a list including:

    AlwaysVPN,

    Banana VPN,

    Blacklogic,

    CyberGhost VPN,

    goldensVPN/Torrent Freedom (Baneki),

    Ivacy,

    Linkideo,

    Perfect Privacy,

    Relakks,

    SafeVPN.net,

    Steganos Internet Anonym VPN,

    StrongVPN,

    True Online Security (Hushmail & Baneki),

    VPN Privacy,

    VPNTunnel and

    XeroBank,

    we get to add IPREDator. With the Pirate Bay name, it stands a reasonable chance of at least breaking even. Reputation is important. For some of the above service providers, I know little more than their name and have no easy way to gauge their trustworthiness.

    I’m sure Dingledine et al would appreciate anything that might reduce the number of BitTorrenters using Tor. Hint: BitTorrent and Tor are not a good match. It’s overkill. Your adversaries are the likes of the RIAA and MPAA, not the Chinese government. You’ll get better performance from a VPN, and BitTorrent really hurts Tor.

  7. Tony Hoyle

    @David

    Yes, if you bittorrent via a VPN then all traffic would have to go via that VPN (otherwise there would be no point).

    This means their endpoints have to handle the total traffic in both directions (uploads too..) for every user they support.. The whole point of p2p was supposed to be that it pushed the bandwidth load onto the clients, rather than having a central server getting hit - they just reversed that completely.

    I can't see this getting out of beta to be honest.

  8. Steve

    @ Dave Barrett

    You had me up to this point,

    "That said I dont have a problem with people downloading copywritten material, just dont leach all of my bandwidth at the weekends!"

    The only bandwidth anyone uses is that for which they have paid their ISP. Much as I have tried, it has been impossible for me to use more bandwidth than this.

  9. Benny
    Happy

    I think there was a point to this....

    "Odds are, the average Pirate Bayer won't pay €5 for anything"

    Hmmmmm, well I would disagree. I tend to use it as a 'filtering' service.

    - If its a good song, with a good album, I'll buy it - kinda like the radio...

    - If its just a good song ,well I most prob heard it on the radio first, so I wouldnt have gone to buy it unless I heard it, and if I like it I will buy it...again, kinda like the radio..

    - I would say same for movies, but the crap that comes out now, I actually cant be bothered to even contemplate downloading them, let alone buy them!

    - Software I kinda draw the line at, I do feel bad for the guys that have spent time developing it to have it ripped off...although I don't own a legit copy of photoshop (I will, I just need to save up for a while.....quite a while...)

    Anyway, my point is, you cant lump us all in the same boat!

    (And I may be slightly tipsy)

  10. Ross Fleming
    Paris Hilton

    Virtual ISP?

    Won't this make TPB a sort of Virtual ISP and therefore fall under the same laws they're trying to avoid?

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Heart

    No really..

    It should only be considered illegal if people are profiting from free content. As long as one doesn't use this to earn money but for leisure of themselves it should be fine.

  12. andy_p

    p2p vpn

    They'd probably try to move all p2p traffic onto the vpn, not just the trackers. That would avoid snooping and throttling by any isp doing deep packet inspection. It would also avoid any one organisation having to pay for all that bandwidth, as well as removing the single point of failure.

    However, what's to stop the music industry or Davenport Lyons spending their €5 under an assumed name, and moving into the darknet too? They'd then have access to all the sharers again, and be able to carry on their usual activities.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So I pay and leave a trail?

    The way some copyright holders behave, I don't want to make a payment. It leaves a trail.

    It could also make a legal mess for TPB.

    I find a BitTorrent can give me a better recording than I can get off-air, as the local geography is awkward,but since you inevitably upload, it's a poor excuse.

    And I downloaded the Linux distro I'm using by BitTorrent. I doubt anyone can be sure which BT packets are legal and which not.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    WTF?

    "But here at The Reg, we question whether the IPREDator is much more than a play-on-words. Odds are, the average Pirate Bayer won't pay €5 for anything."

    That is precisely the kind of arse baggery that the MPAA/RIAA and would come out with, did it escape your notice that the movie industry just had its first billon dollar month ?

    A crap load of studies and surveys have time and again shown that a chunk of downloaders are actually the biggest customers, time and again these downloaders have said that they often buy what they like. My own DVD shelf is a proof of point, something like 80% of the 250ish DVD's I own were downloaded first. I download and filter the shit then buy the ones that I liked. I can't afford to buy every single movie I liked, some you just don't want to watch again, but fuck me, I have in excess of 200 DVD's, I am pretty certain thats way above "normal".

    I don't buy music, but then I don't download it either. I do donate to shareware, in fact this last week I just sent donations to a couple of WoW addon authors (Macaroon and Carbonite).

    The crux of this comment is that I don't think I am unusual at all, I think I'm fairly typical and if it reaches a point where I need to pay for a VPN (if I used pirate bay for instance) I wouldn't hesitate, in fact via a VPN is the only reason I would use a public tracker and if its a little as 5euro then great.

    Now climb out of the *AA's arses and check reality, no movie boss is going hungry, they are fucking breaking records. Yes I'm annoyed at being accused of being a cheap ass pirate, what I am is sick of paying £10-£15 for a turd of a movie when I then can't return it.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Libraries and author's copyright

    The government makes an annual contribution to a fund from which authors whose books were lent out by public libraries, are reimbursed. This works in a similar fashion to airplay on radio stations. The more your book is borrowed at the country's public libraries, the more you get, up to a limit. There are only five or six authors in this country who ever hit that limit because they are exceedingly popular. JK Rowling is one of them.

    So even authors get reimbursed for their efforts when their work is publicly made available.

  16. Michael

    libraries

    pay out to the authors for every time someone lends a book. So it is paid for.

    Radio and TV is paid for.

  17. Sean Baggaley
    Flame

    Yes, really...

    "It should only be considered illegal if people are profiting from free content. As long as one doesn't use this to earn money but for leisure of themselves it should be fine." - AC (03.20)

    You know, even back in the days of the travelling harpers of Ireland, composers and entertainers were treated with more respect than you've suggested.

    Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci and Turlough O'Carolan were all *recompensed* for their work. And copyright didn't even exist back then.

    Explain, please, why you demand people provide you with free entertainment. Go on. I'm listening.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Sean Baggaley

    Respect is earned. The music industry deserves zero respect.

  19. John

    Sure

    Some people seem confused about how this is going to work...

    A secure VPN such as the one suggested won't allow people to find other user's IPs, as your VPN IP will be something like 10.x.x.x or 192.168.x.x, and gets translated as your 'real' IP by TPB's endpoint.

    So people with real IPs will be talking only to TPB's VPN endpoint, and people who have the service too will use only internal IPs, like a regular LAN.

    No one but TPB's VPN endpoint will get your IP.

    Naturally, *all* traffic will have to be sent via VPN. Upload and download - all tracker info and all data.

    If the RIAA is part of the swarm, they already know what you're downloading, they just need your IP.

    On the other hand - your ISP will see a lot of traffic to TPB's server.

    It can't prove that you are downloading illegal files, but in England anyway, i don't think it will be too long before ISP's are required to send this sort of 'evidence' about suspected copyright infringers to copyright holders, and warrant is given to search the persons PC.

    At the end of the day, as long as there are IPs which identify you on the internet, you can and will be identified on the internet. End of.

  20. Damien Thorn

    have a spade

    heres a spade for them to dig there stupid tunnels.

    I could make a killing on bit torrent - if they allowed advertising funded downloads. Shame the record companies cant see that too.

  21. ken jay

    looks dodgy

    i think i will wait till april the 2nd to make judgement :)

  22. Mike

    @Sean Baggaley

    how about for the same reason i provide people with free software? one of my old programs had about 10-20 million downloads, which i paid for (hosting costs for a couple of servers for a few years...), i'd never charge someone for copies of something i'd made, charge for providing a service sure, but not for copying a file... charging for services is the only way to make money, and so it should be because that's the only way that's fair

    keep paying someone over and over again for making a copy of something they did earlier? what a joke...

    regarding the VPN service... erm, OVH can give you a server with a pretty decent connection (shared but certainly not over subscribed too much, 100Mbit burst i believe 8Mbit 95%ile) for £11.49/month - they are the cheapest i've seen however it's not exactly uncommon, just get 3-4 people to "club together" and you can set up your own dedicated VPN server cheap enough (i run a couple of tor nodes at OVH which push a constant 5-10Mbit 24/7, only reason they don't push more is lack of demand, the bandwidth is there when i go to use it)

  23. kissingthecarpet

    Why do musicians

    or actors or record company executives deserve to make more than an average salary?

    Answer - they don't.

  24. Colin

    @ kissingthecarpet

    To answer your question about the musicians, singers, authors and song writers and all the other creative types I completely disagree with your answer. These people have talents beyond the understanding of the average joe and as such they deserve to be paid very well for those talents, any idiot can serve a customer in a shop but, if you asked the average joe working in a burger joint to write a song and they could not do it. That is why they deserve more than the average salary.

    As for the record company executives et al, on the other hand I completely agree with your answer. Those scum sucking maggots wouldn't know what talent was if it bit them on the ass. They demand we fork out vast amounts of money for something that they cannot create, did not create and could not create. They are parasites on the butt of humanity and deserve nothing other than our scorn and insults.

  25. b166er

    FTW

    I think services like these will thrive and the price will come down to more like 2 euros.

    This will also prevent people like Phorm from making a living. Who would you rather give your money to, a VPN provider or Phorm? 'Cos it's gonna end up being one or the other. ISP's can't be trusted (don't need the hassle) and everyone else wants to know what you're up to.

  26. Noel Coward

    greed

    There were times long long ago when actors, artists et al got paid less than a normal living wage. Ironically these periods coincide with periods of great human creativity.

    Many of the great artists and musicians society venerates were little more than paupers during their lifetime. Many of these artists would also have argued that the accumulation of wealth and capital only serves to distract one from one's ability to create.

    An artist should love the things she creates not the money they generate.

    It is time these huge corporations are stopped. They monopolize the channels of distrubution and encourage an explosion of material of dubious worth created solely for the generation of cash.

    Go TPB and Vive Les Situationistes Internationales

  27. Andrew Norton
    Pirate

    What again isn't mentioned

    Is that under IPRED, alleged copyright infringers have LESS rights than alleged drug dealers, or alleged murderers. And I'll also remind you, copyright infringement is for the most part a civil law matter, and after 10 years of campaigns, not a single 'p2p is stealing' group has YET proved any of their claims with actual figures.

    There is one word the describes IPRED simply, and that's CORRUPTION

    We'll see how things change after the EU elections. Vote PIRATE!

    Andrew Norton

    Pirate Party International

  28. B Candler Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    Err, there's a flaw here

    > The service costs €5 per month, and the swashbuckling Swedes say they

    > will collect no personal data if you sign up. Um, well, other than an email address.

    How are they collecting payment without a credit card number, name and address? Are people sending 5 euro notes in the mail every month, along with a piece of paper with their E-mail address written on it?

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Home taping is killing music

    Should be dead by now, given that this was 30 years ago. No, hang on, we'll screw them on CD sales for years just in case home taping does kill it. What!? they're copying it for free? Bast*rds

  30. David Barrett

    @B Candler

    Paypal?

  31. BigSanta
    Dead Vulture

    @Cormac O'Donnell

    >. The only exception to this model is the BBC which does not get revenue via advertising "in the UK, online or on air"<

    Corrected that mistake for you !

  32. Dan
    Joke

    April fools?

    This is clearly an april fools.

    Law comes out on 1st april?

    Wikipedia article created on 27th march?

  33. David Barrett

    @Steve

    Actually on normal connections the contention ratio is around 50:1 which means that my 8mb line is shared by 50 other people... So if they all want to get the latest episode of lost at the same time as me Im screwed... same for you and any one else who cant afford a leased line :)

    Even on business connections the ratio is 20:1 so thats not really worth the added expence.

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @AC

    "It should only be considered illegal if people are profiting from free content. As long as one doesn't use this to earn money but for leisure of themselves it should be fine."

    So I can steal your car and dump it, as long as I dont sell it we are all square? Yes? Please send address and leave keys near the front door.

    Cheers

  35. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Ohh honestly get a grip!

    Guys, understand P2P and VPN technology please.

    The VPN does not have to be a full VPN to achieve what these crooks at the piratebay are trying to do. They are trying to hide the identity of the people that connect to their network, this stops the boys in-between from seeing what's going on and therefore they cannot identify each individual request for torrents. A split-tunnel-vpn can be used - You 'can' then continue to connect P2P with the other like-minded criminal downloaders like yourself and share data un-encrypted. Or they could create a second(..third...fourth) VPN to each 'chunk' holder and transfer these chunks encrypted. Or they can do as suggested here, and remove the P2P element entirely - very unlikely.

    In the second multi-vpn example the actual traffic is also encrypted and difficult to determine the contents as a third-party snooper.

    So for the future... Dont underestimate the power of the recording industry.

    What I suspect will begin to happen is that the chaps at the DPI manufacturers work out patterns and rules to spot what 'might' be illegal downloads inside a VPN. e.g. large quantities of traffic from 'home' listed IPs and not business connections / hosting will trigger a 'monitor' of the traffic. Once this happens, all they have to do is determine that you connected to Pirate Bay (or similar) first, then connected to large numbers of 'home' connectons and print a request for a court order to inspect your computers storage. If they at this point discover you are 'clean' you will be ok, but if they discover one dodgy download, your in for a rough ride, a fine, a criminal record or a stretch inside for repeat offences. In some countries you can be banned from accessing the internet for extended periods (see: some Peado Restrictions in the UK!).

    Whilst the laws in many countries will currently prevent these sorts of random 'no proof' raids, dont expect the laws remaining this way for much longer!

    Basically they will get you, and in the process I will lose some of my privacy rights. And this REALLY pisses me off that once again you criminals (otherwise known as freetards) will have fucked it up for the rest of us. THANKS!

    As for the legality of being a P2P freedard this is best left to the legal boys, but my understanding of copyright stuff is that most P2P traffic is thieved by P2P freetards and it is quite clear to me that the artists (and their route to market Studios/Distributors) are being ripped off by them.

    I personally like to get paid in my job, and expect my employer to pay me for my work/time. I therefore refuse to download material that I am not paying for, as these artists are also 'workers' (of a slightly different sort it may be argued, but workers none-the-less).

    So, if a product I want is too expensive for my pocket... guess what, I don't purchase or ever own it (unless some nice person gifts it to me legally). This is why I also do not own a Ferrari or even a Learjet.

    I like most responsible and law abiding members of society believe in this set of rules. You criminal leechers clearly do not, and anything the authorities can do to prosecute you I am happy with!

    My personal feeling is that these P2P channels that exist that are clearly breaking the law should be warned a number of times and then shut down. And if the country the service exists in does not have these laws, then the local law should allow and force ISPs to block access to these IP addresses entirely and forever, as well as all Proxies. Whilst this does mean that some 'legit' services get killed in the crossfire, this is life, especially in our violent world of today.

    If society begins to understand and believe that you freetards are criminals (basically thieves) and we begin to ostracise you the world will become a better place. Personally, I treat you chaps like drunk drivers... I shop you and feel all the better for it.

  36. Mark

    @Ohh honestly get a grip!

    "Dont underestimate the power of the recording industry."

    You're shitting me right? They have failed miserably at combating this. Lots of high profile legal ballsups dragging kids and grannies through the courts. They've paid off their buddies in Govt to right new laws that will still have little chance of success at defeating online piracy. At least the music industry had a short moment of clarity and decided to provide non-DRM music.

    Online piracy is like terrorism in that it needs to be defeated in part by hearts and minds not purely by the use of heavy ordnance. You can't keep coming up with big stick laws whilst trying to sell people vastly overpriced DRM encumbered shit. There has to be some incentive for them to go legal. End of.

    As for...

    "If society begins to understand and believe that you freetards are criminals (basically thieves) and we begin to ostracise you the world will become a better place. Personally, I treat you chaps like drunk drivers... I shop you and feel all the better for it."

    You sir are an ignorant twat with over-simplistic views of the problem. Sure, some people are ponces (every society has them) but the vast majority would be won over by quality at a reasonable price (non DRM of course). The industry just wants to run it's historic rip-off model ad-infinitum though.

    When you dribble on about being a law abiding member of society who believes in the rule of law etc just remember that it's now illegal to protest outside of Parliament so best hope you never have a grievance eh?

  37. Pete
    Flame

    @Colin

    Ask a fucking musician to write a piece of software then...

    They cant? OH GNOS!

    So why aren't i paid $20m a year then?

  38. Steve

    Re: Ohh, honestly...

    Did you get lost on the way to the Daily Mail?

  39. Michael Lauzon

    They Can't Charge For This, As They'll End Up In Court Again....

    If they are going to charge money for this, they'll be in court again and this time the prosecution will have a case...if they don't charge any money and make this VPN free then it would be better for everyone; but we know something is going to happen.

  40. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Pete

    >So why aren't i paid $20m a year then?

    Because they have a rare talent, whereas stacks of people can do what you do.

  41. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    @ Chris

    A musician records a song and sells the CD, they get paid. If a radio station buys the CD and plays it, they get paid again every time it is played. Listening to the radio at work I have to have a PRS license so the musician gets paid again. You say "These people have talents beyond the understanding of the average joe and as such they deserve to be paid very well for those talents, any idiot can serve a customer in a shop but, if you asked the average joe working in a burger joint to write a song and they could not do it."

    I work for a company that sells classic car parts. We have ,for example, a company that makes seats for us. It has taken these people years to become quality upholsterers. They make seats using talents beyond the understanding of most of the muppets in the music industry. They make a seat and we buy it. They don't get paid again when we sell it. They don't get paid again every time the buyer sits in it. The guy who designed the seat doesn't get paid every time a new one is made, or every time someone sits in one, and I bet he had design talents.

    Why should musicians (and actors) get paid multiple for something they only make once?

  42. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    @AC 22:57 GMT

    Sorry, could you qualify your comments by telling us which part of the music mafia you are involved with? Although you do make an interesting comment which also makes me think you are part of the music mafia, is that anybody using a high bandwidth MUST be downloading. It’s an… ahem… “interesting” assumption that anybody who pays for, and uses a high capacity broadband connection must be doing something illegal.

    I cannot help wondering what your next suggestion might be, automatically give all motorists 4 penalty points, after all they have a car, they must be drunk drivers.

    What amazes me is that (so far) nobody has commented on the fast that this is a escalation of the internet cold war, an arms race between a couple of different factions, each working to counter the efforts of the other.

    Uploading a broken torrent and seeing who else uploads is is not a new way of harvesting IP address, the music mafia have being doing that for years now. The move to the VPN is a partial attempt to counter that tactic, ISPs throttle P2P traffic by illegally faking reset packets to break the connection , so BitTorrent protocol plans to move to UDP, deep packet inspection, encrypt your traffic, and so on. As fast as the pigopolists come up new ways of fighting copyright infringement their counterparts come up with a way circumventing any new scheme. The net result is a zero gain for the media mafia and a more restricted use of the internet.

    "Dont underestimate the power of the recording industry." Hahahahahahahahaha!!!! That’s up there with General John Sedgwick “They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist. . . .”, what I don’t underestimate in the music mafia’s money and ability to “lobby” (is that a polite word for bribe) the legislators to change the law to allow the music mafia to ride rough shod over basic human rights. The only solution left to the music mafia is, as AC suggests, is to assume anybody using a broadband connection is breaking the civil copyright law, so much for basic human rights such as the presumption of innocence.

    Isn’t about time that these fuckwits in the music industry realise that they have lost the war and that they need to embrace the new technology, it’s an opportunity, not a problem. Even when companies that try to sell legitimate music they get sued for “copyright infringement” i.e. CD-Wow, because they are not ripping off Joe Public for an extra £2 just because a CD has a “European” copyright licence instead of an “Asian” copyright licence.

    So you see all this talk of copyright infringement is total bollix, it’s about the music monopoly screwing the public for the maximum profit.

    And don’t even get me started about shit like the Sony BMG rootkit fiasco!

    Paris, who also likes to screw in public

  43. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @ JonB

    I so want to agree with you in principle, but then I consider the likes of Britney Spears and Grrrls Aloud, and I just wonder how they get through the net... :-\

  44. Steve Swann
    Stop

    @JonB & Others

    Those who write the music and perform it are not the ones who profit endlessly. That privilege goes to the 'Right Holder' who is normally the record producer or publisher. The artist actually sees very little of the profits of their own work (around 3% - 5% is usual).

    The vigorous defence of copyright that we are seeing is the act of a desperate industry; an industry that refuses to move with the times. The days of vinyl are over and the days of the CD are numbered, since 'single' sales are now a thing of the past and album sales are quickly following. The games industry is worth more than movies and music put together, and you don't see EA (by way of example) pursuing so-called 'freetards' through the courts, do you?

    Why is this?

    Because the games industry, by its very nature, has moved with the times. Games now incorporate online features that are accesible only via authorised cd-keys and so forth. Whilst you might pirate a game, you won't get the 'full package' as a general rule these days. The games industry has adapted and has survived.

    The music industry on the other hand is living in the past, desperately attempting to protect its massive, over-inflated profits (just look at the cost of music in the UK to anywhere else in the world and tell me that they aren't grossly profiteering!)

    As I have said before on this subject, in previous threads, it's time for artists to wake up to the same opportunities that game authors are now taking advantage of; If i were a professional musician (instead of the amateur that I am), I'd consider writing my music and making it available as a download from my own website for a small, shareware-like, fee. Why bother with a 'recording company' these days?

    oh, and to wrap up, I bet if I went into McD's and asked the staff to write songs, I'd get two or three songs from each and every store. Like novels, everyone has a song in them somewhere, and I don't consider it a measure of either talent or success just because someone has been 'discovered' on X-Factor-Pop-Idol-On-Ice and handed a recording contract by a big media and advertising conglomerate.

    There are thousands of small, independant artists out there. Lets hear more from them and less crap from the plastic corporate music moguls!

  45. DR

    €5 a month

    it occurs to me that unless you are downloading prolifically your €5 a month would be better spent actually buying CDs or movies.

    but I fear that the article may be right, for the average person who is just downloading for the sake of it, this may well be too much to pay for.

  46. Mike
    Paris Hilton

    Talent? @Colin

    >>These people have talents beyond the understanding of the average joe

    Not really, talent rarely comes into it, saleability is the comodity they have, I have found that the average session musician has far more actual musical talent than those that are famous for their music.

    As pointed out above, there are far more rare skills which are hardly ever rewarded, but vacuous popular "artists" get rewarded in vast quantities for talents which ARE very common, with advertising, showmanship, production (basically investment) they become popular and the investment of the record companies pay dividends.

    Don't get me wrong, there are talented popular musical artists, but please don't assume that just because they are popular and work hard at what they do that they have any musical talent whatsoever.

    I wonder, if the music industry was less about saleability and more about talent, would people be more likely to pay for it? personally I think that if the music was truely artistic and less disposable then people would give it more respect, but as it is, the downloaders pay what it's worth (nothing), I paid a lot for my original Dylan and Joy Division albums (as they are worth it), who will be looking back with the same affection on their SClub 7 albums? (ps. Britney is a real artist, in a different era she would have far more respect and a far less manufactured catalog of music, she is very misunderstood).

  47. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    @andy Barber

    Public Library = Public Lending Rights.

    Google.

  48. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @ Sean Baggaley

    "You know, even back in the days of the travelling harpers of Ireland, composers and entertainers were treated with more respect than you've suggested.

    Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci and Turlough O'Carolan were all *recompensed* for their work. And copyright didn't even exist back then.

    Explain, please, why you demand people provide you with free entertainment. Go on. I'm listening."

    Each and every one of those you named were paid for live performancies or original versions. No one is saying artists shouldn't be allowed to carry on doing live performances or selling originals.

    This is the crux of the problem. Most artists nowadays believe they should only have to do a few days work in the studio once every couple of years and maybe 4 or 5 evenings performances a year and are pushing to get paid for this 90 years on. They already get paid for it 50 years on.

    This is why people have a problem with it. All the artists you mention got paid for actually working - doing live performances or creating originals. Not for copies of the acts or works that cost no one anything to produce.

    The fact is, as demonstrated by how quickly tickets sell out, the demand exists for these various forms of entertainment, but the supply is not provided yet despite not being willing to provide the supply to fill the demand they still expect to get paid millions.

    If artists actually worked 37hrs+ a week like the rest of us (even if they still got their high wages) I'd have more sympathy for them. But seeing as they only work a few hours a year and get paid far more than most I have zero sympathy.

    If they want more money they can fucking work for it like the rest of us and not expect us to pay them for not working - that's what dole scroungers do.

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