File Sharing Quote of the Day

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It is sad that a quote like the one below comes not from an entertainment industry lawyer but from a rock-n-roll legend like Gene Simmons. Those of you with a weak stomach may want to look away from the computer screen now:

Make sure your brand is protected. Make sure there are no incursions. Be litigious. Sue everybody. Take their homes, their cars. Don't let anybody cross that line. The music industry was asleep at the wheel, and didn't have the balls to sue every fresh-faced, freckle-faced college kid who downloaded material. And so now we're left with hundreds of thousands of people without jobs. There's no industry.
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I hate to say this, but most of the musicians are idiots. They were the ones asleep at the wheel while the record exec's were making their money. Most musicians make their cash from touring, not CD's....
 
That's besides the point Cobra. His quote isn't without legitimacy. It's just like with software/game piracy, people don't realize that the "drop in the bucket" kind of effect they think they're having on a company actually hurts the people that work (or would work) for that company and it's compounded by more and more people following suit.
 
The musicians signed the dotted line that doomed their career.. People just found a way to not have to sell out of crap..
 
The Cobra said:
I hate to say this, but most of the musicians are idiots. They were the ones asleep at the wheel while the record exec's were making their money. Most musicians make their cash from touring, not CD's....
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I really WANT musicians to be paid and I am AGAINST pirating music...but quotes like this really just hurt a musician's cause.

I honestly wish the industry could cut out the real parasites of the industry (the RIAA and pirates) and musicians would get MORE of their own money. Hell, without the two aforementioned parasites in the equation, an artist could sell a CD for $3 - $5 and make quadruple what they get now.


:(
 
Meh, if I made my money with music I'd sue the pants off people infringing my copyrights as well. Congress has decided to create civil actions instead of criminal laws, so the only enforcement is a lawsuit.

That being said, it's not a good business model to sue everybody out there. They need to find a way to get us to buy their music if they want to survive, suing everyone and the mother isn't going to sustain them.
 
Somehow I doubt it's a bunch of 'fresh-faced college kids' who make up the majority of Gene Simmons fan clubs.

For all the talk of piracy, how is it that the movie industry is breaking record every record with new releases (things people actually want to watch) when their stuff is pirated too? You make something people want, and it'll sale. Even if there is a pirated copy out there, it'll still sell. Halo had a pirated, leaked version long before release, and it went on to break records for revenue in the first 24 hours.
 
It's an outdated idea and nearly impossible to stop the pirates.
Also you can't justify sueing for 10000000 because someone downloaded 2gb and if only 1 out of 10000000 pirates actually gets in trouble it's not going to end any time soon.
 
gene simmons is nothing but about his brand, so this is hardly surprising.

but really I see nothing new here, musicians have been complaining forever that they make nothing from album sales but only from touring, and this complaint is from 30+ years ago.

kiss might be the exception at it because of his excellent brand management. for most other musicians ("pirate my album") it is same shit different day.

as a fan i'd love to support the musicians I listen to, but the reality is that the money goes to sony or whoever owns the "brand" and virtually nothing to them
 
I've got to be honest. I popped in a rented DVD the other day and up comes this fancy commercial about how you wouldn't steal a car, why would you download movies/music? And I thought to myself, if I could download a Corvette/M3/Ferrari from the internet, which would be duplicated without cost and without damaging the original, damn straight I would be stealing cars.
 
Too bad Kiss didn't make their money from Albums, they made it from their Concerts, which you can't bootleg....prick.
 
what happen to doing it for the music? it is not like these guys have a hard life. they dont need to weasel every penny possible.

when it comes to musicians i dont even consider gene simmons one. kiss is nothing but a rock and roll boy band. they put on a good show and sell merchandise. they are a gimmick any way you look at it. you dont see the great musicians sinking to this level, you see mediocre ones that are scared because they feel like they got lucky and managed to hold on to it.


it isn't like they work for free.

you do what you love, become a super star famous around the world, make millions and still want more. really these asshole need to learn when enough is enough. no one has pity for them. just disgust. seriously why cant they been happy they already have everything, fuck them.
 
Steve said:
It is sad that a quote like the one below comes not from an entertainment industry lawyer but from a rock-n-roll legend like Gene Simmons. Those of you with a weak stomach may want to look away from the computer screen now:
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I suspect Gene has been using the same general method of trying to shock people in order to bring attention to himself since he learnd his first swear word as a toddler nearly 60 years ago. I see he is still sticking with the tried and true, and that it seems to still be working for him. He's made many millions of dollars stirring up controversy and bringing attention to himself.

Pissing off a lot of people who pirate music is just more free advertising. It's not like the pirates are exactly his target market. It's kind of like stirring up the Religious Right with KISS. They weren't going to put money in his pocket directly, but they sure helped him advertise to the rest of the world.

People have been telling him the backlash will destroy him for decades and he has been laughing his way to the bank over and over again.

You have to at some level admire him, or at least be amused by him. He has found something that works, and he does it in a flamboyant way. If you can't find his antics amusing then maybe you have some underlying guilt issues about stealing music. :eek: :D
 
Yea, technology is a bitch, Gene. A whole industry of unnecessary workers replaced by the Internet. Now STFU and climb back into your hole. Consumers have choice, now. We don't have to buy filler, we only buy good music.

Old as dirt components of the music industry: 0
Society: 1
 
At the end of the day, you can no longer charge 15-20 for a CD and make any money, because people won't pay for it with the alternative of essentially free music. Compared to 10 years ago.


The music industry price fixed (yes it's confirmed, they got in trouble for it) and gouged CD prices in the 90's essentially destroying their market.

The cat is out of the bag and the solution no longer exists.

The industry is in shambles, he's right. And now there is no way back.





The turning point was napster. It had a near monopoly on it. When that went down the "pirates" scattered and now playing whack a mole is futile.

If they had purchased napster, or worked out some kind of pay model chances are you wouldn't have the explosion of torrents and other file sharing sites that are now a dime a dozen.

They did certainly try to monetize napster, but it was to late at that point. They destroyed the brand and its viability in the process. They already drove piracy into a more decentralized structure. They turned an opportunity into a liability.


Now people are to used to getting free music. It's nearly everyone who has or does download music. From senators to soccer moms.
 
Where would Gene Simmons be if nobody bought or viewed his merchandise - spun out on drugs and making minimum wage?
 
the less musicians/actors there are to waste money on private jets, plastic surgery and scientology the better.
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gesicht said:
what happen to doing it for the music? it is not like these guys have a hard life. they dont need to weasel every penny possible.

when it comes to musicians i dont even consider gene simmons one. kiss is nothing but a rock and roll boy band. they put on a good show and sell merchandise. they are a gimmick any way you look at it. you dont see the great musicians sinking to this level, you see mediocre ones that are scared because they feel like they got lucky and managed to hold on to it.


it isn't like they work for free.

you do what you love, become a super star famous around the world, make millions and still want more. really these asshole need to learn when enough is enough. no one has pity for them. just disgust. seriously why cant they been happy they already have everything, fuck them.
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Gene Simmons is a performer. Since part of the image he has created is stirring up controversy I don't see why anyone is surpirsed by him making such over the top comments. He may be a mediocre musician, but he's great at marketing himself.

Why should he not want to make more money? Of course he doesn't work for free, why should he? Who the hell are you to say when enough is enough for him?

If you don't like his music, don't listen to it. If you don't like his TV show, don't watch it. If you don't like his self aggrandizing antics, ignore them. He's doing fine making a living off of people how apparently do like something about what he has done.

As for him suing music pirates, I haven't actually seen him do it, but even if he did, it is his legal right. Copyright was established by Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution. While the whole limited time part seems to have gotten distorted, it is his constitutional right to have control over how how and to whom his works are distributed. We have no right to take what he produced just because we don't want to pay what he demands for using it, or because we decide he has already made enough.

He may be a self agrandizing, pompus, pig, but at least on this issue he has the legal and moral high ground. If you think he want to much don't buy it. But if you decide to steal it instead of paying for it, it is your greed that is the issue, not his. It's his work. He has a constitutionally protected right to place whatever value on it he chooses.
 
HalifaxPete said:
Where would Gene Simmons be if nobody bought or viewed his merchandise - spun out on drugs and making minimum wage?
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Where would you be if no one hired you?

He has made a career out of marketing himself. He thrives on controversy. The more he upsents some people the more he makes off of other people. He has done it time and time again and it keeps working for him.

He's producing something that a lot of people out there seem to want. Other than some amusement value, I personally see little real value in what he does. I've never bought his music or really listened to it much either. But I can't argue with results. Whatever he's doing works for him.
 
I don't condone piracy or theft in any way , shape or form. That said my estimation of Simmons just went way down. I understand the need to protect what's yours, but seriously ? hundreds of thousands of people out of work because of piracy ? :rolleyes:
 
The Cobra said:
I hate to say this, but most of the musicians are idiots. They were the ones asleep at the wheel while the record exec's were making their money. Most musicians make their cash from touring, not CD's....
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QFT

There are dozens of E! THS that show groups, bands and singers that generated millions, yet they got next to nothing in royalties from the record company.
 
The Cobra said:
I hate to say this, but most of the musicians are idiots. They were the ones asleep at the wheel while the record exec's were making their money. Most musicians make their cash from touring, not CD's....
Click to expand...

well the majority of "musicians" are puppets who dont create their own material anyway
 
My god....



Gene Simmons is still alive?



In other words...who gives a crap what that old bastard has to say. Kiss has to be making so much from their concerts and merchandise sales that CD sales would be a drop in the bucket in comparison, even after adding in pirated copies.
 
The parasites are the record companies. Dinosaur musicians that stick to that model will get burned and I have no sympathy for that.

New musicians recognize the power of filesharing for marketing. They realize that they get a ton of money from touring. That social media and filesharing will drive their popularity and income potential. They realize that they can make much more money out of direct download or cheap music services like itunes, etc. or self distribution through online sources and social media allows them to reap even more benefits.
 
First... You didn't know Gene Simmons was a dick before this?

Second... Gene Simmons and KISS stopped being about the music sometime back in the late '70s. Sure, they've had a few good songs, but they're more about the theatrics and selling non-music-related stuff. Therefore, I really couldn't care less about what he has to say about the music industry.

As a musician myself, I feel I'm qualified to state this: What fucked the music industry is that it fought technology instead of embracing it. Had the record companies jumped on the MP3 bandwagon when the technology first popped up (back in the days of the Diamond Rio and before Napster), they could've made a metric fuckton of money. Instead, they left it to Apple years later with the iPod and iTunes, and even then they fought it.

Musicians are better off going sans record company. If you have the room, setting up a home recording studio isn't that expensive anymore and you can put out high-quality tunes and distribute them yourself on iTunes and other channels.
 
GilmourD said:
First... You didn't know Gene Simmons was a dick before this?

Second... Gene Simmons and KISS stopped being about the music sometime back in the late '70s. Sure, they've had a few good songs, but they're more about the theatrics and selling non-music-related stuff.
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It should also be noted that that's pretty much when they released their one and only disco album, and they instantly realized that one single bad pathetic album had the ability to instantly kill a career. Thank God they had a gimmick and a stage show.

(Can't believe Slipknot shows that a generation later, this still works...)
 
Stoly said:
QFT

There are dozens of E! THS that show groups, bands and singers that generated millions, yet they got next to nothing in royalties from the record company.
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Billy Joel's story certainly takes the cake...

Then again, it's hard to believe any man with some level of education would actually sign the contract he signed... It borders on trying to decide if you pity the man, or just find him to be a pitiful man...

Sure has banged some hotties, though...
 
"Take their homes, their cars."

Wow. I don't think I will ever buy anything KISS ever again.
 
IRSmurf said:
Yea, technology is a bitch, Gene. A whole industry of unnecessary workers replaced by the Internet. Now STFU and climb back into your hole. Consumers have choice, now. We don't have to buy filler, we only buy good music.

Old as dirt components of the music industry: 0
Society: 1
Click to expand...

Consumers always had a choice. Buy the music under the terms the right holder dictated, or don't buy it.

Copyright is old. It's right there in Article I Section 8 of the US Constitution. The whole limited time thing has been horribly abused, and there has definitely been some collusion by the music industry to keep album prices high over the years, but that doesn't justify stripping the rights of the authors of those works. It doesn't justify the theft of the works of others.

The problem is one of greed. People want music that they aren't willing to pay for so they steal it. They steal it because realistically there is very little chance they will get caught and punished for it. It really is that simple.

A truely competitive market in which pepole were forced to actually pay for music they want would likely result in lower prices in general, but they way it is now is unfair to both the artists, and those paying inflated prices for music because they happen to be honest.

Our Federal Government has an obligation to protect the rights of those authors over their creative works, and it is doing a piss poor job of it. They have abused their authority to keep Mickey Mouse from going into the public domain, but have done very little to stop mass piracy of copyrighted works. They pay lip service to the recording industry and pass laws that are often cumbersome but ineffectual. They take steps that make reasonable fair use a royal pain in the ass, but they do very little to stop copyright theft in general. Maybe that's because there is no good solution. It is very hard to balance effective enforcement and privacy. The government has left enforcement of copyright up to the rights holders excersizing their rights in civil court, which is a horrible, ineffective, and generally unbalanced approach. They can't sue everybody, so statutory damages have been set high enough to be a deterrant. They aren't really detering many, but the few that do get sued get hit for damages that are not porportional to their actions.

Our legal system has broken down with concern to Copyright. Our laws are a joke. Enforcement of them is a joke. That does not make for a fair and equitible society. It make it unfair for both the rights holders and the few that get sued.
 
Hi
i read your post . but i don't think its to good to bye or sale .
I really WANT musicians to be paid and I am AGAINST pirating music...but quotes like this really just hurt a musician's cause.
 
There's no better way than for Gene Simmons to voice his opinion and make people feel like a sucker to have bought any of his music. The guy is lost in the past, it seems as though he hates his future customers and would rather steal from them than put out an honest days work.
 
Spare-Flair said:
New musicians recognize the power of filesharing for marketing. They realize that they get a ton of money from touring. That social media and filesharing will drive their popularity and income potential. They realize that they can make much more money out of direct download or cheap music services like itunes, etc. or self distribution through online sources and social media allows them to reap even more benefits.
Click to expand...

So musicians should be forced to earn a living though touring because a bunch of theives feel they have a right to steal what they produce.

So what if the artists don't want to spend their lives on tour busses? What if they want to have a family? Be part of a community? Raise kids? Actually have a home they get to go to at the end of the day?

Maybe you are young enough that you can't grap that living on a tour bus and going from one party to the next has limited appeal the dies off pretty quickly for most people. Ever wonder why the music industry is full of druggies and people with serious mental and emotional issues? It seems obvious to me that touring is a big factor.

Our laws, firmly grounded in the US Constitution for a change, clearly grant the authors the right to determine how their creative works are sold and licensed. It is their choice. We as consumers get the choice of buying it or not buying it. If you think they don't deserve the money, then don't buy it, but don't steal it either. If you want it pay for it.
 
for all these fuck sticks who argue that pirates are killing the industry, they never face the obvious. all these cheap pirates weren't going to buy the album in the first place. there was never a lost sale to begin with. who are they kidding?
 
"There's no industry." So there's no more boy bands or other manufactured pop music. Oh, how I wish it were true.
 
Simmons isn't a musician. Hasn't been for decades. He's a businessman.
 
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