Interview with DIEGO MILESI

Totally, this time it's great to have the opinion from someone "in". he confirms that the problem is really with the labels! as CFE said, look @ Sanny J sales number, he sold more than 7 000copies of his album Dance With Me and re-released it due to the high sales ! it's pretty good for a genre people are supposed to hate..

Fuck the Labels ! one of the worst is probably DIY, they're maybe releasing the compilations DJ Selection, but they just don't believe in italo anymore... but they should remember that it's with Italo that they sold more than thousands of albums/CDM of Molella, HSG, Safeway and MANY more...

Agreed !

And we must keep in mind that downloading music illegally is the same as going into a CD-store and stealing the CD...

Music business isn't in crisis at all they say "yeah omg, cd sells lost 10% this year" but they never tell that thanks to Internet, tons of people are downloading songs legally ! it keeps the balance straight !

All the things around "yeah we're loosing money etc.;" it's just PURE FAKE

Ofc, for small producers, in italo for example, i have to admit, they suffer from the illegal download..but what can we do? nothing..

Anyway personally, i'm buying all the cds from the artists i like (when i can), otherwise i just download..i mean fuck the huge labels, they have enough money, they don't need mine

CFE> Nope, i'm sorry an artists releasing on Universal or Virgin or other big shit have enough money ! so they don't need mine, as i said.. i'm supporting artists like Cascada by..playing them at parties or just listening to them ..that's enough

I get what you're trying to prove, but still... you're wrong
Even if music isn't a material thing that you can actually /take/, doesn't mean you cant steal it. By downloading it for free you get the song without paying the price that you should of if you had bought it.
So it kind of is stealing, cause youre... taking the money the artist never got?

Dano: So you are one of the 10% of people I mention in my other post: a person that likes something that is not tv-popular and that would buy CD's in the recordstore. So we are telling the same!

Respect if downloading is ILLEGAL or its like STEALING...difficult topic.

I think first of all downloading mp3 music now is like an absolutelly normal act in the life of people.
Also I think is not easy to prove that EMULE (for example) is illegal cause its a way to share files...
Also I think that lots of artists know that Internet is bad for them but at the same time they need internet cause the promotion.
In the case of Italodance music, now the artists need completely Internet ...and I think that lots of times they need to "give free" their songs in order to become known. That fact has happened in lots of cases.

In my view, and I repeat, the main problem is that nowadays for the general people the value of any song tends to be zero.

dano wrote:

I get what you're trying to prove, but still... you're wrong Even if music isn't a material thing that you can actually /take/, doesn't mean you cant steal it. By downloading it for free you get the song without paying the price that you should of if you had bought it. So it kind of is stealing, cause youre... taking the money the artist never got?

Legally (and grammatically) speaking to download is not to steal. In a court of law you would not be judged after any property paragraphs, you would be judged after the paragraphs of copyright.

Whether labels and artist lose money due to downloading is a whole other discussion. It's definetely not for sure that people downloading would buy the music if they couldn't download it. In some investigations it has even been proved that people downloading buys more music than people who doesn't download.
Personally I find both explanations valid. I think the general problem is that large labels doesn't promote italo as they used to.

dano wrote:

If the purple teletubbie got online at let's say... musica world () & downloaded the yellow teletubbies newest hit song "We repeat ourselves alot". The price that the purple teletubbie should have payed, was let's say 1 €, which the yellow teletubbie should have recieved & bought that cream thighy the teletubbies always eat. But since the purple teletubbie never payed 1 € & went on musica world instead, the yellow teletubbie never got the creamy thing.

Sum up; The purple teletubbie stole the creamy thing the yellow teletubbie could have got for the song.

Nice example indeed.. Your example only explains why record companies think they lose income.
That's like saying that you expect your dad to buy you an ice cream - he never buys you the ice cream.
According to you, your dad stole your ice cream.. But he never bought you any so how could he have stolen it

You think you lost income (the ice cream), even though nothing was ever taken from you. You just expected income but never got it and therefore think you lost it = you think someone stole something you never got, so you didn't actually have anything anyone could steal.

It's the same with your Teletubbies, the yellow teletubbie expected an income from the purple teletubbie to buy the creamy thing - but never got it. The purple teletubbie didn't take anything from the yellow teletubbie, he just copied property of the yellow teletubbie, so the yellow teletubbie lost expected income. But since what is lost is the expected income the yellow teletubbie doesn't actually lose anything and therefore nothing is stolen. The yellow teletubbie expected to get the creamy thing, but never got it - therefore the purple teletubbie wouldn't be able to steal it either = nothing is stolen, only copied.

This is why you think something is stolen: because the purple teletubbie was supposed to pay, but didn't.

You could compare it to regular customers in a regular store.. before the customers pay, you take their money. Nothing is stolen from the store (the yellow teletubbie) because nothing was ever given to him. he just expected to get paid. The store lost something that was never given to them and therefore didn't lose anything because you can't lose something you don't have!!

Hope you now understand why downloading can't be the same as stealing.

dano wrote:

Yes, yes, i know what you're meaning but it's still some kind of stealing. I don't mean that it's like beating up the old lady next door, taking her car keys & driving away, i mean... let me put it this way; You go to a resturant & order an appetizer, main course & dessert. After you finished eating you suddenly feel like there's no reason to pay & walk away. In that way you dont give the resturant the money they've earned for serving you, and pretty much screw them over. Just like that, the artists dont get the money they should have got if we bought their songs (that they've spent so much time & effort to make ) & didn't download them. We just listen to them, & never pay for them, which we really should since it... has an actual price.

MAKES SENSE?!?!

It makes sense for sure, it is just not right since you can't compare digital crime such as copyright infractions with stolen property because nothing is lost - And I'll be happy to explain yet again why it aint so.

If you order the food, eat it and don't pay you have stolen the food - but that has nothing to do with copyright infraction which downloading is.

On the other hand if you order the food, don't eat it, but copy it (hypothetically) it would be the same as a copyright violation. You make the restaurant cook your food, but you don't eat their food, you eat the copy you just made. The restaurant lost potential income but nothing is stolen.

Downloading is copying, not stealing.

If that was possible I wouldn't hesitate borrowing a lot of video games and dvd movies

It's getting pointless.. I have explained to you why downloading is not stealing both in a legally and a grammatically way and I have explained where your points are wrong in your examples, so if you still believe it's stealing I must say you are quite naive.

And you must understand that there is a clear difference between digital goods and physical goods. It doesn't mean you can steal something just because it has a price and should be paid for. A physical store and a digital store is two very different things, you can steal goods in a physical store but not in a digital store. Bits and bytes on a harddrive it's not something you can steal, you can copy them or you can tear apart the computer and steal the actual harddrive with the music on.

You must also understand that legally stealing has a clear definition. It is very possible that you might take different kinds of situations for stealing but in a legal sense the definition has to be clear and that definition is what I have explained to you. If it wasn't so, judges would have a really hard time judging anyone in a court of law.

Luc and Waust.. if you don't have anything interesting for the discussion to contribute with, please shut up.

And dano I understand you perfectly, I just don't think you understand me or the actual definition of the word "stealing". Let me quote your points:

Basically it all started with the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) claiming that downloading an album would be the same as stealing it in a store. But Unlike what happens off-line, the fact that I have an album in digital format doesn't keep you (and everyone else) from being able to listen to it but on the other hand if I took an album on a CD in a store everyone else would not be able to listen that album. That is why equating copyright violations to theft, as the RIAA and you do, is absurd and intellectually dishonest.

The essential aspect of theft is that something is taken from the owner without his or her permission - you wouldn't call it car theft if your next-door neighbors had a magic device which, by pointing it at your car, would instantaneously create for them a fully functional, identical copy while leaving your car unharmed.

The Supreme Court has even stated in a case from as early as 1985:

Read more about the subject here:
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/800/1036800/riaa-collects-fines-doesnt-pay-artists

You are describing lost income as stealing dano. That is the same as the RIAA are saying. Because people are downloading music they lose income due to people downloading rather than buying. But that's another discussion!!

You can argue that taking someone's income (not literally but figuratively) is stealing it, but I don't agree.
I hope we can agree that downloading itself is not stealing, it is copying the bytes on another computer.

The other matter of discussion starts when what you download needs to be paid for (I'm sure we can agree that downloading free software is not stealing!).
RIAA argues that because of downloading their sales numbers are going down so they are losing income. It's the same with the car. With my magic device I copy the car of my neighboor and therefore the car company loses income - that's pretty obvious.

Or is it?
What if I didn't have the money to buy the car in the first place? - Then I would never have spent any money on any car and the car company wouldn't be able to say they lost income.

What if I didn't really needed a car I just copied it to try it a few times? - Then I would never buy it if I couldn't copy it and they didn't lose income either.

and thirdly what if I after I copied the car bought 3 other cars from the same company because I really liked the car? - Then the car company lost income for the first car but they gained income for 3 cars only because I was able to copy the first!
This would not happen if I couldn't copy it.

You can see dano, on one hand you can argue that the RIAA (and other associations) loses income due to downloading but on the other you have to consider the 3 points above.
So you can argue that you figuratively steal income by downloadig software which should be paid for, not literally because no one loses anything literally. I still think it is very wrong to call this stealing, even talking figuratively. And I must add that in a court of law - still - they don't care about figurative language, only literal language.

And by the way.. saying "kind of stealing" is too lose for argumentation.. either you steal or you don't.. there is no kind-of-stealing.

I'm glad you finally agree that it isn't stealing, and you don't have to come up with a new name cause it already has one: copyright violation.

Regarding the lost income discussion - it was not something I intended to discuss here cause that's another discussion and another matter. You can argue that it is stealing figuratively as I mentioned. I just don't think it's stealing, because you don't steal anything from anyone literally you only violate copyright.

I do have one interesting question for you dano, say you are right downloading is stealing - what is the difference between stealing and violating copyright then?
Because there is a clear difference!

On the matter of how much the artist gets...
An artist on a major label gets about 4 cents on every 99 cents-song sold on iTunes... the really big artists get more maybe, but you're better off on an independent label as an artist I'm sure but you don't get the promotion...
The artists are kinda getting ripped off because the industry wants to keep their margins even if times have changed...
But well there are enough people that want to pay for legal files; last week Flo Rida - Right Round set a new record in the US, selling over 600.000 downloads in just one week