What is Digg?Sponsored by HTC
You and You and You. view!
youtube.com - You don't need to get a phone. You need a phone that gets you.
79 Comments
- Freshjive787, on 10/12/2007, -0/+64Should have stayed in school, Tony.
- emmanuelsotelo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+35LoL.
Back then in the Napster days, I used to sell mix cd's for a nice profit.
DSL and CD burners back then were only for the 'Elite'.
Although eventually as prices for CD burners and DSL fell, so did my profits.
It was a nice run though.
Tony should have saved his money, something I did. - gharding, on 10/12/2007, -3/+37I don't feel sorry for these guys. At least with online piracy, nobody (usually) makes money from pirating stuff. While I'm not totally against downloading pirated content, making money from copyright infringement is wrong.
- consonance, on 10/12/2007, -2/+31P2P killed the disc burning star.
- merkul, on 10/12/2007, -0/+28I remember this shift when I was in high school. At the start there would be the "elite" who would offer pre-retail albums and the masses worshiped them. Fast-forward 2 years later and even the kid with the helmet who rode the shortbus was selling discs during lunch for pennies on the dollar.
- joeydoo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+27A "Tony" tried to sell me "DVD's" in a London pub. I laughed in his face....... "hahahahahahaha why would I buy that, where are you from mate? ......2002?"
Who in the western world doesn't know some one who can get them, literally, ANY film they want. All for the cost of a blank disc....... Yet everyone still buys the proper DVD's most of the time. It seems to me that P2P is only stopping the business of evil pirates. - Vicissidude, on 10/12/2007, -1/+27The dude's a ***** moron. He made $2000 a week for 15 years. Had he invested any of that, he could be retired now. But, the moron blew every dime and now he has to work a warehouse job. Dumbass.
- Keloran, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16@jimzip hope she also knows about anti-virus, or do they also do music on limewire now ??
- Kookami, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Push it to the limit, Tony
- tonich03, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12There is no way I could feel pity for this criminal. He has been burning and selling 1000s of cds for years. This article is pointless in the sense of trying to provoke sympathy. He should have been jailed. Oh, and don't you even think to compare this to individual piracy.
- Jimzip, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11I dunno if he's selling them.. My friend can't setup a hotmail account but she can use Limewire..
In fact, she knows more about downloading content from LW then she does about buying it at online stores..
Sign of the times I think.
Jimzip :D - JesusFaction, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12what a tragedy
- TonyCubed, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9The RIAA, MPAA etc are a Double negative, they go after pirates saying they are doing it for the Artists/Film Makers etc, but it's the Artists/Film Makers who really get cheated.
The average Artist gets around $0.50 per CD sold, while the Studio/Record Labels get the rest of the money. Who's being cheated here? Us or them? - babar77, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9@actorboy.
***** on the pie. If you're at a restaurant, and you don't like the food you tell them to take it back and make it right. Hell even sometimes when I knew I was just trying something out and didn't like it the waiter offered to bring me something else, EVEN WHEN I DIDN'T ASK! I'm sorry, but I've been having this discussion for a very long time and NO ONE has presented me with an industry outside of Software and Entertainment that doesn't allow refunds, money back guarantees, or store credit or something. I can't tell you the amount of times I paid to see a movie and thought, "Well, that movie sucked, I'm far from entertained, so who do I talk to so I can get my money back. Oh yeah, no one, I was just sold an elixir."
I'm sorry, but these industries want their cake and eat it too. They want access to a massive ROI without any risk. I design physical products, and if what we design sucks, it loses money, period! We don't get together with our competitors to fix prices then whine to the government that every time someone even looks at our product they should pay a royalty so that every product we make turns a profit (e.g. the existence of the RIAA and MPAA). We don't get together and force small distributors out of business in fear that they might sell a start-ups product (recent internet radio price hike). Once our products are sold we don't have any control over how the customer uses it (DRM). I'm sorry, I live and breathe in this world, and every time I see this crap that spews out of the RIAA and MPAA mouths I wonder, why do they get special treatment? Aren't there laws against this? Every other industry has to do the old fashioned way, talk to their customers, treat them right, every once and a while take a risk, and earn the money they make. - Jimzip, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8"Tony used to enjoy the finer things in life - a beautiful house, high performance cars, exotic foreign holidays, up-market restaurants and fine wine. "
I don't feel sorry for him.. Some people never get this stuff.
Reminds me of Scarface for some reason though..
Jimzip :D - neeyo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8From the article-
“We got to the point where we just couldn’t make ends meet anymore, I couldn’t even keep a couple of dozen burners going so that was that. I had to get a job and so did my wife. She’s gone back to hairdressing and i’ve come back to what I was doing before - warehouse work. We’ve moved to a smaller house and i’ve had to get a sensible car. Things have changed quite a lot.”
Tony must have read MC Hammer's book on how to burn through cash. Seriously, how do you go through years of making $2k / week ( as the article states ) and have NOTHING to show for it? I guess if they just spent it all then the fuzz would have nothing to seize if they were ever busted, but I think this Tony is just plain dumb (not for being a pirate, but for basically wasting all his financial success). - DarkMeld, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Wow thats like saying you're selling crack and one day people found a cheaper alternative
- demonotaku, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10He should be happy he's not being sued or in prison.
- RadiatedAnt, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7boo ***** hoo a true pirate shares for free I feel no sympathy for the guy selling discs from the back of his truck.
- accelleron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6A fool and his money are quickly parted.
- Flamekebab, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I buy the games I consider worthwhile. Sadly they're few and far between.
Make a good game, I'll buy it, make a lame game and I'll pirate it, play it, uninstall it in disgust and tell all my friends it sucked too.
It's depressing how few new decent games there are. - stevealford, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9No, we aren't screwing the artist because album sales aren't where they get rich. The artists get rich from live performances. Why do you think they go on tour? 50,000 seats and the artist gets 50-75% of the sales price of each ticket sold depending on their draw power. "Pirating" music only makes more fans at a minimal loss to the artist. Any artist worth his salt would gladly give out free cd's just to get a few more sold-out shows. Much bigger profit there... sure beats the ***** out of 50c per cd.
- DigitAl56K, on 10/12/2007, -6/+11Maybe nobody feels bad for Tony, but think about what will eventually happen to the genuine distributors and consequently developers. If Tony couldn't even sell pirate software any more then how will anyone sell software?
Sure, there is that old argument, "the people buying from Tony probably wouldn't have bought it retail anyway". But stop and think about what's happened here: He had a big house, fast cars, expensive holidays - that's all money that the real developers never saw a penny of. And you have to wonder - we live in a world where the younger generations just tend to pirate everything. It has become the common culture. Apparently these days the majority of people under 30 "wouldn't have bought it anyway" all of the time - yet look at the masses of stuff they have pirated!
First Tony will go out of business, followed by the software houses we know and love. The article ends "Overhaul your business model. Quickly.". This assumes that there will still be enough people around who will be willing to pay at all. - accelleron, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Give me a paypal address and I'll gladly wire the artists the same 50c per cd that I download, and screw the RIAA/MPAA in doing the same.
It isn't the intent of filesharing to deprive artists of their profits, however the flashiest superstar would be stuck with a 1985 Mazda instead of a Maserati if their profits were solely from album sales. I recently went to a show of one of my fave artist, spending $100 on 2 tickets, and about $200 on various swag. I consider myself more entitled to "pirate" every CD they ever made than those who bought the CDs but didn't go to any shows. Even if the artist gets 50% of the ticket/swag value, at $150 vs $5, I think they'd agree with me.
...And if anyone wants to make the argument about the 'poor' middlemen being screwed here, I say screw them. - ronin4all, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Unlucky guy, but that's what going to happen if you don't keep tracking on what's happening. I think people behind RIAA, MPAA should change their biz models and stop kicking people's ass.
- Eeqmcsq, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4A massage is not a good analogy. A massage is "performed" every time someone asks for one. A song is performed and recorded once, then duplicated. People won't stop paying the artists. They will pay them in a different way, such as live shows, as stevealford mentioned, or other artist related merchandise that can't easily be duplicated.
- HonoredMule, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4...also trying to profit from the work of others.
Make of it what you will, I'm just saying... - XSforMe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"Tony is just plain dumb"
I heard this story of rags to riches to rags is quite common among lottery winners. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6the definition of irony
- HonoredMule, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4"There is no way I could feel pity for this criminal. He has been burning and selling 1000s of cds for years. This article is pointless in the sense of trying to provoke sympathy. He should have been jailed. Oh, and don't you even think to compare this to individual piracy."
I dare say the intent is to liken him to the RIAA/MPAA/etc themselves. - offspring06, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3He should have invested some of his money in the stock market instead of buying high performance cars and fine wine.
- Travelsonic, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Loss of potential profit != loss of physical profit one had, and are treated differently accordingly.
- olego, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Speak for yourself. After I try out the games I pirate, I pay for those that I like enough. Granted, I seldom install them because the pirated versions have built-in no-CD cracks, but at least my money trickles down to the developers.
Most of my "illegal" software is paid for - ultimately - by me. - Yusayoh, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5I wouldn't want to be a Tony. P2P is growing fast though. I wonder what it's going to be like in five years.
- curtvdh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2That sound you hear is the world's smallest violin...
Seriously though - surely this only affects those markets where broadband penetration is significant? I was in South Africa in 2005 - visited several flea markets where pirated CDs and DVDs were selling quite briskly. - DigitAl56K, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4But the person who produced that song to "pleasure your ears" expected you to pay them a few cents for that pleasure.
Imagine going to get a massage, then turning around and saying "I didn't make any money off this, I just did it for the pleasure, I'm not going to pay you". That's essentially what you're doing.
But it's okay, because when everyone stops paying all of the really talented artists who spend all day every day creating and performing music for you to enjoy they won't be able to dedicate their lives to this activity and so there won't be any really dedicated musicians left for you to pirate from anyway. Problem solved. - actorboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@ stevealford
And how does that crossover to the MPAA?
See you at The 300 On Ice this weekend. I'lll be the guy in the 'Kissing Concubine #2' t-shirt. - Flamekebab, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3@actorboy
Well at least in the UK, I'm pretty certain the law states that if I'm not satisfied with the pie I am entitled to get my money back.
Also, pie is an awful analogy.
Why?
Because if I make a digital copy of something it's not like taking a physical copy off the shelf, preventing someone else from buying it.
But if you want to use the analogy of pie, I would either send back bad pie or simply demand my money back.
There is risk in most industries, but it seems the movie industry and the record industry think they're above that these days. They need to be taken down a few notches, I reckon. - stevealford, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Any artist worth his salt would gladly give out free cd's just to get a few more sold-out shows. Much bigger profit there... sure beats the ***** out of 50c per cd. Artists won't stop making music, you tool... they'll start giving away cd's when the RIAA dies, and only charge for live shows. The cd's will be teasers, probably without the full songs or with shortened snips of songs. If cd content keeps getting pirated, then full-album cd's will go away... unless the industry wakes up. Either way, the music won't die. Album sales aren't the big payday that concerts are, so there will ALWAYS be financial incentive for musicians to keep playing.
- actorboy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I love how torrentfreak dismisses the industry's claims of lost sales, but then writes a story on how ‘physical pirates’ are going out of business. If people offering products at half price are losing sales, I think it’s safe to assume those selling at full price are too.
- Eeqmcsq, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"Does nothing that can be easily duplicated hold any value anymore, to the point you wouldn't even pay 99c for it?"
To a degree, that's right. Infinite supply of a product makes it not worth paying for.
But the value you're willing to pay for isn't necessarily in the song itself. The value that people are willing to pay for comes in other forms, such as having a choice of mp3 bitrates, or DRM-free, or confidence that the music file you are paying for really isn't a dummy file. Since duplication of music files is so easy nowadays, the customer must receive something else of value to him that makes him want to spend the money for it. - goettel, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Welcome to Irony Class. Please sit front row.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yea its hard to compete against free. He should do what my local bootlegger/barber does, he offers 2 for 6 and sell some cigarettes on the side too.
- mitrovarr, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Actually, it's an illegal copy of the world's smallest violin. Downloaded via bittorrent.
- sowdog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Very true.
I'm from a little south east asian country that recently got broadband in the past couple of years. Now days it's pretty common to hear people downloading their pirated software/movies but 5 years or more ago the only way to get access to things like this would be what you call the "tony". Sure piracy existed like downloading the odd mp3 or so, but downloading isos or full movies on dialup was just not possible.
There are a lot less tonys lately but i can't tell if it's because of the government is trying to enforce intellectual property laws or merely the market for such goods is shrinking. There used to be whole streets worth of these guys, now it's the odd shop or so. It's still there but a lot less ubiqituous. - DigitAl56K, on 10/12/2007, -6/+7Something to consider is no matter how badly the RIAA is screwing the artist by paying them only 50c, if you pirate then you are screwing the artist by making sure they actually get 0c. I'm not on the side of the RIAA, their model is ludicrous, but it needed to be pointed out.
- DigitAl56K, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2A massage is a reasonable analogy, because we're talking a few cents instead of $50 (or whatever they cost).
Question (genuine, I'm not trying to be an ass!): Does nothing that can be easily duplicated hold any value anymore, to the point you wouldn't even pay 99c for it? - Dylan16807, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2"Whether you sell 1000 CDs on the street or share a CD with 1000 other users"
The average torrenter only shares one full copy, and if they share two or three, that's a high ratio. They may share with 1000 people, but only give each of those a few seconds of one track. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1DEAL WITH IT the world is changing.
- meshman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I'm all for downloading but selling copies for profit is going to far imo. If you're busted doing this I won't shed a tear.
-
Show 51 - 79 of 79 discussions
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is