TheMusicMan

Sheer dischord

Here is R’ Belsky’s teshuva; I say no more:

DOWNLOADING AND COPYING MUSIC

QUESTION 76: DOWNLOADING AND COPYING MUSIC

QUESTIONER

I argue with people about the ethics of downloaded music files from the Internet. I say that downloading songs or copying your own songs to give to someone else, without a copyright owner’s permission, or not compensating the owner, is stealing. What do you say about this?

RABBI BELSKY

Rabbi Moshe Feinstein ztl said that it’s not permitted to copy any item that is being sold by the creator of that item. Every time you copy it, you’re taking away sales from him. Anybody who downloads it, copies it, or does something else is really just turning someone else’s money into ashes. And that’s really the bottom line. It’s taking something from someone else.

This is one of the areas where people say, “Everyone does it, and it really should be mutar (permitted)”. People copy tapes and download from the Internet. Everything becomes “public domain”. There’s nothing private. People just download it and copy it and they’ll wipe the owner out.

But even if everyone does it, it’s wrong. You’re taking away something from someone and you’re harming him.

Sometimes people object to this argument and say, “Well, in that case, I’m probably not even allowed to copy down a shtikel (piece of) Torah that I heard.” But that’s not true – the Shach says “Ein gezel b’divrei Torah (there’s no stealing when it comes to Torah)”, that is, if you copy it down for yourself.

The guideline here involves whether or not what you’re doing is taking away a sale from the owner. One might say, if asked this question, “Oh, I would never have bought that anyway.” But in fact you shouldn’t say that. You do like it … and you would have bought it.

However, if you buy one and make a copy for yourself so that you can have, say, one in the car and one at home – that kind of copying is permitted. No one buys two of something for such a purpose, so copying the merchandise in this case doesn’t take the place of a sale. If you told a person who wanted one copy for the house and one for the car that he had to buy two, then he wouldn’t buy two. He would figure a way to carry it back and forth each time.

Since buying two copies for such a purpose is never done, then making a copy for yourself for two locations is not taking away a sale.

QUESTIONER

Is copying music a different type of stealing than any other type of stealing? Or is it just like any kind of stealing? Is there a principal that stealing is stealing and there are no distinctions? Is it just like walking over to someone with a gun? In this case we’re talking about intellectual property. So is that a lesser degree of stealing?

RABBI BELSKY

The concept of ‘stealing’ intellectual property has limitations because in certain cases it is permitted to copy an idea. For example, if someone comes up with some idea about how to sell something, that idea is probably not subject to being copyrighted or patented. But a song is copyrighted, and people do business by selling records or tapes with songs. This is an item that brings a livelihood to people. Therefore, if you’re taking it, you’re taking away the livelihood of a person.

That’s very important to remember. Someone sweated nights and invested money and time in order to create a certain item that the public is interested in, and then he’s ready to sell it. And then it turns out that some Napster type of enterprise gets its hands on it, and people end up paying zero for it.

Source: http://www.torah.org/learning/honesty/class64.html

For additional information see links on http://www.mostlymusic.com/help/view/index/cat/9/

“The pernilious old frog

Is not in the creek

No longer in the bog,

He croaked, so to speak”

What do you mean by “give out”? Producing a CD (properly known as an album) can take a hundred grand, if you are: buying a song from a top notch composer; Renting a studio for twelve or more hours over a couple days or weeks; hiring at least five session musicians (assuming your producer plays keyboards or another instrument); hiring arrangers; and paying for a mastering engineer. Duplicate that at least nine times, add the cost of CD duplication (several hundred to thousands of CDs), graphic design, mass printing, assembly and shipping costs and you have a hefty price tag.

Composing your own songs, recording on a small, high quality preamp into your home computer using Cubase or Logic, using excellent sounds from a high-end keyboard, near-range monitors, and some good research can produce (if well done) a very respectable set of recordings. Having them mastered by a pro, and distributing them on iTunes and Amazon MP3 via Tunecore.com for $50, can mean that you have produced an album for about a thousand or less, not counting equipment purchases.

Burning discs off your home computer of yourself warbling/yodeling/braying into a $49 recorder from an unnamed Chinese company can be practically free, but is understandably not worth much.

Of course, due to the horrible plague of copying music without buying it, selling music is not profitable at all, as all singers agree unanimously nowadays. The real money is in the concerts.

@MiddlePath, the inspiration was two poems of the same style, namely “O Freddled Gruntbuggly” by Douglas Adams and the (totally awesome) classic from Lewis Caroll titled “Jabberwocky”. Both have no meaning (the authors insisted on that) and invent words. As an example, here is the first paragraph of “Jabberwocky”:

“‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves,

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe,

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome rates outgrabe”

My grandfather loves it, so I memorized them both. When he returned to the US he told me to “keep up the weirdness”. So I did.

Not for korg keyboards, nope. I have for Yamaha, though. Korg styles are pretty rare. You should make them yourself using the built in style sequencer.

I dunno. I don’t really enjoy the chassidish overtones on the album. Too much accordion for me. But that’s just my personal taste.

Mine, of course! MWA HA! (that is, once I start it. Know any good yeshivish elec. guitarists?)

A woodchuck would chuck as much wood as a woodchuck would chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood 🙂

For starters, don’t even THINK about $10-30 mics. They all stink.

The “industry standard” for live performances is generally the veteran Shure SM58 dynamic microphone, which is compatable with practically any piece of equipment on the planet, and retails at about $99. It can routinely be found at a discount as part of package deals, which also include a stand, XLR cable, or more often several microphones with stands, cables and connectors.

For buying gear the best online retailers are Musician’s Friend (musiciansfriend.com), Samash (samash.com) and Sweetwater (google them). They all have price-matching guarantees, so the prices will be more or less constant. The best regular physical stores are the Samash retail outlets (google them too).

Other companies make similar products, like the Electrovoice series, but the Shure SM58 is pretty much the standard. (if the president uses them,so can you!)

Good luck!