This Needs to Stop! (PETITION)

[Leonard Meltsner]

Thank you AE, I have signed the petition.

If I may reiterate what Catspaw said about physical vs. digital property, I'd like to explain it out for anyone who may not understand. Hypothetically, Focus spends a whopping 10$ to make album 54. The price of the album brings a 1$ profit. 20 people want to hear it!!

Scenario 1: 20 people buy the album from Focus. FOTF makes a 10$ profit on Clanging Cymbals.

Scenario 2: 4 people buy the album from Focus. One person uploads the album to the internet illegally. FAIO links to this, and the other 16 people listen to it for free. FOTF loses 6$ on the album. FAIO makes money on the ads because everyone (insomuch as 'everyone' can apply to 16 people) flocked to the site.

Even if what they do isn't technically against International Copyright Protection Laws, it's against God's laws. Regardless of what any says, these people are stealing/leading people into stealing. They need to check their Rights, Wrongs, & Reasons, because the ends don't justify the means, a wrong-right is no better than a wrong-wrong, and Focus is a company that needs our prayer and support, not our victimization! Give to Focus on the Family, and give to what God is doing through it. Every time a person listens to an episode on FAIO, that's a dollar that could've helped the production of the next album, instead of leading to the demise (And yes, I know some of you think we're already there) of all that we cherish and love as Adventures in Odyssey! The day we cease to support AIO is the day we cease to strive higher. This is not the forum I know, the forum I've come to know and love as... THE TOWN OF ODYSSEY!!! (Yes, that's roughly taken from Eugene's Space Program speech).

Ok, I'll step down off my soap box now, and let you continue.

[The Top Crusader]

But you do realize that people can listen on the radio for free. That's why I don't really see what difference it makes if they listen on their local station for free or some random website 2 months later.

Also, I would never blind buy an album. But hey I found GRC online, liked it, so now I own a legit copy.

[odysseyfan1]

I signed the petition. I don't think it will help though. Sorry, I'm a pessimist.

[AIO Psyche]

This whole thread is providing a good laugh.

My initial post was because I think that posting a link to the site in question was a boneheaded, backwards thing to do, no matter what the reason. I had never even heard of the site till you posted about it.

Seems like alot of the Christians around here work themselves up and stress themselves out over anything LOL

Listening to an AIO ep on the site now. Honestly, it's not stealing. I'm not downloading a copy. I'm streaming it over the air. 'Unethical' is just an absurd term to throw around. Honestly, its just silly.

[Musical Shutterbug]

No one is "worked up and stressed out" over anything here

[odysseyfan1]

Listening to an AIO ep on the site now. Honestly, it's not stealing. I'm not downloading a copy. I'm streaming it over the air. 'Unethical' is just an absurd term to throw around. Honestly, its just silly.

Oh, really? Someone commented on one of the FAIO posts and said that if Focus ever tried to shut down FAIO, then they knew how to download the whole site, and that they could just start it up again. Plus, I know how to download the episodes. And probably other people do to

[ric]

Seems like alot of the Christians around here work themselves up and stress themselves out over anything LOL

I know right? LOL

I mean, look at this post!

No one is "worked up and stressed out" over anything here

Look at that anxious smiley! ID4J, you're obviously waaaaay worked up and stressed out, not to mention upset in and overreacting down. Please, do yourself a favor and go get a shrink.

[AIO Psyche]

Seems like alot of the Christians around here work themselves up and stress themselves out over anything LOL

I know right? LOL

I mean, look at this post!

No one is "worked up and stressed out" over anything here

Look at that anxious smiley! ID4J, you're obviously waaaaay worked up and stressed out, not to mention upset in and overreacting down. Please, do yourself a favor and go get a shrink.

Honestly, if you can't look at some of the posts in this thread and see people taking this WAAAAAAAY too far, then you aren't reading this thread.

Look at AE siggy.

'Sign this petition to save the future of AIO!!!!!!!'

That's laughable, and stupid, IMO. If the future of AIO truly did hinge on this site, then don't you think the lawyers and FOTF would be going after them ruthlessly to protect the future of their company? Sorry, that's blowing things WAY out of proportion. It's not that big of a deal.

[Reddo]

as much as i don't like faio this all started with FOTF, they were too lazy to program a decent player that hides the url's of what it's playing, anybody can right click on the player view the source code for it and easily find the url directly to the episode and do what ever they want with it, if they had made a better player in the first place a lot of the episodes on faio would be gone.

FOTF could also remove the episodes from their servers after a month, but no, they leave them for month and months sometimes over a year at the same url without trying to hide them at all.

[The Top Crusader]

Also I think FOTF knows how to use the internetz and is aware of the site... they could probably end it all with a cease and desist if they wanted to.

[AIO Psyche]

Also I think FOTF knows how to use the internetz and is aware of the site... they could probably end it all with a cease and desist if they wanted to.

This. Right here.

[Jason Whits Son]

A While back, focus did do something and as a result faio lost all the episodes from focus' server. But Reddo does have a good point. They should fix the player so it's harder to get the source code. And reset the server every now and then to prevent this kind of thing. Now that I have read more into the issue I somewhat agree. However, I remembered that this issue was really hot in December of last year. It was talked about in a fan blog, and there was even a "downwithfaio" website. After some debate, it was decided that it's not the site itself that is wrong. Just how the users use it.


The first thing you read when accessing the episodes page is:

You are about to access the LARGEST archive of online Adventures In Odyssey episodes in existence. AIO does not make these episodes for free. They rely on donations and income from merchandise. If everyone comes here and listens for free, they can't exist. All of these episodes are available elsewhere on the web. All Faio does is collect these already-existing episodes and archive them. Faio does NOT support the uploading of copyrighted content. If you like what you hear, you should buy the episodes on CD. It's convenient, easy, and best of all, you help support a great Christian ministry. Happy Listening!

Also at the time of this grand debate, the owner of faio posted this in the news section:

[A]fter a legal investigation...Faio was found to be perfectly legal....Whether or not this website hurts FOTF is up to it's USERS. If the users want to support AIO, they can click the buy links or a donate to FOTF link.(Found on just about every page in the sidebar, as well as multiple places around the site.) If Faio wanted to, we could provide links to EVERY SINGLE episode. Instead, we only provide links to streaming links. There are hundreds more that are download only, but downloading is against the Faio policy, and it's also against the law. Faio and most of it's users love FOTF and AIO. Many users actively support FOTF. Faio is a website that stands FOR Focus On The Family. These activists are against Faio, so really they are against FOTF too. Also, this is a FANSITE. This website was not made for profit of any sort. Any income it may get (such as from advertisements and such) goes to help this website, or straight to FOTF as a donation.

You can find a whole blog article discussing the issue here.

The conclusion that the blogger came to was that faio isn't really doing anything that wrong or illegal. Which is pretty much my views on it as well. Since any money they're making with the ads goes to the site or FOTF that makes it a little better as far as the ads go.

[Bren]

From what I have used of FAIO, it is not the uncut episodes, so if anything, listening should make the listener want to go out and buy the album.

*ducks into hiding*

[The Top Crusader]

Really, they put forth a decent idea. FOTF should basically set up a site with every episode and force people to listen to and view a couple ads and they probably would make pretty good money on that, or at the very least charge a monthly fee to access the episodes, but of course most people would just record them or something. ...but even that would take months and months if they were trying to get everything. >_>

Basically like Netflix or On Demand but with AIO episodes and I suppose other FOTF stuff.

[AlexMitchell]

Basically like Netflix or On Demand but with AIO episodes and I suppose other FOTF stuff.

I like the idea, but isn't that sort of what the official AiO player is?

Also, I did sign the petition, because I believe Christians are supposed to take a stand on matters like this. Really, it doesn't even matter if Faio is legal or not--I don't think it's something we should be supporting. We're supposed to be a light to the world and go above and beyond. I don't want a non-Christian to look at me and say, "Well, she's doing it, why can't I?" (I Corinthians 8)

I don't want to sound preachy. I'm not perfect either. I own maybe 10 albums or more as recorded cassettes from the radio. Is that legal? I'm not sure. (They are cut, so I'd love digital editions someday.) I'm conflicted about that, and I love my AiO tapes. I listen to/watch copyrighted stuff on YouTube occasionally too. But I don't want to make a habit of it.

This is a tough debate! I'm glad we can discuss it.

[Reddo]

Basically like Netflix or On Demand but with AIO episodes and I suppose other FOTF stuff.

I like the idea, but isn't that sort of what the official AiO player is?

sort of but the official one makes it easy to steal episodes, netflix makes it impossible to do this, same as the audio player on the wiki

[odysseyfan1]

Basically like Netflix or On Demand but with AIO episodes and I suppose other FOTF stuff.

I like the idea, but isn't that sort of what the official AiO player is?

Also, I did sign the petition, because I believe Christians are supposed to take a stand on matters like this. Really, it doesn't even matter if Faio is legal or not--I don't think it's something we should be supporting. We're supposed to be a light to the world and go above and beyond. I don't want a non-Christian to look at me and say, "Well, she's doing it, why can't I?" (I Corinthians 8)

I don't want to sound preachy. I'm not perfect either. I own maybe 10 albums or more as recorded cassettes from the radio. Is that legal? I'm not sure. (They are cut, so I'd love digital editions someday.) I'm conflicted about that, and I love my AiO tapes. I listen to/watch copyrighted stuff on YouTube occasionally too. But I don't want to make a habit of it.

This is a tough debate! I'm glad we can discuss it.

I believe that it's legal to record the radio.

[The Top Crusader]

...so then why can't someone listen to something archived on the web instead of their tape from the radio?

[odysseyfan1]

...so then why can't someone listen to something archived on the web instead of their tape from the radio?

Do you think the people who use FAIO are only listening to episodes that they have on a tape somewhere?

[American Eagle]

This whole thread is providing a good laugh.

My initial post was because I think that posting a link to the site in question was a boneheaded, backwards thing to do, no matter what the reason. I had never even heard of the site till you posted about it.

Seems like alot of the Christians around here work themselves up and stress themselves out over anything LOL

Listening to an AIO ep on the site now. Honestly, it's not stealing. I'm not downloading a copy. I'm streaming it over the air. 'Unethical' is just an absurd term to throw around. Honestly, its just silly.

Yep, this is something I feel strongly about, and I'm willing to take a stand against it. Laugh if you will.

as much as i don't like faio this all started with FOTF, they were too lazy to program a decent player that hides the url's of what it's playing, anybody can right click on the player view the source code for it and easily find the url directly to the episode and do what ever they want with it, if they had made a better player in the first place a lot of the episodes on faio would be gone.

FOTF could also remove the episodes from their servers after a month, but no, they leave them for month and months sometimes over a year at the same url without trying to hide them at all.

True, but not all the episodes are from FOTF's servers. Many are from various websites; uploaded illegally.

Many thanks to those who have joined this movement. (See the signatures.) Hopefully FAIO's web admin will hear us.