More like the business practices of Alan Klein or the suits at Atlantic records who stole the US publishing money on the Beatles, the Stones, and the Stax Records artists when the slipped them revised "contracts".
Uh, yeah...and?
I'm not denying that creative types get screwed out of what's owed to them. IF your examples did not sign contracts enabling the people buying their creations to do what they did (and that is an "if" that needs to be considered), then they were screwed. No doubt about it...it happens. But that doesn't make it right, moral or legal.
My point is that when someone steals someone else's song (or any other creation) -- be it by the label screwing the artist out of money, or some Generation.com punk illegally sharing songs -- it's theft. Just as stealing a car, shoplifting a bag of chips from the Kwiki-Mart, or making a bootleg copy of software at work, those who illegally share downloaded music are thieves. In all those cases, someone is taking something they don't own from someone who does, and not paying them for it.
So whether it's Bill Gates, Lou Reed, the guy who wrote DOS, or a struggling local band, if they own the rights to their creations, they are entitled to make money from each copy sold or shared. But in this digital world, coming up with a way to enforce those rights proving difficult.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
All of the billionaires steal. I’ve seen small musicians discover their latest album cover stolen and used on t-shirts at Wal-Mart.
I’ve seen local bands have their posters ripped off and used on Levi “grungy art” t-shirts.
None of them became millionaires from the transgressions.
None of them got publicity from the transgressions.
The laws are bought and paid for by the billion dollar globalists.
You “can” take ABCDisney to court over stealing youtube footage and putting it in the nightly news but fat chance of seeing any money. Disney kept Peggy Lee in court with appeals for YEARS over the money they didn’t want to give her from Lady & The Tramp home video sales.
Getty sold a photo hundreds of times that was stolen by AFP from someone’s online posting (on twitter?) of tsunami photos. Getty claimed they had no liability in that even though they profited from the sales.
It happens. Again. And again. And again.
Department store window displays using photobucket swiped photos.
USED TO BE lawyers internally would throw a fit over such repeated violations. Now it seems to be the norm.