Replies

Amazing. Twenty nine posts so far and everyone seems to think that stealing is now perfectly justified because either (a) it's just so easy, or (b) the record companies charge too much, or (c) the feds can't tell me what to do.

Give me a break. Stealing is stealing. If mobs of teenagers in the inner city were smashing store windows and grabbing CDs, we'd be all over the cops to bust them. But apparently, for some reason I just can't see, it's OK to download all the music you can through the internet.

Please, I understand your anti-government principles, and I share them on most things. But there's a difference between limited government and anarchy. The government does have some legitimate roles, and enforcing the law against large scale (or any scale) theft is one of them.

OK answer me this. The record companies and artist lobbied our Congress to allow them (collectivly) to charge all people who purchase CD's the cost of the copy they were immediatly going to create on cassette. So every CD you have purchased so far has already included the cost of another if you copied it or not. If you are old enough to remember LP's they were about $7 a copy at the begginning of the CD changover. Why did a CD which cost as much or less to produce suddenly cost $15. I remember listening to Frank Zappa, Barf Brooks, and a host of other talk about it on CSPAN. Right then I knew that the game was rigged and they were STEALING money from everyone who purchased a CD. So with the congress aiding and abbetting the recording industry they have stolen much more from us then we are stealing from them. Doesn't make it right, but is justice if you believe that "whats fair is fair."

Easy. Easy, because it is oh so easy to condemn your Fellow FReepers and millions of others to hell. How easy, isn't it?! But, guess what? There is already a crowd occupying that vast moral high ground.

I don't have the answers either, but what do you think of this? Someone just gave me a CD by a long dead bluesman. From what I can tell they paid close to the $18.00 list (the fools!) price. Who gets the money? What was the cost of producing, releasing and shipping the CD to a record store? (Costs of marketing a 1940s bluesman? You've got to be kidding!) And finally, is stealing from thieves morally, ethically OK? We know what the religious authorities would say. What would the philosophers say? Who's stealing?

Somehow, for better or worse, because no physical tangible property is involved, these pirate millions don't believe they are stealing. And many think that buying a reproduction of this "art" shouldn't be any different or priced any differently than buying a postcard reproduction of Mona Lisa. Instead it's more like buying a framed poster size reproduction of the painting. Are they wrong? I dunno. Just some things to consider.

If mobs of teenagers in the inner city were smashing store windows and grabbing CDs, we'd be all over the cops to bust them.

If somebody is shoplifting goods from a store, I'm all for catching the shoplifter. Reasonable security efforts by the storekeeper and police, and reasonable punishments once someone is caught and proven guilty, are part of the normal workings of society.

However, suppose that a shopkeeper subjects his customers to searches resembling the worst airport-gestapo horror stories we've been hearing, sends spies to search homes for possible stolen goods. Suppose further that the shopkeeper persuades the city council to enact life imprisonment for shoplifting, and lobbies for additional laws requiring everyone in town to wear special gloves that make it difficult to pick up objects.

In the latter case, I daresay that the neigbors are going to stop giving a rat's ass if he is robbed, and might well go so far as to cheer on the robbers. If they did not, they would be so pusillanimous as to make Trent Lott resemble King Leonidas by comparison.

The latter is the situation the recording industry has created for itself by attacking, not only real bootlegging, but legitimate fair-use copying for purposes of backup, time shifting, format conversion, etc, and by insisting upon draconian penalties for doing either against its wishes.

Stupid laws are as dangerous as enforcing them. I would propose the change of the law - pirating software/media over internet would be a misdemeanor punishable by a small fine (like 10% of the market value) on condition of erasing the all copies of it. Perpetuator could agree to buy the official copy to avoid misdemeanor proceedings.

Since record companies are stealing from me, I have NO problem stealing from them. I know two wrongs don't make a right, but I figure I'm just evening the scales a bit. Is metallica's music really worth millions? Collusion is what causes high prices for entertainment. I think file sharing is just the market finding the correct price for entertainment.

Before the modern era, entertainers were not nearly the financial powerhouses that they are today. Their value is artificial.

They are only going after those that have 1000 bucks worth in one transaction, so it isn't like they are going after teens everywhere for file swapping.

It may "techncally" be stealing, but I don't consider it such in reality. The companies sell CD's on which only one song is what I actually want and expect me to pay 15 bucks for it. Forget it. Either give me the option to buy a song by itself for say 3 bucks, or you won't get my business and I will simply get a comp someday with a CD-RW and burn some CD's from the net of songs I like.

It is very simple. If the record companies would bother to sell songs by themselves, as well as in a complete package, they would get the business of a lot of the folks out there downloading mp3's.

As for myself sometimes downloading piracy software programs, I have no defense there. It is just my thriftness.

Yes. It's classic "what's mine is mine and what's your's is mine" libertinism. Alwayas looking for a free ride, a short-cut, to shove the costs of their own indulgence onto the shoulders of other people. Many of them have the same attitude about dope.

This is how they define themselves as "conservatives."

I have no love for the record companies either. For the most part, I spurn their stuff. Neither do I copy it. The current music is dreck as far as I'm concerned. Why would I want to fill my home with dreck?

Good stuff I gladly pay for. But then, I'm a jack-booted thug statist.

But apparently, for some reason I just can't see, it's OK to download all the music you can through the internet.

It's not "ok" but the music industry and technology have made it too easy to do. The industry wants to use technology on one hand as a sales and marketing tool but on the other hand punish those who will do the obvious with that technology.

If a record store simply left CDs laying on the street corner and expected people leave money for them if they decided to take one (think of newspaper boxes) they have little complaint if many people do not pay. The "honor system" has its limits and I have little sympathy for these companies. They are looking for a tax payer solution to their problem. I suggest they fix it themselves. The technology exists to do so but the industry refuses to make the investment.