This. If you really think about it, nothing else really matters here. People are so caught up on the idea of "ownership" that it's beginning to clash with an era where certain resources (e.g. physical-in-some-sense copies of songs) aren't scarce anymore. Forget censorship, forget "stealing", forget internet law enforcement. Laws of copyright and ownership need to be redone, to reflect the current reality. If people are putting voodoo magic on their work so that the customer runs into hassles even after buying the work, of course more potential customers will resort to piracy. The same goes when stuff is still under copyright protection for most of a century after the author is dead and can't give a damn about it. Are we really celebrating the fact that movie makers have to pay some random dude to use Happy Birthday?As an only somewhat related aside. I would respect copyright more if it was something only owned by creative people. The fact that the copyright to songs by The Beatles will always belong to the highest bidder is dumb. As it is now copyright doesn't protect artists, it makes money for people who have never done anything of worth.
actually, that's democracy. if more than half the population says something is okay, then it becomes okay. in fact, the whole point of government is to prevent the things that most of us agree are bad.Umbreon that is literally one of the dumbest things I've ever heard... if people started stealing CDs from shops in masses, that wouldn't be grounds to change the law to say "stealing CDs is no longer illegal"...
The only reason that it's not "immoral" to most people is because A.) it's incredibly easy compared to the alternative of buying digital music B.) it's not punished harshly / consistently and C.) they can't see the negative effects of their actions right away.
There's no positive spin you can put on this, it's stealing no matter how you look at it, and our basic human morality says that stealing is "wrong".
"slavery"actually, that's democracy. if more than half the population says something is okay, then it becomes okay. in fact, the whole point of government is to prevent the things that most of us agree are bad.
The free market can't keep up with this because you're talking about a market that is looking to get paid for their property competing against something that is free. It's like condemning a meat factory for not "getting with the times" if some other group of people starts stealing meat from every meat factory in the country and giving it away for free.i would like to know where all the free-market evangelists disappear off to when this issue comes up. if the industry is going to die, it dies. it will be replaced with new jobs elsewhere. we already know that independent people can create awesome works and distribute them through media like youtube. if the recording industry wants to stay in bidness, they need to keep up with the rest of us. if not, they'll be replaced, and nothing valuable will be lost.
Pretty much this. If I want to pirate something then I will do so. My mind has already been made up. That isn't to say I've never bought anything digital (quite the contrary). This isn't going to stop anything. If people still want to pirate they will find some loophole or backdoor to get whatever they want.I like to download music, but I don't like music enough to pay for it, so I steal it. If I had to pay for it, I would not download it, therefore the company loses a net profit of $0 due to the fact that it costs them next to nothing to distribute their material on a host like iTunes.
When you lend a book, there is still only one copy of the book, and only one person can use said book at a time.this is going to be my last response to your 'stealing' propaganda: the owner of the music (i.e. the person who paid money for it) is willing to share it with me. in accepting, i am not denying them their rights nor removing the property from their possession. this is something that has always been possible (e.g. book lending, public readings) and for as long has been decried as "the death of so-and-so" when people were just trying to share their wealth.
Uh, this is completely unrelated. The copyists didn't own the book rights, they were merely a tool for putting the story onto paper. The transition of copyists to printing press is more related to the transition of hand harvesting crops to using a thresher. It has nothing to do with the transition away from people being able to have control over the amount of copies of their intellectual property that are in circulation and being rightfully compensated for those copies.remember when the printing press put thousands of copyists out of work, but then literature didn't die and everything turned out way better?
It's not stealing when the owner of the material (the real owner, I.e. the artist, not the production company) wants others to have the material and don't care about whether or not they pay for it... do you really think good musicians (read: not shitty pop artists) make music for the money or fame? No, they do it because they love music and they want to share their passion with the world.Umbreon that is literally one of the dumbest things I've ever heard... if people started stealing CDs from shops in masses, that wouldn't be grounds to change the law to say "stealing CDs is no longer illegal"...
The only reason that it's not "immoral" to most people is because A.) it's incredibly easy compared to the alternative of buying digital music B.) it's not punished harshly / consistently and C.) they can't see the negative effects of their actions right away.
There's no positive spin you can put on this, it's stealing no matter how you look at it, and our basic human morality says that stealing is "wrong".
90% of statistics are made up on the spotI mean 90% of artists don't really care
Except piracy isn't really bad? I have a friend who is a music major, and for some project he studied the effects of piracy of the music industry. I can easily go to him for a refresher of actual facts, but I'm pretty sure Usher had an album that was illegally leaked all over the internet before release, and that same album had record sales. Add to that, like several people said in the thread, if they couldn't pirate, they wouldn't buy it. So its not like its a terrible crime thats worth the invasion of privacy and trouble it takes to set up.boo hoo it's going to be harder (or rather, more penalized) to break the law by pirating music.
seriously how is this a bad thing other than because you want to steal music, it has no other effect other than to punish people who are doing something illegal. All it is doing is upping the amount of enforcability that is going to happen, which is a good thing, seeing as how currently it's a law that the public by and large completely fucking ignores.
On second thought, I'm not qualified to talk about what I would or wouldn't buy at all because I have a pretty large pre-existing library of CDs. I guess that was a pretty unfair example. But the point remains, piracy isn't a huge problem. At least I haven't heard actual facts supporting the idea that piracy is ruining artists, if anyone has them, please share.I could be mistaken, but I highly doubt that anyone anywhere wouldn't by a single CD, or single track ever. Unless you're talking about some poor starving African. Our entire Western society is saturated with and nearly addicted to music. I've known one person in my entire life that just seriously "wasn't into music" at all. Never bought a CD. Never listened to the radio.
I'll admit I didn't word that well, I was trying to echo what theamericandream38 was saying.90% of statistics are made up on the spot
as a musician myself, who freely gives away music, I'm pretty sure that 110% of artists do care
Could you please link? Its not that I don't believe you, its just a problem I never knew existed and I'd like to look into it to better formulate my opinions.I'm pretty sure that its ruining game companies. I follow gaming news and its like every week another studio is shutting down. If people were forced to actually pay for all those games they illegally share and download that wouldn't be happening at nearly the same rate. Of course you've got giants like Nintendo and Pokemon that are so insanely popular that they can sell 4 million copies in the first week even with all the piracy going on, but there are tons of little guys who just can't handle it.
If you don't want to be paid for your work, then by all means provide it for free. But if I make a song, and I sell it to people under the condition that it not be reproduced and distributed (which is a condition that is literally in every CD booklet and digital download terms of service), then I have the right to prosecute those who break this agreement.It's not stealing when the owner of the material (the real owner, I.e. the artist, not the production company) wants others to have the material and don't care about whether or not they pay for it...
http://articles.cnn.com/2010-09-09/...-piracy-software-piracy-game-sales?_s=PM:TECHCould you please link? Its not that I don't believe you, its just a problem I never knew existed and I'd like to look into it to better formulate my opinions.
Not to disagree with you, but a fair amount of game piracy is games that are either old games not making money anymore, not localized to a certain area, or too rare to get a legitimate copy of (although this isn't as common as the other 2).I'm pretty sure that its ruining game companies. I follow gaming news and its like every week another studio is shutting down. If people were forced to actually pay for all those games they illegally share and download that wouldn't be happening at nearly the same rate. Of course you've got giants like Nintendo and Pokemon that are so insanely popular that they can sell 4 million copies in the first week even with all the piracy going on, but there are tons of little guys who just can't handle it.