Feds to audiophiles: You're all pirates now

Opal notes:

I usually point out that if they like the CD, it would be a good thing to support the artist and buy another

Quite so. Nevertheless, I have a sneaky feeling that convenience & waste of money are the two most important "self-justifications" of copying.

Out of the price of a cd, say $10, normally ~$1-1,5 go to the artist. More goes, to VAT or sales tax, for example. The (huge) balance to the record company... (Not to bash record companies, but they get the lion's share of benefits & risk, btw)

Some really good posts in this thread!

These threads always seem to go down the same path - discussing the ethics, the laws, and the impact of file sharing. And while I agree that there is often a lot of "convenient" logic people use to justify their actions, I don't think that's the interesting part of the discussion.

The interesting part to me is the rapidly changing business model, and the way the music industry is responding to it, as Dusty discusses so well above. The whole tact of "my consumers are my enemy" is just so lazy - the business model of selling hard-copy CDs has just not evolved in 25 years, and as it erodes (for many, many reasons, piracy being just one of them) the reaction from the music industry just seems laughable. It's like they show up to work every day and go, "dang it, this file sharing thing hasn't gone away yet!"

The business model is changing, and fast, and the music industry can't be bothered to change. The industry wants to throw out all of these claims of lost revenue, but they have no way of knowing, and always want to attribute all lost revenue to piracy. We can argue ethics, and they can pursue lawsuits, for the rest of our collective lives and it isn't going to change the dynamics of what is happening.

I'm 100% with Opalchip. Theft is theft.
Copyright was "invented" to protect creative peoples efforts from being stolen. Remember too that things were always stolen to make money. People are stealing songs off the 'net today for only 1 reason----to make money--the money they keep in their pocket by not paying for the music. If this blatant theft and erosion of the value of creativity continues there will be a digital rights management system that will only allow a song to be played 'once' since people want to buy the cheapest thing they can. When are the young going to learn? Nothing is free and that's exactly what it's worth. Everything of value has a price-you either pay the price or you are a thief-it's a very simple true concept. Any other talk about it is--worth what you pay for it.

Whats an MP3 ?

I have never made the justification for stealing. The only case where I suggest downloading music at all is to find artists you like so that you can go to their concerts. And I fully support doing that. Believe me, I'm not going to shell out $16 for a CD of a band I've never heard and hope I like it. But if I catch wind of an interesting band and download some of their songs and enjoy it, I'll gladly pay $30 to go to a concert.

Also, here's something we should all keep in mind: "legal" does not equate to "moral." Granted, our laws are designed to reflect our cultural morals, but I think those terms are used in a little too close proximity sometimes, especially when the subject is still being debated about how our current laws relate to our new technologies. The reason it's debated is that copyright law related to the distribution of information is wholly different than property law.

Opalchip suggests that stealing an iPod is akin to stealing music. He's right that under current law they are both considered stealing in a broad sense, but the difference is that in one case you are taking something that the victim will no longer be able to use, and in the other case you are using something where credit should be given, but withholding that credit. I agree that both are wrong, but let's not say that apples are the same as oranges.

The whole point of my posts above is that the music industry is putting up picket fences to block a tsunami when it should be building boats. When people started making mixed tapes, they were sure that was going to kill the music industry. Then CDs came around, and people stopped buying tapes. Then people started burning CDs, so they crippled our computers with DRM software. Now the music has been boiled down to the data, and that's the new medium. They can either learn to deal with it by creating new business models, or they can spend their time making the moral case for new laws that don't fit the new times while Apple's iTunes continues holding 80% of the online music sales.

My point is not a moral one. I'm saying that the strategy of using the law to keep your market share is a fatally flawed one, and should be abandoned.

-Dusty