Feds to audiophiles: You're all pirates now

Sorry for the tone of my previous post, but I was in a hurry at work and didn't have time to edit myself. But the content is correct - and it really does astonish me that so many people don't get it. Copyright laws are not a music industry invention. They are basic personal property protections.

If you can "steal" music that was created and sold to you under the explicit understanding that it is only for your personal listening use, then why can't I steal your Ipod?

I believe it would be a better "Business Model" for you to hand over your Ipod and be happy about it. Just think, if I take your Ipod, then I might tell 100 friends what great music is on it. And they, seeing what great taste you have, might all come to you, begging to pay you to load their Ipods up with downloaded music. So if I steal your Ipod, it might actually be a great career move for you.

Look, we have all stolen (and lied in some form or another) - it's just standard human weakness.

What irks me though - and what really makes for a dangerous trend on a societal level - is when people try to base/justify their weaknesses on moral grounds. I occasionally copy CD's to give to friends, but I don't pretend that it's right. It's just convenient and a nice gesture (for the friend) - and it's petty larceny. I usually point out that if they like the CD, it would be a good thing to support the artist and buy another, since they got this for free. But that doesn't make it morally correct. It's wrong, smalltime wrong, but wrong.

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 ?