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Originally Posted by Blackthorn
I got into this debate with a friend serveral years ago over a couple of lunch time cocktails. She thought that sharing of music files ala Napster, et al was perfectly okay. Her point was that she could loan me a CD that I hadn't paid for. I countered with yeah well I could also go to the library and check out virtually any Jazz artist's CD that I wanted and rip that for my continued listenting pleasure but the real difference is when you look around this restaurant and walk up to anyone and swap CD's with people you do not know then there's real and tangible loss in it for the music makers and the record labels that produce them. Multiply that ability to extend to virtually anywhere in the world where the internet has reach and it's fairly easy to see that the labels and musicians stand to lose countless amounts of money through copyright infringement.
I don't agree with Media Defender's tactics but on the other hand I don't agree with free file sharing. Media Defender's approach seems to border on entrapment ala the methods used by vice to catch would be solicitors which isn't exactly ethical.
The bottom line for me personally is that I don't engage in that behavior so I don't anticiapte ever running into Media Defender (or Vice -- just to be clear!  ). I can't tell you the number of times I have avoided bad behavior and never been hassled by authorities... |
well, you gotta wonder why this behavior spread like wildfire to begin with. If you think artists are making what they are worth from the record labels, you'd be talking about the very small handful of "super" stars who wind up on every magazine cover. Those people represent the whores of the media pimps, known as the record labels.
The problem people had is that they would shell out 20 bucks for a cd based on the 1 song impression that MTV, and a lot of marketing dollars gave to them as to this artist and their talent, to find out the other 9-15 songs were utter and complete garbage. This is the one-hit wonder phenomenon.
I don't know about you but I'd say since the days of vanilla ice, and snow, and milli vanilli etc... and the advent of music piracy, the one hit wonder phenom seems to have died down in it's popularity.
Now, I agree that you should support the artists you enjoy, and if I had my way, i'd donate my money straight to the artist via paypal and then go download thier music for free. I don't agree with the middleman promo bullshit and it does nothing but clog the flow of music down with politics and greed.
<-- has next to nothing in the way of MP3s, owns hundreds upon hundreds of records (yeah, vinyl) although I used to be a hardcore 15 year old who'd download everything he could even THINK of, not out of desire to hear the music, but simply to "have" more than the other person.
thats the other thing here... I honestly think that people who download HOARDS of music, i'm talking thousands of hours of music, aren't hurting the music industry. They wont even consciously listen to this music anyway. They more than likely toss it in thier terrabyte hard-drive array and add it to the playlist that is still playing shit from 1991.
(this is why I quit downloading music. I never fucking listened to it. I listen to what I buy.)