HS,
Are you just speaking for yourself all all the other readers when you use the phrase 'haven't convinced anyone'?
Well, you got me there. Logically, I cannot speak for all readers.
It seems to me that a vast amount of ignorance is being bandied about by people with opinions, but no knowledge of the industry.
Yup, that's me.
I believe that Napster lost their trial because they were centralized. If they had moved the mp3s from one computer to a maximum of two others, they would have been within U.S. law. I could be wrong, as I am relying on my memory.
All the worlds record companies, and most of the worlds musicians are firmly against the downloading of music which is illegal in all the countries that are at the forefront of this downloading, though it is true that Nigeria and the Falkland Islands are yet to pass opinion on the matter. I would challenge you to produce the name of five musicians of public note, who defend their fans right to illegally ( I am in North America ) download their music. Are their opinions to be ingnored, the very ones who create the music?
I wouldn't want people illegally downloading my music either. I would want the royalties. I write software for a living. Of course, I don't want people copying my software. I want the dough. That said, I have no strong objection to people making personal copies of software. I don't have any illegal copies myself simply because I have a hangover morality from the days when software piracy was considered by everyone to be morally wrong. Also, the sources I have for any illegal software on the planet are likely to plant a nasty virus in the illegal copy. Another reason is that my business is best ran if I stay well within the law. That said, I know people are going to copy my software. So I charge enough that I make money anyway. And the illegal copies are advertising. If I desire, I can put in copy protection to minimize the amount of illegal copying. As for businesses losing money, well the software industry suffers from people writing software for free. Much high quality, fully featured software is available legally for nothing. The GNU Project is a good example of this. Try to compete with that. Yet we do. For the record, I currently have no unpaid for copies of music, except for a Celine Dion CD that was in my CD drive when I bought my computer. It is obviously a home-made copy. Do I download music from the net? Of course. And half or more of what I get is crap. Seriously, store-bought music is much better. The rest of it I tire of listening to after a while and delete. When I get a CD burner I will probably burn them on to CDs. But for now, I delete them to save on disk space. Am I a hypocrite for my view? Yes. I figured I would just admit that up front. The truth is, my view on copying most things is mixed, inconsistent and hypocritical.
Incidentally, people do not steal because they won't get caught, people steal because they are thieves. It is after they have stolen that they then hope that they will not get caught.
Only the stupid ones worry about getting caught after the crime is committed. There are always the percentage who are just plain old-fashioned criminals. For the average person, I think there are several reasons why they would commit an illegal act. 1) They don't know it is a crime. I honestly believe that it is legal to download music using Kazaa. Though I haven't checked Canadian law about this. 2) It is not normally considered morally wrong by them and/or their community. Illegal copying of music has always fallen into that category. As has taking home a pen from the office. People who would shamelessly tape music off the radio or a TV program using their VCR may not illegally copy software. Weird, but true. 3) They consider it to be a "minor" crime and think they can get away with it. Speeding is an example of this. 4) The penalities if caught are low. 5) They can screw the government or a big corporation somehow. That is the old "they deserve it" or "it won't hurt them" reasoning. 6) The argument that if everyone is honest, prices will go down and people will get richer is bogus. First, not everyone is going to become honest. Second, prices are set by the law of supply and demand. Businesses will not lower prices as long as people will pay the price asked. Thirdly, if people stopped downloading music, most would not purchase the CD anyway. True, if everyone became honest tomorrow, musicians would gain a little. But not by a lot, because lots of people just would not buy the CD. Those who would likely purchase it now anyway.
I am a little baffled by this statement as it does not even get near to the heart of the matter of whether stealing from 'greedy' record companies which people do because it is easy, is actually any different from stealing from any another large 'greedy' corporations which deal in other commodities, such as electricty, phramaceuticals, motor cars etc. etc. Are you suggesting that CD's should be attached to the mains and if not paid for discharge enough voltage to kill a person...lol I hope not as it seems that you would be the only person to survive that particular ritual...
No, there is little difference, other than people's perceptions. Your solution to the issue of illegal copying is interesting though. I feel for the musicians who craft their music and lose some of their profits to illegal copying. I feel for the software developers who craft their software and lose some of their profits to illegal copying. And no, I don't feel strongly enough about it to stop downloading music. Both need to find a business model that works because illegal copying will always be here. Perhaps someday and encoding method will be developed that eliminates casual copying. Sophisticated copying cannot be stopped. Richard
