Pirating Music

[Hydra.]

"In criminal law, theft is: the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's freely-given consent."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theft

The FBI says pirating music is wrong and it is against the law. Why?

"Because piracy of media and other commercial goods causes huge losses to the U.S. economy each year…and it's American consumers who are paying the price."

Here is the The Anti-Piracy Warning Seal-
http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/

Is The Law Enough?
Here and there there are those court cases for pirating music, but seriously think of how many people at your school or town has illegally downloaded music, and yet I don't see all of them or in fact almost any of them in jail. There is so many people that illegally download music, "Big Champagne estimates that over 1 billion tracks are exchanged monthly. Compare that against Apple's iTunes service, which has sold just over 2 billion songs since it launched back in 2003, which also represents over 70% of the legal music download business." -http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/8623.cfm " This morning, DiS has woken up bleary-eyed to the news that music industry body, the IFPI, has released a report which claims that more than 40 billion songs were illegally downloaded in 2008.

This huge figure equates to 95% of all music downloads and is the same percentage of illegal downloads which were made in 2007, despite government action and the growth of legal sales and compelling alternatives to P2P." -http://drownedinsound.com/news/4136081-95-of-music-downloads-in-2008-were-illegal-dis-reacts-and-suggests-two-solutions

There is so many people that pirate music that I personally think the law can't handle it, if they sued everyone that pirated music, there wouldn't be enough jails to hold everyone, and our countries would fall apart. There would be a lack in a lot of areas and things due to loss of jobs and work. It's insane to even think about, so why do some people have major consequences when millions of other people are living perfectly normal life's forgetting about those 3-5,000 songs they downloaded how ever long ago? It just doesn't seem fair to me.

Some people may try and counter my argument by saying " Well, what about people that murder and have to go to jail and those who murder and get away with it and don't get caught? Is that unfair too? It's still a crime." Yes, it is indeed still a crime, but in reality, music piraters are normal, good people we see everyday, everywhere, as where most murders are not.

It's just so easy to do, and not so easy to get caught! People have figured this out, and they say the usual "That could never happen to me" and "But everyone does it!" because they see it's so rarely punished and they also see that so many others get away with it. How are they going to get caught? The law can stop them but they will never stop us all.

Is The Law A Bit Outrageous?
So lets say little Jimmy here illegally downloads about 24 songs, if he gets caught, he's basically ruined for life, pirating can have a bigger fine then murdering someone does! I would have to say that is REALLY OUTRAGOUS. I don't know about you but I think there is a big, huge, fat line between murdering and pirating. Heck, Some people don't even know when they illegally download something, and even if they do know, most of these people are people you see everyday, your family, your friends, everyone around you.

This site tells 7 crimes that are cheaper then pirating-
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2009/08/s...six-other-crimes-cheaper-than-pirating-music/

Examples of cases that I think are outrageous-

Jammie Thoman-Rasset Case:
"A JURY has ordered a 32-year-old woman to pay $US1.92 million ($A2.4 million) in damages for illegally downloading 24 songs in a high-profile digital piracy case."
http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,28348,25659151-5014239,00.html

This is a quote I found funny-
"They had jury selection, right? Here's how that went- RIAA: Have you ever downloaded music? Yes? Okay, you're out. You, have you ever downloaded music? You have? Okay you're out too."

Tanya J. Andersen Case:
http://www.internetdj.com/article/r...ion-of-10-year-old-in-music-pirating-case-909

Joel Tenenbaum case:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/o-tenenbaum-riaa-wins-675000-or-22500-per-song.ars

Why Wouldn't You Steal Music?
Music is expensive. It may be .99 cents a song on Itunes and some people would say, "that sounds reasonable" or "that doesn't seem like that much" but think of how much .99 cents can add up to after you fill up your Ipod, Zune, or MP3?

First off, you have to buy something to hold your music in, you have a few choices, usually it's between Apple Ipod, Zune, or some other brand of MP3 player. There is a big difference in MP3 pricings depending on how much music space you need, and what different cool features that MP3 has to offer. But lets be honest, music lovers (those even willing to pirate music) are going to want a nice MP3 player that can hold a decent amount of songs, and they are willing to pay the price. These Ipod, Zune, and MP3 players, can be pretty expensive, for example the Ipod Classic, this 160GB player costs $249.00 and can hold 40,000 songs and 200 hours of video, impressive huh? Not so fast, lets remember, YOU have to pay for all those songs, even though you already bought the nice player, and lets do the math, 40,000 times .99, well that's only going to cost you $39,600 and we all have that money right? No? Okay, okay, maybe I am over exaggerating a little bit, you do have ALL those CD's you've bought over the years right? The ones you love. Well I hope you have ALOT because if not then you are paying for that extra space on your player one way or another.

Most people don't just buy one MP3 player, I am amazed at how many people get new Ipod's just because a "better" one has come out and they want to be the cool kid on the block. Anyways, long story short, the money adds up.

Besides money issues there are still various reasons why people would pirate music, maybe you can't find that special song ANYWHERE, and are pulling into pirating because of wanting that specific song so badly. Or maybe you're just too lazy to get up and buy it, it's so easy to get, you don't even have to get up, you just click and bam, it's yours.

Is Pirating Music "Wrong"?
Short answer, yes it is wrong. It's wrong by law and (my opinion) it's just plain wrong. However, some people have gotten to the point where, even if they realise pirating is wrong, we just don't care anymore, we couldn't care any less (including me). We can justify ourselves in many ways, but in the end it's still going to be "wrong".

For me, I don't have a job, I'm 15 and barely anyone hires that young, and on top of that my parents won't allow me to get a job for the one place I can think of that does hire at 15. I don't get allowance, and I know for sure my parents don't want to give me money for the some of the music I listen to (they only want me to listen to Christian music), or any music at all actually. Alot has gone on with my family this summer, the economy is crap and in the end we just need to use our money on other things like food and bills.

I don't feel bad at all when I pirate music, I understand that I am "stealing" music but I'm not really taking anything they didn't already have. I think a lot of people feel this way also, the fact that it is not a tangible item really affects people's decision on this as well. I personally don't think pirating music is the same as stealing music from the store, we all know pirating music is easier and you most likely won't get caught but also, stealing a CD is stealing someones hard work and something they had to pay for as well (not saying they don't have to pay to make the songs), but that's still stealing one more thing, yet pirating's fine is more expensive.

A study that shows pirates buy 10 times more music then they steal-
http://www.zeropaid.com/news/86009/study-pirates-buy-10-times-more-music-than-they-steal/

In some way, pirating music can be a good thing and some bands even support it.
Here's some links that Fleet Foxes (band) praises p2p/pirating for helping bands get discovered-
http://www.zeropaid.com/news/86428/band-praises-p2p-for-helping-artists-discover-music/
http://www.clashmusic.com/news/fleet-foxes-favour-illegal-downloads

NeverShoutNever! (Christofer Drew) tells people on his myspace to steal his music (get it somewhere for free), he says, " GO DOWNLOAD MY S*** FOR FREE SOMEWHERE." -on his profile, and
"Also, if you know how to rip it off the myspace player...
Do it.
Put it for free download somewhere; cause I dunno how to do that " -on his "moved "making love"." blog

His myspace profile-
http://www.myspace.com/nevershoutnever

Pirating also helps more bands and artists become known to more people so that more people want to go to their concerts, so they get more money for concerts but less money on CD's. Alot of bands become discovered through pirating.

Also a big point is that: this is bringing us more bands that want to play music because that's what they love, more then people that are only bands for money, and an increase in bands that have an actual meaning.

Conclusion
I think about someone Pirating thousands of songs and someone killing thousands of animals to sell as meat (and those who eat it) as a close concept in how people justify themselves from doing it.

1. They don't see how it effect's those people or animals. Since they don't see how it's hurting others they think it is okay.

2. We just don't care. We understand others are suffering because of what we do (artists aren't getting paid what they need and animals are being slaughtered because you paid for the meat) but we would rather them suffer for our personal gain.

3. We try and make excuses for it, things like "I'm not the one killing the animal though!", "God says we can hunt and eat meat so it's okay", "(pirating) But I'm not taking something they already had away from them", "Pirating helps bands become known so it's okay", but in the end some of us understand that it's still wrong even if we try to justify it, and some of us never accept what we do is wrong.

Because behind both of these things, Pirating, and Eating Meat, there are ways to avoid it, we just don't want to sacrifice that much of our self satisfaction by either buying the music, or becoming vegetarian.

 

[Kewkky]

I don't know what I should say, except for: I agree.

A couple of friends of mine actually laugh at how I buy CDs and have original game cartridges for my DS (not pirating music, but pirating games in this situation)... I try to explain to them what that does to the economy and the market, but they just shrug the explanations off and act as if I'm "trying to win every conversation"... It's that close-mindedness that really gets my blood boiling.

I have to admit, P2P does help newer bands flourish, since buying singles isn't that much different from buying CDs: you eventually use money to check out a band. Some people don't have access to paypal or internet charging methods (like me), and the only way we can get our hands on a sample is by receiving it from another person through a peer-to-peer program...

However, it IS easy to find a song we oh so desperately want and haven't had luck finding it. The same dedication you use to eventually download the song through any P2P program, you could use to google a piece of the lyrics you've heard... And if you have money to spare and don't want your bands to stop making music because they weren't making enough money to satisfy their economic needs, then spend a few bucks! It's the most logical choice to go by: if you want the market to keep going, someone's going to have to buy what they sell. If the majority starts thinking "let someone else buy it instead", it's eventually going to crash and burn.

I won't deny it: I download music. But I also won't deny that when I hear a band's music, and I love their work, I feel the need to own their CDs... Even if it's just to have it in my collection, the thought of me having the CDs of the bands I appreciate makes me feel like I'm not downloading illegally... More like, getting free samples then buying the whole dish.


Good read, thanks for going through all the trouble. My position is firm: I'm against pirating music: downloading and selling for personal profit.

 

[Crimson King]

Why Wouldn't You Steal Music?
Music is expensive. It may be .99 cents a song on Itunes and some people would say, "that sounds reasonable" or "that doesn't seem like that much" but think of how much .99 cents can add up to after you fill up your Ipod, Zune, or MP3?

First off, you have to buy something to hold your music in, you have a few choices, usually it's between Apple Ipod, Zune, or some other brand of MP3 player. There is a big difference in MP3 pricings depending on how much music space you need, and what different cool features that MP3 has to offer. But lets be honest, music lovers (those even willing to pirate music) are going to want a nice MP3 player that can hold a decent amount of songs, and they are willing to pay the price. These Ipod, Zune, and MP3 players, can be pretty expensive, for example the Ipod Classic, this 160GB player costs $249.00 and can hold 40,000 songs and 200 hours of video, impressive huh? Not so fast, lets remember, YOU have to pay for all those songs, even though you already bought the nice player, and lets do the math, 40,000 times .99, well that's only going to cost you $39,600 and we all have that money right? No? Okay, okay, maybe I am over exaggerating a little bit, you do have ALL those CD's you've bought over the years right? The ones you love. Well I hope you have ALOT because if not then you are paying for that extra space on your player one way or another.

This is a fallacy. Consider that not all albums were sold at $0.99 per song, and still aren't. Many times you'll see a 12 to 14 track album for $10, or on huge sale days you may get a nice box set for cheap.

Next, who cares if it costs too much money. There is no "right to being entertained." The problem with your argument is it implies a sense of entitlement to the pirate, but they deserve nothing unless they are willing to pay for it. If they don't want to pay, which is a choice, then they can go without.

So, address these two points.

 

[Hydra.]

This is a fallacy. Consider that not all albums were sold at $0.99 per song, and still aren't. Many times you'll see a 12 to 14 track album for $10, or on huge sale days you may get a nice box set for cheap.

Next, who cares if it costs too much money. There is no "right to being entertained." The problem with your argument is it implies a sense of entitlement to the pirate, but they deserve nothing unless they are willing to pay for it. If they don't want to pay, which is a choice, then they can go without.

So, address these two points.

@ Crimson King- I posted other reasons beyond money as to why people would pirate music (although money is a big reason). I agree, there is no "right to be entertained", and I wasn't trying to create a sense of entitlement to the pirate, I was just typing what I think most peoples thoughts are on why they would pirate music.

Later on in my argument I do state this is wrong no matter what justification you give it. -

Short answer, yes it is wrong. It's wrong by law and (my opinion) it's just plain wrong. However, some people have gotten to the point where, even if they realise pirating is wrong, we just don't care anymore, we couldn't care any less (including me). We can justify ourselves in many ways, but in the end it's still going to be "wrong".

if you have money to spare and don't want your bands to stop making music because they weren't making enough money to satisfy their economic needs, then spend a few bucks! It's the most logical choice to go by: if you want the market to keep going, someone's going to have to buy what they sell. If the majority starts thinking "let someone else buy it instead", it's eventually going to crash and burn.

I won't deny it: I download music. But I also won't deny that when I hear a band's music, and I love their work, I feel the need to own their CDs... Even if it's just to have it in my collection, the thought of me having the CDs of the bands I appreciate makes me feel like I'm not downloading illegally... More like, getting free samples then buying the whole dish.

I agree with this as well. I pirate but I also think to keep your favorite bands or just bands you like going, that you should support them when you can.

 

[Hydra.]

Oh sorry, I didn't know you already had a thread on it, I used the search before I made this because I wanted a good topic no one had already done before, but I guess I missed yours. =/

I'll look into your thread, it is long and I can tell you put alot of hard work into it as well.

 

[Hydra.]

Oh, no, no. This is a PG thread, you can make duplicates. And I don't think it is, anyway.

(And yes, my OP is the longest on the smashboards. And yes, I wrote the whole thing just for these boards. )

Oh, I didn't know that! Thank you for informing me. Anyways, that is really impressive. Oh well, I feel more unique now.

 

[Crimson King]

Yes, Alt, thank you for pointing out the faults in the argument that Aqua was supposed to address. THIS is why I don't want Debaters posting in this room.

 

[Hydra.]

Yes, Alt, thank you for pointing out the faults in the argument that Aqua was supposed to address. THIS is why I don't want Debaters posting in this room.

I had basicly posted the same thing right before him. He just put it in a lot better wording then I did..

 

[Crimson King]

It doesn't matter. HE isn't here to prove himself; you are.

 

[Omnicron's Baklava Enterprises]

Look at Apple. Apple makes a FORTUNE off of piracy. The iPod is practically a social necessity. They have accomplished such incredible brand association that people refer to all MP3 players as "iPods" even when they're not actually iPods. (Kind of like how people say "Band-Aids" even when they are not the Band-Aid brand) Every man, woman, and child who owns an iPod is a pirate. Plain and simple. You cannot fill an iPod legally. It costs tens of thousands of dollars to do that, and nobody does.

But Apple then turns around and claims that piracy is bad, and hurts their business! A laughable claim on its face, but why would they do such a thing? Because copyright law has nothing to do with piracy. Copyright law has never prevented or slowed piracy and it never will. Copyright law is all about preventing other legitimate companies from competing with you. It's a perpetual monopoly over everything you touch.

Increasingly stricter copyright laws lets companies like Apple continue to profit directly from piracy, while simultaneously using the law to control the marketplace in a very un-capitalistic way. Best of both worlds!

I must agree with Aqua and AltF4 on this.

When Apple states that piracy is bad, aren't they being a tad bit contradictory? Considering they make so much money off of people pirating every day, and yet they say pirating is bad? Do they even know that they are making so much money of off a practice that so many perform? They probably just think that people must like their iPods.

Also, looking at it from an economic stand-point...
This economy was awful and it continued to be that way throughout late 2008 and early-to-mid 2009. Why? Well, one of the many reasons was that people were afraid and too cautious to buy in such a bad economy, that just slowed the flow of money which helped keep the economy alive and well.
Pirating is, technically, a way of saying that "I can't bother to use my money in order to acquire these songs. Besides, everyone else does it!". Also, it is most blatantly stealing. They do not want to spend, and the music industry of today is quite large. Without spending (and I'm not saying that the music industry controls the global economy, but it does indeed aid it), the economy cannot return to the former glory that it once had.

Pros of Pirating:
- You can download almost anything you want from games to music to movies.
- Everything is completely free of charge.
- One may be able to fit in, because "Everyone else does it".

Cons of Pirating:
- Committing an illegal act. However, so many who are doing this realize that they are downloading illegally, yet they never seem to care.
- Outrageously large fines for downloading music, which is exactly what happened to the woman that was fined 1.92 million dollars for pirating only 24 songs! Look at that article here: (http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/06/18/minnesota.music.download.fine/index.html)
- There is always the chance of installed viruses, trojans, spyware, adware, and everything else that may cause glitches or fatal errors within your computer within these files that one downloads. The chances are slim, yet they are still possible. Apparently, merely even downloading programs such as Limewire may cause harm to your computer.
- What may happen to the musicians that do not want their CDs pirated.

Moreover, it is difficult for artists to not feel threatened by the thought of entire world downloading music through free servers. Megan Taylor, better known by her musical name Sapphirecut, a musician whose first single went straight to the top of billboard charts, sold 15,000 vinyl copies of her single, and was headed towards great success was incredibly discouraged and confused to see that that her CD sales were incredibly low, selling a total of 110 discs. While it is true that radio play and concerts take in a good revenue for the artists, the industry as a whole is suffering in that the record label and producers are losing income from the sell of the CD's. It is important to understand that in order for musicians to make money, there must be people willing to produce songs and albums, and with the slow deduction in industry income, all levels of the industry greatly suffer.

Source: http://www.angelfire.com/de3/jfreeman/termpaper.htm

I remember one day when some of my friends and I were discussing the Internet in general, when eventually the conversation came to pirating music. One of my friends said that "people pirate music to preview it". What he said is not true; people download full versions of their favourite songs and instead of going to buy the actual song, they keep the pirated one.

Pirating may help a few new bands out here and there, but it will not help any of the older bands, which there are much more of. Pirating is hurting the music industry by not paying bands, yet it benefits Apple because of the demand for more iPods.
There seem to be more cons to pirating music than there are pros.

Yet, I shall admit, I basically do pirate music myself. However, I use a program called "Youtube Downloader" with which I can rip the audio out of the video and listen to it with good quality on my PSP (yes, punch me for using a PSP instead of an iPod for listening to music; I lost my iPod Nano a year ago).

 

[thegreatkazoo]

I remember when I wanted to take a stab @ this with Alt's thread (though we share similar sentiments with the subject @ hand). But instead, I will post here which responds to your one bit here:

Short answer, yes it is wrong. It's wrong by law and (my opinion) it's just plain wrong. However, some people have gotten to the point where, even if they realise pirating is wrong, we just don't care anymore, we couldn't care any less (including me). We can justify ourselves in many ways, but in the end it's still going to be "wrong".

I would advise for you to read this article and you may see that a pirate probably should be the least of your worries.

Have fun!

 

[Smoke and smash]

Sharing music between peers is...wrong? It's like letting my friends borrow my cd's; is that wrong too?

 

[Hydra.]

I would advise for you to read this article and you may see that a pirate probably should be the least of your worries.

Have fun!

I'm not sure if I am interpreting this right but I think you are trying to say if I know this is wrong and still do it then I probably have a lot more problems, then just pirating, well you are right, everyone has a lot of problems, I have many flaws, and some are worse then pirating. In my life a lot of things have happened that made me stop caring about a lot of things but I don't think pirating has anything to really do with that. I am only human, most of the time when I pirated music I didn't even think about it, I just do it without even thinking if it is right or wrong. I think this applies to humans in a lot of other ways as well, humans talk/gossip about other humans all the time without thinking, yes it's wrong we just don't think "hey is this wrong to say?" before saying it. We're so fast to talk. Also even though know I know what I do is wrong in some ways, that doesn't mean I'm some kind of monster, I speak for a big amount of people. Heck, Omnicron just sat there and typed up some cons for pirating music and how it is wrong and at the end admitted that he did it also.

Sharing music between peers is...wrong? It's like letting my friends borrow my cd's; is that wrong too?

Borrow, no. Burning them and giving them the burned CD, yes, legally. I however think it is just fine.

 

[thegreatkazoo]

Naw, homes--not so much.

What we have here is a failure to communicate...

Seems that I am going to have to pick up some points from the topic and present them myself...after I get done with my Senior Design Proposal. Back in 5 hours or so...

EDIT: Okay that was more than five hours...Senior Design will do that to you (& ΑΦΩ, sleep, &c.).

My main counterpoint is this: Is pirating wrong considering the how the music industry at times have--and still are--committing acts no less perfidious (in both a moral & legal standpoint) than the pirates? Of course, reading the whole article will shed light on this take, but for those who tl;dr their way through the boards, I put nine major points from the article below...

I won't argue these points, per se (though I agree with Alt on his take of piracy, I don't like arguing it like he does. j/k), but they are here to sweeten the pot of discussion. I will point out any invalid debating tactics and/or points though. Because quite frankly Aqua, while you have made a good first thread, I by no means think that it should be your only to get in the DH. (Please take no antipathy out of that )

I tagged along on $1500 artist dinners paid for by the labels. Massive bar tabs were regularly signed away by record label employees with company cards. You got used to people billing as many expenses back to the record company as they could. I met the type of jive, middle-aged, blazer-wearing,

Spoiler

coke-snorting,

cartoon character label bigwigs who you'd think were too cliche to exist outside the confines of Spinal Tap. It was all strange and exciting, but one thing that always resonated with me was the sheer volume of money that seemed to be spent without any great deal of concern. Whether it was excessive production budgets or "business lunches" that had nothing to do with business, one of my first reactions to it all was, "so this is why CDs cost $18..." An industry of excess.

They had a chance to move forward, to evolve with technology and address the changing needs of consumers - and they didn't. Instead, they panicked - they showed their hand as power-hungry dinosaurs, and they started to demonize their own customers, the people whose love of music had given them massive profits for decades. They used their unfair record contracts - the ones that allowed them to own all the music - and went after children, grandparents, single moms, even deceased great grandmothers - alongside many other common people who did nothing more than download some songs and leave them in a shared folder - something that has become the cultural norm to the iPod generation.

They didn't jump in when the new technologies were emerging and think, "how can we capitalize on this to ensure that we're able to stay afloat while providing the customer what they've come to expect?" They didn't band together and create a flat monthly fee for downloading all the music you want. They didn't respond by drastically lowering the prices of CDs (which have been ludicrously overpriced since day one, and actually increased in price during the '90's), or by offering low-cost DRM-free legal MP3 purchases. Their entry into the digital marketplace was too little too late - a precedent of free, high-quality, DRM-free music had already been set.

The easiest example of this is how much of a fight it's been to get record companies to sell MP3s DRM-free. You're trying to explain a new technology to an old guy who made his fortune in the hair metal days. You're trying to tell him that when someone buys a CD, it has no DRM - people can encode it into their computer as DRM-free MP3s within seconds, and send it to all their friends. So why insult the consumer by making them pay the same price for copy-protected MP3s? It doesn't make any sense! It just frustrates people and drives them to piracy!

If you're not familiar with Oink, here's a quick summary: Oink was was a free members-only site - to join it you had to be invited by a member. Members had access to an unprecedented community-driven database of music. Every album you could ever imagine was just one click away. Oink's extremely strict quality standards ensured that everything on the site was at pristine quality - 192kbps MP3 was their bare minimum, and they championed much higher quality MP3s as well as FLAC lossless downloads. They encouraged logs to verify that the music had been ripped from the CD without any errors. Transcodes - files encoded from other encoded files, resulting in lower quality - were strictly forbidden.

In this sense, Oink was not only an absolute paradise for music fans, but it was unquestionably the most complete and most efficient music distribution model the world has ever known. I say that safely without exaggeration. It was like the world's largest music store, whose vastly superior selection and distribution was entirely stocked, supplied, organized, and expanded upon by its own consumers. If the music industry had found a way to capitalize on the power, devotion, and innovation of its own fans the way Oink did, it would be thriving right now instead of withering. If intellectual property laws didn't make Oink illegal, the site's creator would be the new Steve Jobs right now. He would have revolutionized music distribution. Instead, he's a criminal, simply for finding the best way to fill rising consumer demand. I would have gladly paid a large monthly fee for a legal service as good as Oink - but none existed

The RIAA loves to complain about music pirates leaking albums onto the internet before they're released in stores - painting the leakers as vicious pirates dead set on attacking their enemy, the music industry. But you know where music leaks from? From the fvcking source, of course - the labels! At this point, most bands know that once their finished album is sent off to the label, the risk of it turning up online begins, because the labels are full of low-level workers who happen to be music fans who can't wait to share the band's new album with their friends. If the album manages to not leak directly from the label, it is guaranteed to leak once it heads off to manufacturing. Someone at the manufacturing plant is always happy to sneak off with a copy, and before long, it turns up online. Why? Because people love music, and they can't wait to hear their favorite band's new album!

If the industry tried to have some kind of compassion - if they said, "we understand that these are just music fans trying to listen to as much music as they can, but we have to protect our assets, and we're working on an industry-wide solution to accommodate the changing needs of music fans"... Well, it's too late for that, but it would be encouraging. Instead, they make it sound like they busted a Columbian drug cartel or something. They describe it as a highly-organized piracy ring. Like Oink users were distributing kiddie porn or some ****. The press release says: "This was not a case of friends sharing music for pleasure." Wh - what?? That's EXACTLY what it was! No one made any money on that site - there were no ads, no registration fees.

The anti-piracy groups have tried to spin the notion that you had to pay a fee to join Oink, which is NOT true - donations were voluntary, and went to support the hosting and maintenance of the site. If the donations spilled into profit for the guy who ran the site, well he **** well deserved it - he created something truly remarkable.

 

[Hydra.]

I will make more threads, when I get ideas for debate I write it down in a special notepad, I am just really busy, I have to go to school and skipped school today because I didn't want to go and I needed to study and I couldn't that weekend because the day I set aside to study my parents had a surprise for us and took us to the fair all day, so I can't do a debate for sure today or tomorrow. Anyways my main point is that I have debates I want to do but I need time to research them and type it all up nicely, I don't just want to throw things together and post it, I like to go over it first.