What are your thoughts on music/media piracy?

The RIAA, MPAA, and the cyber police: The Axis of Evil

The RIAA's reasoning why on file sharing is stealing is shoddy at best. They lose no money from it. When a CD is made, the industry must pay to have the actual disc manufactured, placed in jewel cases, and be distributed to retail outlets. Thus, shoplifting the CD from the store is stealing.

Now when that CD is ripped into a mp3 file, the industry lost no money; and neither did they lose any money when you shared it provided that you legally purchased the original CD.

The RIAA argues that they are losing potential revenue. This is a fallacious argument because it makes the unfounded assumption that you would have purchased the CD from a retail store had file sharing not have been an option. The RIAA's argument is weak because in order for it work, they would have to make ripping CDs illegal as well. Why hasn't the RIAA sued Microsoft over the ability to rip CDs simply using Windows Media Player?

Also, where were the RIAA lawsuits in the 80's and 90's when people were manually recording music from the radio onto cassette discs? Surely, they were losing potential revenue because those people didn't buy the official cassette.

Of course, all of this is blissfully ignored as politicians give them their way in order to get funding from them for their election campaigns. Money makes the world go 'round; and it also makes American law go 'round.

Discuss.

I buy music I like legally, on a song to song basis, on iTunes.

Personally I think people who download music illegally are just cheap and don't really appreciate music that much. Its not much money per song, and it makes sure you get music you actually like, not just mass download some stuff for free.

lx_theo said:

I buy music I like legally, on a song to song basis, on iTunes.

Personally I think people who download music illegally are just cheap and don't really appreciate music that much. Its not much money per song, and it makes sure you get music you actually like, not just mass download some stuff for free.

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I'm a mixed bag. If it's an artist that I really want to support and I know that I'll like more than just a handful of songs on the album/mixtape, I'll buy. I'm not opposed to downloading music "illegally", though.

I dont know the date today, so sorry if its necro bumping...looks recent.

Personally, I support pirating. Though it depends on the circumstances. I pirate music, but I also enjoy the music, I appreciate it. I'm just a kid that makes no money and has no way to buy the music. Also seeing as every few months, many bands I enjoy, I won't enjoy any longer (oh, SLipknot). Why pay money for that?

However, the artists do need money, so I don't mind suporting them. I don't have the money to, but once I get a job this summer, I plan on buying albums that Ive liked and not lost interest in within a year, in order to support the artists. I delete that which I lose interest in, so not like they lost money from it.

But I do feel I should buy much more. I do tend to feel bad about it.

I personally think we should adapt with piracy. The original post is focusing a lot of music piracy only, and all points mentioned are true. They have no real basis to want to get rid of piracy because it's all on the assumption that, if piracy never existed, we would be purchasing our music.

But piracy is a great thing. Piracy has allowed for musicians, filmmakers, software manufacturers, etc etc to get much more recognition. Sharing of everything has grown substantially simply because it is free. Think about the repercussions of obtaining things for free: All of a sudden, if a band's one album is good, hell why not download them all? Or if one director's film is great, let's check out what else he's made! We should be able to adapt to piracy. I think that many people who pirate on a regular basis, like myself, tend to develop a much stronger interest in what it is they are pirating than they would have if piracy was not an option. I can definitely say that my music library is only as big as it is because of piracy. There is no way I would have paid for all 2721 songs on my current iTunes list. Even at Apple's discount price of 99c/song, that still amounts to a lot of money. But look at me now: I've been building my music library for years and music has probably become one of the biggest influences in my life.

If piracy didn't exist, I probably wouldn't be able to say that.

Furthermore, because music has become such a huge part of my life, I tend to support bands that I like. I'm starting to build a physical CD collection as well, and, as controversial as it is, I would have never started liking a band so much to spend money on them if I hadn't first stolen all of their material.

I'm all for piracy. But, I'm not okay with profit from piracy. Those who sell bootlegged movies or pirated movies are the real problem here. Because that is where the RIAA is losing potential revenue. There are plenty that pirate, but plenty who don't have a clue how to do it either, and will jump at the opportunity to buy the latest blockbuster from a pirate for $5, instead of $25 in-store.

AND, we cannot forget the beauty that is software piracy. I think many people justify software piracy with "it's so expensive anyway, it'd be ridiculous not to pirate it." I mean really, the Home & Business Edition of Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac is $247.99 at Future Shop/Best Buy. That is insane. To be fair, the Home & Student Edition is only $129.99, but still way too pricy for me.

But software piracy is a gem. If it hadn't been for software piracy, I wouldn't be studying where I am now. Tons of people have pirated Adobe Photoshop, for example, and many use it for quick things, but many also have fallen in love with the program and start truly developing an interest in graphic design. Maybe they start to dabble a bit into Illustrator and InDesign, too. But, as a parent, your child is asking you to buy the $700 program that Photoshop CS5 is. You seriously gunna spend that much cash on something your kid might end up using once?

Hello uTorrent. A few years ago I pirated Final Cut Pro and have since then fallen in love with video editing and filmmaking. And now I'm in school, studying it. Who knew it would lead to that? It never would have if I hadn't been able to pirate FCP, cause there's no way I'm buying Final Cut Studio from Apple for $999, or Final Cut Express for $199.