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Originally Posted by Sean
Have you considered that maybe people keep saying it because it's true? If you illegally download and keep a product that's only been made available by it's copyright owners for purchase, then you have stolen it.
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Well, you're one of the only ones I've ever heard claim it who didn't work for the RIAA, so I kind of take it with a grain of salt...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sean
What does that mean, "*actual* theft"? The act of stealing is taking "another person's property without permission or legal right and without intending to return it". Illegally downloading music is taking another person's intellectual property without permission or legal right, and many people do it without any intent to pay for it. What's not "*actual* theft" about that? And seriously, the fact that a digital file is non-physical and therefore as a format has no inherent value, does not in any way discount the fact that there is inherent value to the music itself, and that said music is legally owned by it's creator or whoever happens to possess the copyrights. So saying you've taken nothing of any value is false.
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So would you also agree that home taping kills music too? They seem like the same concept to me. And then would you agree that deleting the MP3 files after you listen to them would be 'returning' the file? The reason why I can't equate it with shoplifting is because it's totally different. Unless you were planning to buy that CD, nobody gets deprived of anything. If there was such an inherent value in the music itself, why can I sell my CDs but not my MP3s? Or are used CD stores killing music too? After all, the artists don't recieve any compensation from that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sean
I disagree. In your first point, once again, you're only weighing the cost of the physical medium itself. You're ignoring the fact that the creation, distribution, and marketing of the music indeed constitutes a "cost" for the artist who's being ripped off, not just the medium it's released on.
In your second point, your hypothetical person has denied the artist return on their investment in booking the venue, paying the band members, lighting set-ups, roadies, transportation, live performance equipment, etc, etc. Buying a t-shirt helps defray the cost of designing and manufacturing merchandise, but not the concert.
Your third point about illegally downloading software was already addressed as well. When you buy software, you're helping pay for all the costs that have gone into developing and marketing that software. When you subsequently purchase upgrades, you're helping pay for all the additional research and development that's gone into improving the program.
So ultimately, in all three scenarios, you're bizarrely trying to justify stealing one thing by paying for another. That just doesn't hold up to any kind of scrutiny. You're not the one who decides what you should pay for and what you should take for free - the people who own and provide the goods and services in question are. What in the world would make you feel like you're entitled to steal something from someone as long as you pay them for something else later on down the road?
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I know that the physical medium is not the ONLY cost. I'm not sure why you keep pressing this point as it's pretty obvious. Are you arguing that the 'theft' here is directly hurting this artist? Is 0 CD sales and 0 ticket sales somehow better than 0 CD sales and 1 ticket?
Second point: pretty sure artists profit from their merchandise.
Third point: I still think you're kind of missing the point here. I AM AWARE that software has a cost. I'm a software developer for crying out loud. When you say these arguments don't hold up to any scrutiny, I suppose you mean in a legal debate, or maybe a moral debate, but if you're talking real world, I think this argument holds up very well. You're acting as though each piece of software/album release is some kind of tangible object where the vendor has less of every time someone makes a copy. I pointed out three examples where the artist DIRECTLY PROFITS from this kind of behavior, and I don't think any of them were really far out...this sort of thing happens all the time. When Napster was at its peak, so were CD sales. Look it up. Illegal downloading is a convienient scapegoat for people to explain why their releases failed because it puts the blame on other people. The RIAA complained about how downloading is killing music because CD sales went down 10% in a year. They failed to mention that new releases were down 15%. You have to take the good with the bad and remember that some new releases bombed in the pre-internet age, too. If illegal downloading is killing everything, what do you suggest we do about it? Outlaw the internet? Ban CD-Rs? Ban iPods? Sue poor college students for millions of dollars? Is there a solution?