-WBB
Quote from George Ziemann (December 11, 2002):
The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) has a real funny way of looking at things. Not funny - "ha ha", Funny - "odd."
The sky is falling! The music industry is doomed! Woe is everyone. The pirates have stolen all the gold. What will we ever do? How can we possibly recover? You've poured water on us and we're melting!
I was watching the movie High Fidelity the other day, two of the greatest actors working today, Cusack and Black (hmm, they’re last names rhyme) So John’s character is making a mixed tape for a girl. I got to thinking about mixed tapes. Remember the time when it was a great way to get a date? Ok, I don’t exactly either, but I’ve heard stories. I did record songs off of the radio, and I threw some tapes together of the best songs on albums I had. Yes, I was a pre-teen criminal. Dade Murphy didn’t have sh*t on me! The thing is, back then it never occurred to me that we (me and my friends) were breaking the law. I’m sure it occurred even less to the people who grew up in the 70’s and 80’s.
Now a days, that’s not the case. Kids today know it’s illegal, and they can even get sued for getting music from places other than their local Best Buy. Obviously Napster didn’t begin file sharing, but it certainly brought it to the front of the class, nervously moving from foot to foot and trying not to break into a flop sweat while everyone around is staring at it. The fact that everyone, even the grandmother who only uses the computer to trade recipes with her knitting club, knows about file sharing now makes ignorance of law impossible. So people all over the world know it’s against the law to download music, but they’re not stopping. That shouldn’t be a surprise; regular people break laws all the time, especially on the Interstate.
But there’s a difference between the ways in which average people break laws. There are people who break laws for little reasons, they’re in a hurry and there are no cops around, they don’t think it’s a big deal to grab a grape at the grocery store. (Note too self, avoid excessive alliteration) Then there are people who break laws for big reasons; an honest belief the law is wrong, antiquated, was enacted for ridiculous reasons, and/or that the law is unconstitutional. For instance, some people use a certain plant to relax because they are against the laws preventing its usage. Many states still have sodomy laws, and people of all sexual preferences ignore them because they believe the government has no right to dictate how consenting adults interact physically.
So why do people still download music? For big and little reasons. Some think they won’t be caught, some just don’t care, and some honestly believe the laws against it are wrong. I spoke with a couple of people about why they still download, despite the dangers and ethics involved. All the names have been changed to protect me from being called a blabber mouth.
Goober, a 12 year old who lives down the block and mows my lawn said, “I’ve got some serious security on my comp, no one is going to track me.” After about 20 minutes of explaining to him he wasn’t as skilled as he thought, I asked him about the ethics of it. 20 minutes later, after explaining what ethics are he said, “Well I don’t know, I don’t think I’m doing anything wrong. Why should I pay for a CD with 2 good songs and 10 crappy ones? Besides, I still don’t think anyone’s going to track me.” After another 20 minute conversation I gave up and told him to remember to sweep up the sidewalk.
Jezebel, a girl I’ve asked out like 10 times, and who I used this article as an excuse to talk to, had this to say, “I’ve looked at those programs where you can just buy individual songs. Most of them are just too expensive. I’m gonna pay $3 for a song, when it only costs $15 to buy the whole CD? Plus, I know the artist isn’t getting nearly as much of the money as they should from CD’s. It’s the production studios who are getting all the money. I’d rather download the music, and then go see the band in concert, where they do make money.” When I offered to contribute to artists by taking her to a concert, she glared at me and walked away.
Genie, a friend of my slightly older but still very hip aunt spends a lot on EFF.org. She also reads a lot, and I don’t mean just romance and mystery novels (although she does enjoy those). She talked my ear off about this, but she had a few very important points to make, “I understand the idea behind the copyright laws, they are important and they protect artists. But the statistics show that programs like Napster actually stimulated the music market. When I download music I don’t think of it as stealing, and that’s not a justification. I don’t think it’s stealing anymore than watching a movie trailer online. I’m sampling. If I like a song, I’ll usually buy the album. If not, I won’t. Now there have been times I’ve downloaded a song I didn’t buy, and you know when that was, when the album was now impossible to find.
That’s something else this war on P2P (peer to peer) ignores. A lot of things people download; not just music but movies, TV shows new and old, old comedy concerts; a lot of these things aren’t readily available for sale. For instance I have a friend who lives in an area where they don’t get UPN, she downloads episodes of Enterprise. I’ve downloaded old Carlin shows you can’t find at stores, and episodes of Soap, which has only recently come to DVD. Copyright laws don’t take that into consideration. If the product isn’t available for sale, how is copying a friends old tape any different than downloading it off of the net? I’d like to believe that George Carlin appreciates I want to see his stuff that I can’t buy on Amazon. And you know what else; if he setup a Paypal account and asked me to send him a couple bucks for everyone one of those old shows I downloaded, I’d do it.”
So there are lots of reasons people still download ‘illegally’, but I think it’s reasonable to say that not all people who are engaging in this criminal activity are criminals. And I’d say the reasons are good enough to justify looking at alterations to the laws against P2P and file sharing in general. I also think there is an untapped market out there for a pay service that takes old shows and music, slaps them in a DV-R and mails them to you. Hmm, if anyone does start that program, I expect a cut for my ‘intellectual property’.
© CleverTitania.com 2009
