Every one of you music theives is like a looter during a riot. The fact that the walls are down doesn’t make it right to steal.
And everyone gleefully hollaring about gnutella or napigator are doubly wrong. Calling your homies saying “sure the cops quelled the fires on that side of town, but come on over here where there are still plenty of unguarded TVs”
There is nothing to be proud of here. Your new shiny toys are stolen. You should be ashamed.
Exactly. Theft is theft, and the fact that it’s easy doesn’t make it right. You’re taking something you have not right to, and all the rationalization in the world can’t obscure that fact.
(Max winces as the scent of self-righteousness fills his nostrils.)
I’ll be brief: I’ve never used Napster, but I support them. The laws as written do not cover Napster’s method of file exchange. The judge overstepped his authority by ordering a shutdown; new laws need to come from the legislature, not the judiciary. You want to get mad at someone for allowing illegal internet music exchanges to go on, get mad at Congress.
The RIAA doesn’t realize the full impact of what they’re attempting to do. Many people who have no interest in MP3 will probably start exchanging music out of sheer spite. Hell, I’m considering it myself.
And of course Bill you are a individual that has never broken any copyright law . Never given somebody a loan of a book/video/dvd/cd .
In fact you sound like such a honourable man , I’m sure you’ve never done anything against any law ever . You probably have never even used anything in your workplace for anything other than company use .
I envy you and your clean soul . I wish I could say the same but I can’t .
I feel so ashamed right now .
Napster=good
CDs=bad
The thing that really gets me isn’t the theft itself. It’s the pride and the glee and the rationalizations that go on and on as if you were doing something charitable by stealing.
It reminds me of a documentary I saw on the 1992 L.A. riots. They interviewed the guys who savagely beat Reginald Denney. They’re now out of jail. You would hope they would say “the passion of the moment took over and I did a very bad thing; I wish I could take it back.” Of course they didn’t. They said (and this isn’t a direct quote), “we’re proud of what we did; our people were being held down and we took steps to make the world better.” Doing the lord’s work, so to speak.
And please don’t bother posting a reply that beating an innocent victim is different from stealing a $2 song. I know that. I’m talking about recognizing right from wrong. I’m talking about being ashamed of wrong actions and taking steps to rectify them. I’m talking about how wrong it is to loudly express pride about committing crimes.
People who say “it’s about time the record industry gets some; they’ve been screwing artists for decades” or “artist X has publicly stated that he likes Napster and thinks songs should be free” are flat out lying to themselves. Stealing is stealing. Stealing is wrong.
yojimbo wrote
I’m sorry; perhaps you didn’t read the OP. If you’d like to discuss my loaning books, please open another thread. Your post is completely irrelevant to the subject.
Well, I for one am relieved Bill is here to judge us, and put us on the right path. Without him, how would he know right from wrong? If you think about it, it’s like having our very own Messiah. The Messiah of the SDMB.
:rolleyes:
That isn’t an argument either.
Yes I did read your OP thx.
Yes IMO napster is stealing . Do I use it ? Yes I do.
Do I feel ashamed ? No .
I don’t try to say that it’s anything other than what it is. There are many laws/rules that people break . Some are laws/rules that are/should be upheld and some don’t matter a jot to a lot of people .
I think you’re yard-stick for measuring moral rights versus wrongs is set a little bit too high .
Damn simu-posts .
Don’t particulary want a argument either.
I’ve never used Napster.
I don’t plan to use Napster.
However, If the music companies were a little more honest themselves, there would be a lot less pirating of music.
Case in point. It costs the companies only 25 cents more to produce a CD than a cassette of an album. Check out the price difference at the record store. Cassettes are 10-14 dollars. CD’s are 16-19 dollars. The volume is greater on CD’s so that should actually drive the price down. But the music companies are keeping them artificially high. Because they can.
The Artists don’t get the difference, just the companies.
I know that if the prices were lower, I’d buy a lot more CD’s.
And if house prices in the Bay Area were cheaper I would buy one. But just because they aren’t I don’t and steal one.
I must admit that I’m not particularly bothered by illegal music trading, I surely did more than my share of software piracy when I was younger. But what does bother me is how PROUD many napster/gnutella/etc. users are.
What really got me is when several universities starting banning napster due to bandwidth concerns there was a quote in one of the papers here from a college kid saying that such an act was unacceptable because it was “free speech issue.”
I’ve found that most people don’t have much respect for intellectual property issues until they’ve developed some of their own. Once I had produced a couple pieces of my own software (even though I never distributed them commercially) I found that I stopped pirating software.
I have used Napster… in 2 ways. Once, a friend recommended a musician I had not heard. I downloaded a few songs, found I liked the music and ordered the CD’s. I am sure there are many CD’s sold that way.
I have also downloaded copies of songs I already have - because it’s sometimes easier to listen at the computer, because I can choose just one or two songs. Since I already paid for the music, I could strip it and play it anyway - but Napster is easier to organize.
Songs that I downloaded that I didn’t choose to buy I deleted. I agree the what is being done by many could be characterized as stealing, but I do not condemn them… since it’s not technically stealing and since it is teaching the music industry something about the way their consumers want to use the technology.
I do understand that you are trying to make a point about honesty, and (since I won’t steal music) I tend to agree. I just think that making it into a bigger thing than it is will increase the “rebel” factor among younger people who are still working out their values. I can’t compare it to looting - more like shoplifting. Many people do it while young, and almost all grow out of it.
I don’t either. I don’t pirate music either. I was just trying to say that it is easier to feel rightious about stealing from an organization that is ripping you off in the first place.
I’m not condoning it, just explaining it.
I agree that the idea of first admendment rights to steal is hogwash.
::beating head into brick wall::
Completely OT - one of the guys that beat of Denny, (I can’t remember all of his name, but his middle name is “Football”) is back in jail. I think for murder.
Yeah, he was just a poor guy that was terribly misunderstood. Yeah…
OK, back to the Napster discussion!
Completely off topic.
I was watching Rebecca last night (a Hitchcock movie, 1940) and in the opening credits the name Reginald Denney flashed by. Fortunately Baglady was able to tell me why I knew the name.
Completely ridiculous analogy. Bay Area home prices are high because of Low Supply/High Demand. CD’s aren’t in limited supply, and the prices are artificailly high due to the collaboration of the record companies. CD’s cost less than a dollar to make, the artists average about $2 per sale, and the retailer puts on a 10%-30% markup (online vs mall store). The record companies take in the lions share. As I said in another thread, two wrongs don’t make a right, but I feel no pity for the companies either.
As I’ve outlined elsewhere, Napster might cost Metallica some bills when they put out a shitty record because people hear it before buying it, but losing Napster will probably hurt alot of the newer bands getting tons of listens inspiring people to buy no name CDs. Look at the Top 40 these days, its almost 90% first time artists. I’d wager several of them got their boost in part from quick easy distribution and word of mouth thanks to the internet and MP3.
Actually, both Bay Area houses and CDs are expensive for the same reason: People are willing to pay the price requested.
CDs are in fact a rare commodity. Yes, the physical fact of CDs are not rare, they any particular CD is a limited commodity. If you want a Metallica CD, there is only one distributor. If you want a Hole CD there is only one source.
But you want a better analogy: Prada handbags. There is no physical reason for their scarcity, and the manufacturers markup is huge. Does that make it less wrong to steal them?
I don’t have any great sympathy for the music industry (hell, I don’t like music and have bought maybe 5 CDs in my life) but as I’ve said, what amazes is how many people feel that this theft is something for which they should be proud.
As for whether Napster actually helps bands. Don’t you think it should be up to the band to decide who’s help they want?