Quote:
Originally Posted by Pony99CA
You missed one point. Record company sends lawyers to sue you for copyright violation because they have your confession in writing.
My philosophy on P2P is still the same. Go ahead and steal the music if you want, but don't try to rationalize it and don't put in writing what you've done.  |
Rationalization has nothing to do with my arguments. Of course this comment may not be directly related to mine... but the way you've been somewhat structured in your multiple responses, keeping them quite separate, makes it seem as though it is. I don't want to steal music. I don't steal music. If I can possibly find a purchasable album I want to have in a shop or online, I buy it. Same goes for my teenage stepdaughter, whose ethics in this area are rather strikingly clear; she grew up the daughter of a performing musician, surrounded by performing musicians, and understands that artists need to eat. Same for me. My clients work bloody hard to scrape usually very meager incomes form the gigs they're able to find, teaching and working day jobs to make ends meet.
I respect musicians' efforts far more deeply than the 'average' recorded music consumer, not in small part owing to the fact that without musicians, I would have zero income myself. I'm a violinmaker, specialized primarily (though not exclusively) in repairs and setups of doublebasses. Without bassists, I'd have to go back to my father's business of construction, and I do have the skills to do rather well there... but it's not what I want to do. I could also be a bike mechanic or a welder or machinist or a baker or a host of other things, as my working life has been rather varied and I tend to do a good job wherever I work. Same could be said for a log of my clients. But as with me, they would prefer to make their livings from their craft, music in their case. And I support them in this, buying music which interests me, and (when fatherhood allows) going out to hear them performing.
As for your specific admonition - that putting your intentions in writing somehow makes you vulnerable... no. Did I say, for instance, that when sending a postal money order (the financial instrument mentioned, if you recall) that people should include their actual name or actual location? A postal money order is unique in that it a) can be purchased with cash, without presenting identification, and so cannot be traced to the sender, and b) is 'as good as' cash at any financial institution. Further, one can use anonymous means in writing and sending the note to go with the money order, explaining the reason for the payment and even the specific album in question, without getting the RIAA any closer to the sender than the city of origin. Barring fingerprinting or other forensic evidence, which it's highly unlikely the RIAA is going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars per case pursuing, there's just no way this is admissible in any court. The RIAA's cases are pathetically cobbled together at best anyway, relying almost entirely on fear to resolve them out of court. Evidence really doesn't much enter into it.
But of course anyone is welcome to continue quaking in fear of the MegaCorp. I've been recommending for years in discussion forums that people just outright avoid any and all DRM-protected content from these companies. I was deeply shocked to find, once, that a favourite band's label (which I will not here name, as they have since reversed this policy and now openly promote sharing of tracks as a means of promotion of their artists) had used an embedded, stealth-installed player on a CD so that it could not be ripped at better than 56kbps. Of course my immediate reaction was to spend several hours searching for a way to crack this restriction, as I'd no intention of listening to the CD at all; I wanted a 320kbps rip to MP3 for my PPC, where I listened to music generally. Solution was eventually found, CD ripped, customer no longer quite so angry. Since then I have been very careful to search the packaging of any CD for mention of any such DRM nonsense. If I am paying for an album, I want to listen to that album, on my terms. What business is it of the publishers to choose on what device or at what level of quality I do so?
Someone earlier in this thread mentioned P2P files being of generally low quality. For the limited use I have made of such services, in cases where availability of physical media simply wasn't an option, my experience says otherwise. Sure, there is the odd horrid rip. But generally speaking, it seems audiophile quality of darn near is the rule. Perhaps this low-quality thing is more applicable in cases with pop music? Haven't really tried to find any of that, so couldn't say. Old classical recordings for the most part, stuff long out of print. The odd ancient jazz album, like some tasty Coltrane or Brubeck no longer issued, though I have it on poppy old vinyl. There, it's unusual to find any single track less than 40MB of data, with albums measuring in the many hundreds of megabytes to handle every possible nuance. That's when I am very grateful for the resource P2P networking provides, and of course gladly share more than my bandwidth share.
So the RIAA can bite me. I neither steal their stuff nor promote such activities. I am merely advocating for pushing them to wake up and treat their customers with some respect. Perhaps if they do, they might find it in their hearts to offer a little of the same to their artists... nah, that's not likely.