Because someone doesn't agree with you doesn't necessarily invalidate their opinions. If anything, in perhaps a better time, it would open the invitation for frank, but ideally _civil_ discussion.
"the most thoughtful, poignant essays I've recently read on the subject."
You might want to read more...
I _did_ read more.
I play guitar, and I know and play with a lot of small / amateur musicians who literally pay their rent with their artistry.
I find it amazing that in the dawn of all the technology we have at our hands, people would honestly advocate that all of an artist's digitally distributed goods should be 'free', whether they intend it that way or not, relegating the artists to only being able to make money by performing in public shows, and I guess hoping against hope that the pirating public doesn't decide that that is too proprietary a way for them to distribute their music.
Hell, the way it's going, I can see people making an argument for holding artists down while we surgically remove their talent from them so that we can stick it up on the Pirate Bay. :-\
No more than simply not buying and not listening does, and I doubt you consider that "stealing".
I find it amazing that in the dawn of all the technology we have at our hands, people would honestly advocate that all of an artist's digitally distributed goods should be 'free', whether they intend it that way or not, relegating the artists to only being able to make money by performing in public shows, and I guess hoping against hope that the pirating public doesn't decide that that is too proprietary a way for them to distribute their music.
I find it amazing that some people can't comprehend that one can find the notion of copyright wrong, regardless of its benefits.
I also note that buyer have shown multiple times that they're willing to pay way more than they need, even if they can get it legally for $0.01, so that assumption that it would relegate the artists to just public shows remains to be proven.
If you don't believe in copyright as a natural right, and as a result, simply do not purchase music that you find objectionable on whatever grounds, then I support you 100%.
Regardless of whether or not copying the material deprives them of a tangible good, it didn't cost them nothing to produce the work. Instruments are expensive, recording time is expensive, distribution is expensive, etc.
More to the point, I believe that even if you don't consider the artist the owner of the work, then I believe you should respect that they are the owners of its distribution.
The first paragraph of the essay says anyone who disagrees that copyright is a natural right "can go fuck themselves".
People who disagree with copyright as an institution would do so conclusively because they do not believe in the ownership of intellectual thought. They believe that there are better, more progressive institutions for cultural progress. They do not agree that somebody owns the content they produce.
The article stubbornly ignores that assessment and then tells people to fuck themselves if they can't subscribe to failed logic.
I understand that there are dissenting arguments from the propagation of natural copyright, and while I agree that our patent system is horribly, horribly broken, I do not believe that artists should not be able to set a price, of their choosing, for the release of the works they produce.
Classic.
Simply amazing. I never suspected that even the people who made that advertisement took it seriously.
If nobody gets paid for producing art, then our artists can't afford to make it their jobs, which means they won't have enough time to make better art.
What is simply amazing to me is that anybody would rather steal the work than just not have it. If it doesn't have any value, then why do you need it?
Yes, I'm implying that there is tangibility to a digital good. Perhaps the car analogy wasn't great, but if you're the guy selling your mother's famous chocolate chip cookie recipe, and I steal... errr, COPY the recipe down and put you out of business, I'd imagine you wouldn't think too fondly of me.
Please excuse me if I can put myself in the shoes of those being stolen... pirated... copied... victimlessnessed upon, and that I feel more for their needs to get compensated more than the arrogant needs of those who feel justified in stealing something they didn't create while trivializing the efforts of those who created it in the same breath.
I simply don't know how to correct this sort of willful ignorance.
It costs money to make music. It costs money to make films. It costs money to make art.
The way one is able to make those as a living is to sell the finished products and/or distribute them. If you consume the good and do not recompense, then you are depriving the artist of their means of making a living, which takes away their ability to make more art.
This whole conversation is amazing actually. It really does feel like I've been teleported back into the late 90s when normal people still actually believe this kind of crap. It's like HNs has somehow turned into early slashdot.
If you aren't willing to pay for it, then simply don't consume it. If they aren't willing to give it to you for free, then it isn't yours to take, any more than it is okay for me to steal... I mean 'copy' naked pictures of your girlfriend off your phone and distribute them to the world.
After all, it deprives you of nothing, right?
read:
"You make the classic mistake of assuming that somebody who is willing to consume media for free would also be willing to consume it for a price, and that therefore anybody who gets it for free is a lost sale. This simply is not the case."
The entertainment factor here is wearing off. I'm out.
I'm not willing to pay for an iPhone, so I don't buy one. Just because I'd be willing to have one for free doesn't justify me the right to steal it. If you aren't willing to pay for something that costs money, your alternative is to not have it.
The arrogance of the people who aren't willing to pay for the music come out of their speakers is appalling to me. That said, you justify it to yourself all you like.
Should you ever find yourself on the wrong end of the law because of it, I hope the parties arresting you feel the same way, for your sake.
Now imagine somebody built so many of these matter duplicators that we could literally carry them in our pockets and duplicate whatever we want. Should we start putting cameras in everybody's home to make sure they're not duplicating stuff they should be paying for?
This is exactly what we're talking about. We have digital consumer technology that can replicate and distribute almost any media, and the reason these problems have only just started propping up in the last couple decades is because before that, all media was physical. It was on newspaper, or film roll, or vinyl record, or cassette, or in books.
Why should we be paying a company when we aren't losing them anything? Why do they call us thieves when we have not harmed them in any way? Are we supposed to ignore these new technologies because they don't support their business model? Fuck them, I'll use my matter duplicator however I want.
The only way I'll consider giving my money to Coca-Cola when I can just use a matter duplicator, is if they're producing new and tasty beverages that they could not develop without my money. This is exactly my reasoning for being a pirate.
Disagree all you like. Theft of intellectual property is against the law.
I think your moral justifications are simply that; justifications. Stealing isn't right, and if you don't want to support an artist, don't buy their work. That is, in my opinion, both the legal and moral way to be on the right side of artists.