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Comment by sritch | Hacker News Reader

Yes it does...you deprived the artist of making money as opposed to depriving yourself of music and movies. How does that not apply? You took for free what others paid for.. Your income doesn't matter. Poor people aren't entitled to free goods because they were never going to drive business anyway.

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You can't deprive someone of something that was never there. Consider the following sets of situations:

1: An album is available for $10. It is worth $5 to me. I don't buy it.

2: An album is available for $10. It's worth $5 to me. I pirate it and obtain it for $0.

The second set of circumstances is better for everyone: I have gained total welfare of $5 and no one has lost out. I don't see how this is worse than the first option, or morally wrong..

I'm sure the artist who just lost out on his 5 to 10 bucks would beg to disagree.

It isn't your right to choose the price you'd pay for something and then copy it if you feel so inclined. You either pay the asking price for a good / service, or you don't pay and don't enjoy the benefits of the service / good. This is why copyright infringement which subverts this system is illegal.

The artist hasn't 'lost out' on anything. With digital distribution there is no marginal cost for extra consumption --- it's all fixed cost. This is why a patronage model (such as Kickstarter) is probably more appropriate nowadays.

Even if you do think copyright is still appropriate, it needs to be carefully managed. In general, the purpose of copyright was never to ensure authors have some 'right' to control their work in perpetuity, as is commonly assumed today --- you can see that at work right there in the US Constitution 'To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries'. There's some interesting discussion here http://rufuspollock.org/economics/papers/optimal_copyright_t...

>>I'm sure the artist who just lost out on his 5 to 10 bucks would beg to disagree.

I'm sure that the artist getting a new fan, and becoming more popular for free is a very dangerous process indeed :-) ...

You aren't a 'fan' if you aren't paying for it, I'd call that a 'leech'.

To be a fan, the major criterion is that you have to like the artist. Paying comes at a later stage.

You liked it enough to download and listen to...but not to pay? That's not a fan. If you don't intend to pay then don't download against the artists wishes and listen to it via free means.

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