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Comment by thirdsun | Hacker News Reader

What do you do for a living? Whatever it is, in the spirit of freedom I hereby demand that you offer your services for free.

Doesn't sound like a good idea, does it?

Music, just like any other service, art or physical product, requires time and effort - it has value and is not a commodity. If you don't value it enough to justify spending more than the price tag of a spotify subscription (which doesn't help any artist anyway), then don't - it's fine - but don't expect artists to work for free.

That said, Grooveshark is a mor ethan shady business and should have been closed a long time ago in my opinion.

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I don't know. I'm an artist, and while I enjoy getting paid to create and preform, taking money for reproductions that do not require further effort on my part always feels weird.

I don't feel I have the right to tell anyone not to reproduce my art at their own expanse. If I play you a song, it's your right to record it and play it to your friends - just like it's your right to whistle it. Just like it's your right to remember it.

To me, intellectual property feels like a diversion. Instead of having an audience that pays me for my work, I have a middleman that makes me work for free so that he can overcharge my audience while I wait for my percentage.

I don't need to restrict anyone's freedom to make a living. The middleman does. And if grooveshark hurts his income - he had it coming. He's been hurting both our incomes (artist and audience) for years.

You got your analogy wrong.

1) If I offer a service, it's not one time - I need to keep working till a specific deadline/check point is reached.

With music/movies, it's a one time investment - You compose music once and put it on sale. And it does the work for you. Just for comparison, if I stop providing my service/offer it for free, I may not make money at all.

2) I'm not asking 100% of the artist's money for free. It maybe only a certain (in)significant percentage because despite piracy, the artist still makes money from sales. In fact, piracy improves sales (see link in parent post).

Whereas, if I offer my services for free, I make no money at all and there is no free marketing for my business involved (that would make me profitable) as in the scenario above.

So, it's not fair that you expect I should offer 1) services for free and 2) 100% of it.

I totally get your point though, and like I said, I still believe that time and effort, one time or not, is pretty valuable.

Cheers.

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