Modulator

Really, It is Stealing

Modulator has briefly commented on this in June but the Bitch has Words takes apart all the arguments supporting illegal file sharing that I've come across.

First, though, she admits to being a thief:

I committed the first four transgressions many moons ago, when I was a wee pup. I committed the final one, music downloading, last December, as I compiled a set of songs for a friend.

Now, her telling us this doesn't give her arguments any greater moral weight and it doesn't need to as they are good enough on their own. A sample:

The RIAA is stuck in an old business model where they can sell a bunch of crappy songs on a CD with two or three good songs. File sharing allows users to get only the songs they want, rather than paying for a bunch of songs they don’t want just to get one or two that they do want.

Horsepucky. File sharing may allow you to pick and choose among songs, but you’re still NOT PAYING FOR THEM. Go sign up for one of the new e-music services, would you? Besides, this argument directly contradicts the one saying that file sharers actually buy *more CDs* after listening to a few tracks they downloaded. So which is it? Do you just want the individual tracks that you like? Or do you want to try out a few tracks so you can buy the whole CD? You can’t have it both ways.

It is a long post and worth the read.

Via Blogcritics.

Posted by Steve on September 12, 2003