[Empeg-general] Re: piracy and the music industry

[pgrzelak@empegbbs-noreply.merlins.org]

Tony:

  I don't suppose you could move this thread to "off topic"?  I am all for a "spirited debate" about music piracy, but is this the right place...

As to the debate:

  For the record, of the 100GB of music currently loaded on the empeg, there is 1 song (Red Skelton's Pledge of Allegiance) that is downloaded from a radio station's web site.  The rest I (or my brother, who has a small corner of the empeg for his use) own the CD for, or have converted from older media (cassette or vinyl to CD, then encoded).  Granted, some of those CDs are imported bootleg concerts (released from an Italian label where that kind of thing seems to be legal), but they are the exception and were still legally purchased, even though the band does not see any profit from it.  (This is where I think the music industry should be targeting...)

  I personally don't care if you want to download music over the net.  If you are comfortable with that kind of thing, and the quality of the audio is acceptable, fine.  People have been trading music from the days of reel-to-reel and cassettes.  This is just another media.

  I personally don't care if you have physical, legal copies of everything you have ripped.  I personally agree with you.  If you enjoy the music enough to have a copy to listen to over and over, you should own a copy for yourself.  Sometimes, though, that is not possible; especially for something out of print, very hard to find or an import that is almost impossible to get through normal means.  (I have literally spent months searching for some of the more obscure bits of my collection.)

  Piracy has always been around as long as the mechanism for copying has been around.  The ethics of it are left up to the reader to find their own ground with.  My complaint is with the music industry, hiding behind "rights of the artist", trying to tax or eliminate the ability to use the recording under "fair use".  Case and point, copy protected CDs that I cannot listen to / encode.  If I thought they were actually protecting the artists' rights, I would agree.  Send me the address for a privately managed fund for these artists, and I will send a donation.

  Okay.  Enough ranting.  Hopefully I have annoyed people on both sides of the issue.  I like to be symmetrical about that kind of thing...  : )