The RIAA Is Done Suing Individuals

Okay, fine. If someone makes a form of media that can be directly cloned (music, movies, etc.), then they have no inherent right to sell and profit from it, and there is nothing morally wrong in pirating it rather than paying for their hard work. As a human being, all intellectual property is your right to own and if you do not like the business model proposed to you then you are free to circumvent it and take it for free. Only things that are sold as physical objects and have to be physically removed from their possessor are to be considered wrong to take.

it could be considered wrong. that does not make it theft.

Semantics (or at best legal arguments that aren't really at the heart of the issue). Why don't we stick to the morality of it, since even the courts haven't sorted out how to handle it?

Does anyone here think there is nothing wrong with pirating media? I see that view a lot and it worries me, because America will become the dull, artless place the rest of the world already falsely thinks it is if we take away an artist's ability to see financial success come from their works. I see a lot of people who specifically state that they think music "belongs to everyone" and other hippie bullshit, and that bothers me. The RIAA has done more harm than anyone, but at the end of the day piracy is also screwing the artists who make the music.

This is some semantics shit.

CALL THE COPS I DONT GIVE A FUCK

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Originally Posted by UrielSynthesis

if we take away an artist's ability to see financial success come from their works

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this is a fiction perpetuated by media industries who cannot keep up with rapidly changing technology, and it's based on the fallacious assumption that anyone who takes something for free would pay for it if they had to.

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Originally Posted by UrielSynthesis

Does anyone here think there is nothing wrong with pirating media?

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I never said it wasn't wrong. I said I wasn't going to comment on the ethics of it. We can discuss whether it is right or wrong, but we can't do so if you're going to continue to incorrectly conceptualize the subject matter.

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Originally Posted by burgundy

this is a fiction perpetuated by media industries who cannot keep up with rapidly changing technology, and it's based on the fallacious assumption that anyone who takes something for free would pay for it if they had to.

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And this is a fiction perpetuated by the opposition. The fact that a portion of illegal downloaders wouldn't pay for the music anyway has no bearing on the fact that people are taking something that the artists, as the intellectual property holders, have the right to market for a profit. What real difference does it make that only some, not all, downloaders would pay for music if they couldn't pirate it, as opposed to saying everyone would pay if they couldn't pirate it? Its of no real substance to the industry's position nor to the moral argument. And, from my view at least, morality isn't precluded if the downloader in question would walk away from it if they only had the option to pay for it.

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Originally Posted by Nash

I never said it wasn't wrong. I said I wasn't going to comment on the ethics of it. We can discuss whether it is right or wrong, but we can't do so if you're going to continue to incorrectly conceptualize the subject matter.

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Well that's fine. Maybe my knowledge of the English language isn't as extensive as it needs to be, but I don't see the nuance between commenting on the right/wrong vs. the ethics of it.

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Originally Posted by icarusfall

If someone were to DL a record of mine

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Like that'd ever happen.

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and say so in front of me there'd be a fight.

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I'd just cover my nuts ftw

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Originally Posted by UrielSynthesis

Semantics (or at best legal arguments that aren't really at the heart of the issue). Why don't we stick to the morality of it, since even the courts haven't sorted out how to handle it?

Does anyone here think there is nothing wrong with pirating media? I see that view a lot and it worries me, because America will become the dull, artless place the rest of the world already falsely thinks it is if we take away an artist's ability to see financial success come from their works. I see a lot of people who specifically state that they think music "belongs to everyone" and other hippie bullshit, and that bothers me. The RIAA has done more harm than anyone, but at the end of the day piracy is also screwing the artists who make the music.

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The industry and its model of greed are what is responsible for destroying art.
People who perform music are not inherently "artists" as so many of the MTV generations seem to think.

At the end of the day it is the RIAA who has screwed the performers.
Art will continue to be produced regardless of whether it is sold for profit at Best Buy.

Fuck the fame-hungry performers who think they are artists, and fuck the industries who purport this false premise of celebrity entitlement.