Slashdot Mirror
Don't Sever A High-Tech Lifeline for Musicians
Licensed2Hack writes "Janis Ian, who provided this slashdot interview last September, has written this editorial in the Los Angeles Times. Janis says, "After I first posted downloadable music, my merchandise sales went up 300%. They're still double what they were before the MP3s went online." And the RIAA's stated goal in preventing this type of activity with their lawsuit against Verizon is to increase sales..."
The "free advertising" argument is ridiculous, absolutely doesn't hold water, and is something I'm getting tired of hearing.
Whether you like it or not, stealing music is stealing music is stealing music. If the song is not owned by you, and you are not explicitly told that you can download it for free, you should not download it. If you don't know about the band, don't buy the album. It's really very simple. If everyone started playing by the rules and acting like conscious consumers instead of mindless pop-addled sheep people, the RIAA would hang itself. Everyone would hear the same crappy song on the radio again and again and think "gee - I wonder if the other songs on the album are good". Then they would think "Well, I can't justify $20 for a CD that I've only hear 1/12 of" and they wouldn't buy it. Record sales and piracy would drop like a rock simultaneously, and the RIAA would be forced to admit that they control shitty music, and unless they start making GOOD music at a REASONABLE price, they're going to be eating out of garbage cans for the rest of their lives.
No one is listening to what you keep saying because you're argument is ridiculous...
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
I swear you people have some seriously screwed up reasoning. I can't even comprehend how you can make a jump from "it was easy to make a copy of" to "therefore it's perfectly okay for me to copy it". No, no it's not. When you buy a CD, you don't own the music - you own the CD. You don't buy rights to redistribute the music, you buy the right to listen to the music and to resell/give away the CD. That's all. You have no right to make a copy and send it to someone else. It's not stealing because the distibutor might lose a CD sale, it's stealing because you are taking away the right the distributor had to unique distribution. The crime is you infringing on a company's legal rights, not you stealing $15 from the company's coffers.
I got a sig so you would remember me.
300%? So that's like 9 CDs now?