Time to Face the Music

Mortimer.CA writes "The Toronto Star has an article up about the ailing recording industry with some possible scenarios for solving the problem(s). Choice quotation: 'We must ask ourselves what Elvis would do to stop the theft of music via the Internet, now so widespread and so brazen that it makes the Baghdad looters look like trick-or-treaters.'"

Comments

ITS NOT THEFT!!!!!

[Scudsucker]

Its copyright infringment. Theft is when I remove something from your possession and you don't have it anymore. If I copy something from you without your permission, you still have the origional item. Its that simple. But for some reason people who can tell the difference between apples and oranges, murder and arson, tax evasion and cannibalism can't tell the difference between infringment and stealing.

You can argue that its morally and legally wrong, but that doesn't make it theft, anymore than arson is theft because it is morally and legally wrong. The quote about Bagdad looters is rich, and incredibly stupid as it makes my point perfectly. These people are theives; all these thousands of year old artifacts might be gone forever. But if the looters were copying all the anchient scrolls as opposed to running off with them, they'd still be in the museum.

Any reasonably intelligent person should be able differentiate between infringment and theft, but even here on Slashdot there are numerous people who just can't seem to wrap their minds around it. Try imagining someone who insists that apples are oranges because they both come from trees and start out as flowers, thats what these guys are like.

To those people, before you respond, read these two things over and over until they sink in, and try not to let your minds be thrown into an infinite loop:

1. If I steal something from you, I have it and you don't.
2. If I illegally copy something from you, you still have the origional item.