43 Million Americans Use P2P Software

robl writes "If the NYTimes article is correct then somewhere around 1 in 6 Americans apparently are unindicted felons. In the eyes of the public file swapping is as morally wrong as speeding on the NJ Turnpike. The rest of the article talks about the RIAA's carrot/stick/education approach and how they may find themselves entering into negotiations for some forms of file sharing. Also the EFF will be running ads in Rolling Stone next month asking if enthusiasts are tired of being treated like criminals."

Comments

Cool, so

[pommiekiwifruit]

43 million people lose the right to vote? Dubya will be a shoo-in for the next election!

Re:1 in 6?

[Narcissus]

You would be suprised as to how many people don't know how to distinguish between 'then' and 'than.'

And you would be surprised as to how to spell 'surprised'. Seriously, what's the use of even pointing out someone's mistake like that?

Are you so useless that you can't work out what they were trying to say? Of course not, because otherwise you could not have corrected the error.

So what, then, is the real reason for all these people correcting everyone else's little mistakes, besides just maybe wanting to stir people up?

The exact same number ...

[Chromodromic]

Coincidentally, this is the exact same number of Americans who don't use deodorant.

nice analogy

[comet_11]

So, tell me, in your remarkably perceptive "I'm going to steal my neighbour's car" analogy, did you stop to consider that it has absolutely no fucking relation to file sharing?

My guess is the following: no.

My guess is that you are just stupidly repeating the party line and trying to apply a real life situation to something that does not exist in real life. This is what the RIAA has done and it didn't work. They're falling behind the times and nobody listens and nobody considers it theft, do you know why? It's not because 43 million Americans are natural born criminals, it's because 43 Americans don't see the sharing of files as a crime.

Let's take your analogy with the fat, ugly baldass neighbour. He offers his car for sale one day. Rather than buying his car, you simply create a perfect copy of it and drive that instead. That is what you are talking about. However, even this analogy is flawed. Cars and music are completely seperate and different purchase types. Somebody, if they could get a car for free, wouldn't buy that car again for the hell of it.

I don't know about you, but my biggest music downloading friends (we're talking >20GB) are also the biggest album buyers. I, on the other hand listen to almost no mass-produced music. I have somewhere on the order of 25 mp3s that I don't have the right to listen to, the rest are independent or freely available. I have only purchased something like 4 CDs in my life, and 3 of them were gifts.

To finish off my argument, your essential points were the following:

- Music sharing is stealing (it's not, you're not actually taking anything)
- Music sharing directly impacts buying (it doesn't, people tend to buy albums regardless of mp3s)
- Music sharing is morally wrong (it isn't - if it was, why would everyone thing it's okay?)

The analogy to speeding was a nice one, but a better one is videotape copying and cassette tape copying. Remember those technologies that have been around for years? Remember how the record/movie industry constantly complained about them? Remember how IT DIDN'T MATTER A DAMN because people still bought movies and still copied tapes and still listened to music just the same as they always have and always will.

What we're seeing is simply the evolution of technology. You, sir, are the kind of person who'd rather see is all sitting in caves.