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A Composer's-Eye View of the Copyright Wars
bonch writes "As an experiment, composer Jason Robert Brown logged onto a site illegally offering his sheet music for download and contacted hundreds of users, politely asking them to stop listing the material. Most complied, some were confused, and a few fought back. Brown chronicles a lengthy exchange he had with a teenage girl named Brenna, which provides an interesting insight into the artists' perspective of the copyright debate. He also responds to several points raised in comments to the article and says, 'I don't wish to be the enemy; I'm just a guy trying to make a living.'"
"There is a difference between morality and legality. Learn it."
The difference being, it's the legality that counts.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Explain in detail how copyright is immoral, including references and examples.
Otherwise, your post is irrelevant.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
I never said it wasn't. Just that it's an absurd price and that I don't feel sorry for a person charging 50+ times the actual value of the product if people pirate it instead.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
Let's say the record producer asks your son if he likes the idea of making some money by selling the CD to his friends. Sure, it beats running a lemonade stand. The producer asks your son to give back $2 for every copy he sells, but he can sell it at any price he wants (the producer suggests $5). So your son starts making some money. And then one day, he notices that his friend is giving free copies to other friends, and your son stops making any more money. Knowing your son is the only person allowed to sell copies around the neighborhood, wouldn't you and your son get upset at that friend?
Human greed is only obvious when you turn it around against you.
I once had a signature.
You are not the one who makes the decision how a creator of a work should distribute that work, unless YOU created that work. Take GPL-ed software. That's IP, if you want it or not. Why? Because that's what the law says.
If I take a GPL-ed piece of software and embed it in my proprietary piece of software and sell it, slashdot and the rest of the open source world would be up in arms, like they have been in the past. That's exactly the same thing as what this composer did.
I.o.w.: it's exactly the same as with the GPL: a work created by a person has distribution rights, and the owner of the work decides which ones, no-one else. Don't like it? Don't use the work. It's that simple. Same with GPL-ed software.
Furthermore, this isn't about some RIAA douchebag bullying some teen. This is about some composer who rightfully wants freeloaders to pay for his work, the same as what a software engineer who wrote a piece of GPL licensed code wants: s/he licensed it as gpl-ed code so users of it in other pieces of code have to follow the rules: it's not their code, they have to follow the rules what the OWNER of the code has stated.
The 'brenna' person is really not that bright. The claim that people can't afford expensive sheet music and really need it because they otherwise will never have a chance in the profession they've chosen is utterly lame. Not only does the composer show that the sheetmusic costs 4$ (which is on par with a starbucks latte in some cities) but what does this brenna person tell the cashier at the local grocery store? "Please give me this food for free, I can't otherwise make a living in this tough profession"? I don't think so.
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.