Because it's not really copyright violation, it's , erm, fair use. Or art. Or civil protest. Or entirely justified as the evil publishers make too much money. Or maybe it is copyright violation but (except where the GPL is concerned) copyrights are bad, m'kay?
At least, those are the kinds of Slashdot responses you'd be getting if it were a piece of music. Isn't hypocrisy great?
Lots of people might be wondering why folks download music they haven't bought, and use words like "wrong" and "pirate" and "infringement" and even "hypocrite". Well, just to show them how wrong they are, here's why I download music.
Music today sucks - it's nothing but the same old mass produced RIAA rubbish that no one wants to buy. So like millions of others who want to get hold of music they don't want to buy, I download it. Because, um, it sucks too badly to buy, but not so much not to listen to at all. Just the right amount of suckage so I'm not spending anything. Yeah.
So I'm downloading all this music I don't want because it sucks, and I hear the RIAA want to close down the file-sharing service! Well that sucks! They should be going after the users, not the service. There's all kinds of legitimate things you can do with the service. What about all the legal files (ok, I don't know anyone who actually downloads legal files using P2P, but I'm sure I may have seen one or two once when I mistyped the name of the new Metallica single) - if I was an artist and wanted to dsstribute my music freely, without P2P all I could do is use a web site or an ftp site or post CDs at nominal charge. Or if I already owned the music, then without P2P I'd have to actually put the CD in the drive and rip it which would take, like, ages. Look at free software, I bet all those Linux users got their files over P2P as it's such an obviously good way of distributing large files legally. That's why Kazaa has pretty much the same content as freshmeat.net .
But what gets me even more than the RIAA going after the serice is when they go after the users! These are just kids here, and they don't have the money to buy all that music they downloaded, so why should they be charged for it? Why not just go the whole hog and expect them to pay any time they want soemthing that doesn't belong to them? What kind of a way is it to run a business if you treat your customers (sure, they might not actually buy very much, but with all that downloaded music they're customers all right!) like criminals just because they're doing something illegal?
And anyway, it's not like it's really illegal. At least I saw someone call it theft once and I said "Ha ha you dumbass it's really copyright infringement" and so everything they said about it being illegal is probably wrong too, I sure told them. Yeah, it might seem like taking something that doesn't belong to you, but what matters isn't what you think is right, but what the law says, and it says it's not stealing.
And besides, what matters isn't what the law says, but what you think is right. That's why it's ok to copy things if you feel it's ok, because it's like, civil protest. Only not the kind they had with the civil rights people, all that protesting in public and deliberately getting arrested to challenge the law. This is the kind of civil protest where if the law stops you doing what you want you just break it as secrely as you can and hope you don't get caught. Not being in prison means you have even more time to pirat... I mean protest so it's even more effective! MLK and Gandhi could sure learn a thing from me!
Because it's pretty obvious copyrights are bad. Except for the GPL, that's good. And some of the software ones, they must be ok because I like to say warez is bad. Oh, except Microsoft warez which is probably ok, because M$ sux and Linux R0XX! Yeah, +5 Informative! Actually, I don't remember getting too upset about copyrights before Napster came along, but I'm definitely sure they're bad now, as they stop me downloading anything I want.
And the artists don't like them either. Well, they don't like the RIAA, and that's almost the same thing. Well, Courtney Love and Janis Ian don't like the RIAA, which is pretty conclusive proof that all the other artists don't like their contracts either. And the ones that go on TV and stuff and ask me to stop pirating are just the coporate stooges. The RIAA is
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Because it's not really copyright violation, it's , erm, fair use. Or art. Or civil protest. Or entirely justified as the evil publishers make too much money. Or maybe it is copyright violation but (except where the GPL is concerned) copyrights are bad, m'kay?
At least, those are the kinds of Slashdot responses you'd be getting if it were a piece of music. Isn't hypocrisy great?
Lots of people might be wondering why folks download music they haven't bought, and use words like "wrong" and "pirate" and "infringement" and even "hypocrite". Well, just to show them how wrong they are, here's why I download music.
Music today sucks - it's nothing but the same old mass produced RIAA rubbish that no one wants to buy. So like millions of others who want to get hold of music they don't want to buy, I download it. Because, um, it sucks too badly to buy, but not so much not to listen to at all. Just the right amount of suckage so I'm not spending anything. Yeah.
So I'm downloading all this music I don't want because it sucks, and I hear the RIAA want to close down the file-sharing service! Well that sucks! They should be going after the users, not the service. There's all kinds of legitimate things you can do with the service. What about all the legal files (ok, I don't know anyone who actually downloads legal files using P2P, but I'm sure I may have seen one or two once when I mistyped the name of the new Metallica single) - if I was an artist and wanted to dsstribute my music freely, without P2P all I could do is use a web site or an ftp site or post CDs at nominal charge. Or if I already owned the music, then without P2P I'd have to actually put the CD in the drive and rip it which would take, like, ages. Look at free software, I bet all those Linux users got their files over P2P as it's such an obviously good way of distributing large files legally. That's why Kazaa has pretty much the same content as freshmeat.net .
But what gets me even more than the RIAA going after the serice is when they go after the users! These are just kids here, and they don't have the money to buy all that music they downloaded, so why should they be charged for it? Why not just go the whole hog and expect them to pay any time they want soemthing that doesn't belong to them? What kind of a way is it to run a business if you treat your customers (sure, they might not actually buy very much, but with all that downloaded music they're customers all right!) like criminals just because they're doing something illegal?
And anyway, it's not like it's really illegal. At least I saw someone call it theft once and I said "Ha ha you dumbass it's really copyright infringement" and so everything they said about it being illegal is probably wrong too, I sure told them. Yeah, it might seem like taking something that doesn't belong to you, but what matters isn't what you think is right, but what the law says, and it says it's not stealing.
And besides, what matters isn't what the law says, but what you think is right. That's why it's ok to copy things if you feel it's ok, because it's like, civil protest. Only not the kind they had with the civil rights people, all that protesting in public and deliberately getting arrested to challenge the law. This is the kind of civil protest where if the law stops you doing what you want you just break it as secrely as you can and hope you don't get caught. Not being in prison means you have even more time to pirat... I mean protest so it's even more effective! MLK and Gandhi could sure learn a thing from me!
Because it's pretty obvious copyrights are bad. Except for the GPL, that's good. And some of the software ones, they must be ok because I like to say warez is bad. Oh, except Microsoft warez which is probably ok, because M$ sux and Linux R0XX! Yeah, +5 Informative! Actually, I don't remember getting too upset about copyrights before Napster came along, but I'm definitely sure they're bad now, as they stop me downloading anything I want.
And the artists don't like them either. Well, they don't like the RIAA, and that's almost the same thing. Well, Courtney Love and Janis Ian don't like the RIAA, which is pretty conclusive proof that all the other artists don't like their contracts either. And the ones that go on TV and stuff and ask me to stop pirating are just the coporate stooges. The RIAA is