At risk of repeating myself, the presence of an almost-free channel for rapid distribution does not give anyone the authority to act illegally, however outmoded the actions of the *AA may appear. Even if the artist does poorly from his contract, there are only two options:
1) Buy music from the distributior, marginally benefitting the artist
2) Take music for free from P2P networks, benefitting yourself
It is a guilt-assuaging fiction that option 2 will somehow encourage artists to transition to P2P distribution of their works, thereby helping themselves financially. Assuming their current contracts would allow this, and they certainly don't, the current methods of paid internet distribution rely on a client-server model. Enabling P2P distribution of paid content would require impeneterable DRM the likes of which has never been seen. The costs of distributing one's work in the client-server model would without doubt be cheaper than setting up one's own network of paid P2P distribution. The alternative would be licensing rights to your work to to a centralised paid P2P network: welcome to the new Record Companies.
I'm sure, even in those rosy days of moral clarity in which you were raised, it was not encouraged to take somebody else's sweets they had just bought, and share those with everyone else.
With the invention of equipment that allowed music to be recorded and reproduced, a new method of disseminating the work of an artist became available. A musician could be heard by those not in their immediate vicinity - even in other countries - and thus to earn more money. However, it would have been impossible for individual musicians to invest in the equipment required to make this possible, so they made deals with entrepreneurs who would handle the recordings and distribution in bulk, making it economically viable. These are the origins of the recording industry.
The porn distributors are small, numerous and far less unified than the recording industry. Furthermore such an insalubrious industry has little support from politicians, the law, the public and the jury. The lack of litigation against illegal porn sharers should not be taken as the implicit consent of the producers for its unrestricted dissemination.
However, the increasing popularity of having a small icon from the originating site in porn perhaps indicates that porn producers have found p2p sharing a useful form of advertising. After all, popular files are more likely to rise to the top and be viewed by people wanting more. The porn industry may find this highly useful.
You may wish there were a different way to distribute music, but disliking the current method of sale is not moral, let alone legal, reason to take what is not rightfully yours. For better or worse, the artist and distributor have entered into a contract that gives the distributor the rights to the artist's work. You may think the artist is underpaid, and you may think the record company is greedy. You are probably right. But you are presented with a product which you can choose to buy. It is not the case that the musicians' plight is sufficiently grave that militating against the distributor is justifiable.
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At risk of repeating myself, the presence of an almost-free channel for rapid distribution does not give anyone the authority to act illegally, however outmoded the actions of the *AA may appear. Even if the artist does poorly from his contract, there are only two options:
1) Buy music from the distributior, marginally benefitting the artist
2) Take music for free from P2P networks, benefitting yourself
It is a guilt-assuaging fiction that option 2 will somehow encourage artists to transition to P2P distribution of their works, thereby helping themselves financially. Assuming their current contracts would allow this, and they certainly don't, the current methods of paid internet distribution rely on a client-server model. Enabling P2P distribution of paid content would require impeneterable DRM the likes of which has never been seen. The costs of distributing one's work in the client-server model would without doubt be cheaper than setting up one's own network of paid P2P distribution. The alternative would be licensing rights to your work to to a centralised paid P2P network: welcome to the new Record Companies.
I'm sure, even in those rosy days of moral clarity in which you were raised, it was not encouraged to take somebody else's sweets they had just bought, and share those with everyone else.
With the invention of equipment that allowed music to be recorded and reproduced, a new method of disseminating the work of an artist became available. A musician could be heard by those not in their immediate vicinity - even in other countries - and thus to earn more money. However, it would have been impossible for individual musicians to invest in the equipment required to make this possible, so they made deals with entrepreneurs who would handle the recordings and distribution in bulk, making it economically viable. These are the origins of the recording industry.
The porn distributors are small, numerous and far less unified than the recording industry. Furthermore such an insalubrious industry has little support from politicians, the law, the public and the jury. The lack of litigation against illegal porn sharers should not be taken as the implicit consent of the producers for its unrestricted dissemination. However, the increasing popularity of having a small icon from the originating site in porn perhaps indicates that porn producers have found p2p sharing a useful form of advertising. After all, popular files are more likely to rise to the top and be viewed by people wanting more. The porn industry may find this highly useful.
You may wish there were a different way to distribute music, but disliking the current method of sale is not moral, let alone legal, reason to take what is not rightfully yours. For better or worse, the artist and distributor have entered into a contract that gives the distributor the rights to the artist's work. You may think the artist is underpaid, and you may think the record company is greedy. You are probably right. But you are presented with a product which you can choose to buy. It is not the case that the musicians' plight is sufficiently grave that militating against the distributor is justifiable.