Probably a lot of folks have heard about the RIAA’s plans to take legal action against individuals who are downloading illegal copies of songs.
A friend of mine was having lunch today and heard two network engineers discussing how much they like to steal adult images and video and how they don’t know why everyone doesn’t do it.
I just saw a guy on a bulletin board complaining about how he tried twenty-five times to download a song he wanted. Apparently the record company had flooded the peer2peer networks with fake versions. Isn’t this guy’s time worth something? I would think it would just make sense to buy the CD if he is that sure he wants that song. This was on a businessperson board, so it is not like this guy is surfing broadband on welfare. If a band you like doesn’t make enough to put out another album, you will really be out of luck on getting songs you want.
It amazes me that people think it is okay to steal intellectual property if they like want it ya know and righteous to steal intellectual property when it is music. Yes, bands ask for a lot of stuff for free from other people and they tend to do very little charity themselves. Our scene is particularly bad as far as this type of band behavior goes. Nonetheless, creating cool stuff takes art supplies. Guitars, cameras, keyboards, computers, pencils, software, pens, canvas, paint, film, paper, etc.
If artists have no revenue stream at all, then they can not even come close to breaking even. And, eventually, this has to curtail their creativity. I went hungry for a lot of years and I drove dangerous and ugly cars for a lot of years and I lived in disgusting group houses for a lot of years. But, if I do a project that costs $6,000 and brings in $5,000 and supports the scene, there are still people who begrudge me not having taken a total loss on the whole thing.
If people who care about art and entertainment do not support it, it will cease to exist.