Quote:
Originally Posted by disfigured
First of all let's make one thing very clear. I didn't say I stole anything , I said "I don't pay". There's a difference. I was first able to download songs for "free" because there was no ruling whether or not it was illegal. The reality of it is, the record companies used profits to have something once previously legal deemed illegal.
You haven't fully grasped the concept have you?
I can record a song from a friend who owns the CD, legally. As long as I didn't turn around and profit from it.
With the internet I now have millions of friends. Just as we here enjoy the company and opinions of many people when before the internet we couldn't. The music industry used profits to curry favor legally to have the meaning of borrow, lend, friend , acquaintance, and record, changed to benefit themselves . I didn't change any of these things. I just acquired many more acquaintances and a technology to transfer information to and from them.
There's nothing sophistic about it. I used to do something, they made it illegal, I refuse to stop because I still believe they are wrong. I haven't attempted to justify it in anyway, I don't have to justify what I feel isn't wrong. Nor have I tried to in this thread.
When you don't shoot the guy with the blinker on doing 40mp, are you speeding? Do you know how many people would survive crashes if the 55mph speed limit was obeyed by everyone?
Yeah, think about that the next time your throwing around your "Peace and Harmony" song and dance. Last time I checked no one died from my downloading of songs. When was the last time you didn't speed on the highway?
Yeah I thought so...... you do it all the time. I guess that little inconvenience of "obeying the law" is O.K for you not to do so, but mine's not. Even though obeying the speed limit is based on public safety, environmentalism and common decency. . While downloading songs is deemed illegal based on the vague meanings of words like friend, lend, and record.
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And not paying for copyrighted material is stealing. You can call it sharing, you can call it freedom, you can call it peace and love and happiness, but it's still stealing. I say it, the law says it, the courts have said it hundreds of times. It's stealing.
Again, you're misreading the napster decision, the courts did not make it illegal, they deemed napster was a criminal enterprise designed to facilitate illegal activity. Even the napster attorney's stipulated that it's illegal, their argument was entirely a free speech argument. They did not state that it's legal to download copyrighted intellectual property. It's been illegal to record and distribute copyrighted material since long before either of us were born.
Also, it's is illegal to record a song from a friend even if he bought it legally. It's called stealing intellectual property. It's not new law and it certainly wasn't created in the court room, but by congress.
I haven't had a speeding ticket in damn near 20 years, so i believe i do obey posted speed limits. But let's stipulate for a moment that i do speed. When i speed, i CALL it speeding. I don't calling it "going real fast" i don't pretend that the law is some nebulous thing that's too difficult to understand therefore i should not follow it. I might argue that the law is wrong, that 55 miles per hour is too low a speed etc. But i STILL acknowledge that it's speeding and it's illegal. Why you can't acknowledge that stealing intellectual property is theft and illegal is beyond me.
Also, i do not think it's "ok" to speed. I think it's wrong. I might weigh the importance of getting to work on time against the illegallity of the act and the likelihood of my causing someone physical harm and decide to engage in the illegal act anyway, but i still am adult enough to know the act is illegal wrong and to pay the fine if i get caught. I certainly don't sit there and say that because the law is wrong i'm obligated somehow to not follow it and to go whatever speed i want when i want.
Also, no one is "killed" from most crimes. I can't recall anyone being killed from shoplifting, corporate theft, public nudity, perjury, etc. If we judge illegality by ONLY making stuff illegal that's deadly, we'll pretty much have anarchy.
Again, what you did years ago was illegal. The record companies did not make it that way, they just asked the court to enforce the law and they did.