[andygrif]

Originally Posted by Macca371

Ok, I promise I don't intend to get the site into legal trouble here... but I was wondering - why is music piracy so bad?

Music piracy is so bad compared to what? If you're comparing it to murder or strealing physical CDs then of course it is not as bad - but it is morally wrong. You are also lumping all music piracy into one argument, and you cannot compare a casual music downloader with a guy flogging copies of CDs at a car boot sale or on eBay.

If you spent three years writing a book and found there were a thousand photocopies of each print, would you be happy? Would that be OK? What about if someone took your book and re-printed it without your permission and sold it?

Originally Posted by Macca371

Even with the sales they are still getting, the record companies and the musicians are still filthy rich and they are getting more money than necessary.

How can this be a justification for copying something you don't own? British Gas is getting rich on providing us with gas. It's a business, if you don't want to pay the going rate, don't get the product. Plus the record industry is making far less money now than when you used to buy LPs - and that means that there is less investment in new talent, which turns into a vicious circle.

Originally Posted by Macca371

Plus, I believe the price of music are kinda these days is kinda ridiculous.

Again, not a reason take what is not yours. I think the Aston Martin DB9 is overpriced, but I'm not going to break into my local dealer and nick one.

Originally Posted by Earl of Bronze

Cd's came out at about £20 each, about 15 or so years ago. And they stayed at about that price for 10 years or so.

<snip>

So in my opinion, feck'em. They had a lisence to print money, and now the public is switchin off and droppin out.

I have never paid 20 quid for a CD. I bought my first CD player in 1988, and CDs we're about the £12 mark then. So now you can buy most new releases for less than £10 meaning that they have reduced in price by about 17%, but in real terms taking into account inflation, if the prices had stayed the same since then, the cost should be around the £16 mark right now.

Whether you agree with the labels and the music they produce or not (and you're making quite a sweeping statement there) you still don't have the right to take someone else's work without paying.

Originally Posted by ianathuth

When you look at the price of music it is the retailer that probably takes the biggest slice of the retail price. For instance with computer software we used to buy games that retailed at £50 for just under £30.

This is very different for the music industry. Dealer prices for major new releases are between £7 and £8. There is a very small margin on music for retailers.

Whilst it is going to be a long process, the music industry has to educate people who cannot see any problem with downloading music for free. There is no such thing as a victimless crime, and if you take music (whether you would have bought it or not) is infringing someone else's work, and triviallising their efforts.

Having said that there is no black and white on the issue of downloading:

Many studies have found that the majority of those who download music for free actually buy more CDs than those that don't. Obviously there are extremes (I know someone who refuses to buy any CDs becuase he can download it all). Then of course the same questions asked in surveys by the music bodies show the complete opposite.

Then there is the fact that not all music is available in all markets on CD - is it as wrong to download a track you love, but cannot get in this country? Whilst still technically unauthorised, I don't personally think it is as 'bad'.

What illegal downloading did was put a very large alarm clock right by the ears of the music industry. But they hit the snooze button, and went back to sleep whilst devoting a minute amount of time to their own online activity planning.

But file-trading grew at an amazing rate - it was new, available to the tech-savvy audience the music companies need to live and spread far more quickly than the great oil tanker of the music industry could turn round.

But it's getting better - most honest and normal people will start to use legal online services where they chose to download, and their choice will improve over time.

There will always be the dishonest and immoral people who chose to infringe artistes' copyright, there always have been way before the internet - but these are people who treat music as a commodity and come up with lame justifications like 'CDs are too expensive'. They are also the people who have no vision - if everyone only downloaded music illegally, there would be no more new music, period.

The question you must ask yourself when downloading illegally is: would I want someone to steal something of mine that I worked hard for, was proud of and was available for sale?