[wst3]

Very interesting fact about Fedex vs. the USPS... I don't know if it is on point, but it is close.

I seem to be the only one here who really believes that it is wrong to steal from artists, so this will be my last post on the topic... the majority rules<G>!

But while I'm typing... it really doesn't matter what one's justification is for stealing, it does not change the fact that it is stealing. Stealing is morally wrong, and in this country and this century, it is also illegal.

You can't use Napster as a radio substitute. Radio stations pay for the priviledge of playing all that music and the fees they pay are distributed amongst the artists that they play. The system is far from fair, and given the technology available today we could do a whole lot better, but when you sign a recording contract this is one of the things that you are asked to accept. If you do not accept the current royalty scheme, the contract won't be signed by the lable, and you won't have a deal.

Extortion? Yeah, but all such deals work this way. Example, I think that random drug screening is abhorent. But if there was a job I really wanted (or needed) and they practiced this violation of my civil rights, I'd have to choose betweem the job and my beliefs. Is this fair? No! Oh well!

And you can not say that since you don't like something you wouldn't have paid for it anyway. I've heard this argument for years with repect to software piracy, and franky, it demonstrates a severe lack of integrity.

"I really didn't like your car, so I wouldn't have paid for it anyway"... if a car thief said that would you drop the charges?

Why is it that otherwise reasonable people can't see the value in something that isn't tangible (forget for the moment the fact that the actual packaging for software and music is tangible... these same reasonable people do!)

The music industry suffers from a LOT of faults. They've taken advantage of the consumer and the artist for as long as pop music has existed, and that's a long time! No one is going to defend them.

But that is not the issue. The issues is that somewhere out there someone wrote a song. Then they recorded it. If you've never been through this exercise believe me, it is not as simple as it looks! And we're just talking about the effort, when you add in the talent required, and the cost... well, this person has done a lot so that you might be entertained.

Our society places some value on all of that time, effort, talent, and expense... at least part of it does. And that part of society made rules to protect the person who creates that which entertains us. Not out of any altruistic reasoning... no, copyrights are in place to insure that people in the future will continue to create and innovate, something else at least part of our society values.

If you truly value the concept of an artist making a contribution, how can you deny them the right to control the distribution of their work, and to gain financially from their success?

Another argument I heard from a 12 year old was that "well... you know... Brittany isn't all that... you know... good... why should I pay for her CD?" A lot of kids today believe that they are entitled to whatever they want, and if that doesn't work, they find some other justification.

And it's no different for my generation and the ones that preceded me. We did things that were wrong. My favorite is office supplies. I have a pile of notepads with 15 or 20 shets left on them. When I was going to a meeting, and my notepad was almost empty I'd put a new on in the folio and stick the old one in my briefcase... where it would sit until I finally took it out of the briefcase, usually at home. That's stealing too. And trust me, employers do not willingly stock the supply cabinet so that you don't have to buy sticky notes or note pads or pens. Most of them get more than a little annoyed at the shrinkage... and some of them probably did the same thing when they were a little further down the ladder.

A "friend" of mine worked for a computer company. He used to sell me "refurbished" drives at a pretty fair price. Well, he's unemployed now, and probably will be for quite some time. Turns out he started by grabbing disks that were pulled from machines in the office for one reason or another. He got them for free, he figured that they were going in the trash anyway. Then he'd send them back to the factory to get them repaired under warrantee. Turns out his boss had the very same idea... except that they never could find those pulls. And he sold them to me... at a very hefty profit, since he let the company pay the shipping charges. But it gets better... after a while the cash got too attractive, and there just weren't enough pulls, so he started grabbing spares out of the cabinet and selling them. And he probably sold me one of those too.

Now I admit to being pretty naive... I thought he had a genuine, legal, channel... at least I thought that for a while. We all want to believe that there is a better deal out there somewhere. If we don't believe in the free lunch anymore, well, we believe in the discounted lunch!

How is what he did any different than what Napster, and all the little napsterites are doing? He didn't pay for the materials he later sold. Napster doesn't pay for the songs that get them the eyeballs that get them the advertising that gets them cash. Why is Napster different?

Needless to say, there have been quite a few posts on this topic, ranging from blaming the evil entertainment empire to justifying via technology. None of these arguments have swayed me, and I doubt that any will. When you take control of something away from it's rightful owner, that's just plain wrong.

I'll shup up now... at least for a while.