[quote name='mykevermin']Go find the criminal definition of "theft" and show me how piracy does not fall in line with the letter of the law. There's your homework. Talk law, not philosophy.[/quote]
The jury is (literally) still out on the definition of copyright infringement, but I assure you that simple theft is not an appropriate analogy. According to the law you are violating the rights of the content creator to control how his content is distributed for a set period of time (99 years plus thanks to the mickey mouse legislation). The purported damages of copyright infringement do not approch those of theft (thought experiment, if you were a successful muscian would you rather have 16 bucks stolen out of your wallet or your album downloaded once by a pirate) "You wouldn't steal a wallet, so why would you steal a tune" is so ridiculous that even children laugh at RIAA propaganda efforts.
[quote name='mykevermin']Any reason that you deleted the part of my post where I cited Napter (the legal "BMG" Napster) and Rhapsody and THEN asked me for examples? Are you illiterate or just a shit?[/quote]
I didn't realize that was your arguement. These are OK options but they don't approach the variety or feature set of P2P in its hayday. And we wouldn't even have these options if the original Napster hadn't blazed the way, after all the major label cabal had the physical media distribution market sewed up and little incentive to give the consumer what they wanted.
[quote name='mykevermin']Right. This is a protest. This is a social movement. Ha. This is the people "up in arms" fighting the music industry. You can achieve the same result in terms of protest by neither buying nor downloading, you know. Record companies make the same amount of money either way. So stop trying to justify your gluttony by acting like there's a in' social cause connected to downloading your Kenny G albums.[/quote]
Bad behavior on both sides of the aisle and some music industry reform advocates tend to get a little preachy. But let's not beat up the big bad consumer in defense of the poor major labels and their starving musicians. Is it good that the RIAA can sue ordinary Americans into oblivion (200+ grand) for downloading a handful of tunes? I know you love the law but I think reason behind the law is important too, where has the intent gone? Why do you want to ignore the reason for copyright in the first place, the incentive to create? Today it's more about protecting major label players (IE will someone please think of the musicians who are forced to forego gold-encrusted shark tanks, must fly in Gulfstream-3 jets (instead of Gulfstream-4 jets), and can't purchase islands for their children's birthdays). That's from Southpark BTW, unlike major label muscians I always cite my sources.
[quote name='mykevermin']As I drove back-n-forth to C-bus today, the feeling I get (pure theory ahead) is that this doesn't "feel" like a crime. Click a few links, download something. We do that legitimately all the ing time. So it doesn't really "feel" like we're committing a crime. It's easy to rationalize the behavior, since we're mimicking the very acts we do legally all the time, but with a criminal result.
Illegal downloading doesn't require what we might call "criminal intent," since few of us think that way. We have to rather restrain ourselves from downloading. Had that happen to me today, in fact. Overheard a Notorious BIG song on the telly, thought "man, I like that - maybe I should get it." And I didn't. Why? Because I have something you lack - will power.[/quote]
It's funny you mention generic hip-hop being that this music is filled with copyright infringement issues, however labels and musicians only raise the spectre of copyright infringement when it suits their purposes. Purposes which I believe are counter-intuitive, I see nothing noble or educational in using copyright infringement to play legal whack-a-mole for show.
I know you love evidence, this is my personal favorite:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIEijimuzr8&feature=response_watch
[quote name='mykevermin']Save your self-righteousness. Your taking some absurd examples of copyright extensions doesn't invalidate the entire concept, yet you're more than willing to throw out the baby with the bathwater of the concept on the whole. Trust me, I've been reading up on some pretty ing shitty-ass trademark lawsuits that I oppose.
But you'll forgive me if, unlike you, I prefer nuance to the intellectual simplicity of all-or-nothing you espouse.[/quote]
I love nuance too! After all I'm just trying to make the point that the music industry brought this upon themselves, through mistep after mistep they alienated their existing consumer base and failed to transition from physical-to-digital media. This was a tried-and-convicted price-fixing cartel that was drunk on power and didn't want to give up the control afforded by distribution of physical media, they had been sold on bad sci-fi where consumers paid for every press of the play, fast forward, and rewind buttons.
It's sad it had to get to this state, but we wouldn't have the (meager) legal digital options we do today if brilliantly simple P2P programs like Napster, Aimster, Kazaa lite, etc hadn't blazed the way. In fact we still don't have the many of the great features those programs offered. When there are no angels sometimes you have to accept the fact that maybe change was inevitable, with digital media maybe there was no place for every one of your friends with record stores, and the only thing that major labels did when they shut their ears and screamed "LALALA" to digital music distribution was open the doors to unregulated P2P.
We need to preserve the impetus to create art but this doesn't necessitate an all-out legal war on unsuspecting consumers who dabble in downloading. You love to lecture about the futility of draconian punishment but you're being remarkably lax about the RIAA. You're on the right track in your paragraph above with your theory about why people download, but I don't think you see the entire picture because you've never waded out into the shore of digital music - it's not all wine and roses, there's a reason that many people including myself go back to youtube, legal internet radio, and the occasional CD when we would much rather be using a legal digital music system that met the basest of our expectations to get a reasonable return for our hard-earned.