

A brief history of record industry suicide - nickb
http://www.demonbaby.com/blog/2007/10/when-pigs-fly-death-of-oink-birth-of.html

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aston
I like to pirate music as much as the next guy, but I can't get behind
arguments that go like "The music industry isn't giving us fair alternative to
outright stealing music."

Music is probably the cheapest it's ever been right now. Nobody buys $5
'singles' CDs because they can get the MP3 of it legally for 99c. Gone are the
days where you need to pay $20 for a CD from a music store, since you can get
all of the tracks for half that, assuming you're cool not getting the physical
media (like cover art).

Ultimately, music piracy happens not because the RIAA is mean or information
wants to be free or any other positive sounding reason. We pirate music
because we can and we won't get caught and we now have a bunch of moral
arguments in our back pocket we can use whenever we want to feel like we're
actually not doing anything wrong.

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brl
You're not doing anything wrong when you share music. Intuitively everybody
knows this already which is why everybody does it without thinking twice. File
sharing is just not a moral issue and never has been.

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aston
You're fooling yourself, man. Maybe it's because you're only considering
music.

Think about all of the software firms that make money only when people buy
copies of their product. Is there nothing wrong with handing out copies of OSX
or Photoshop just because it's easy?

Both industries are trying to fight the same battle, that their product is now
easier replicated than purchased legitimately.

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brl
In any other industry if you can't make money because nobody wants to pay for
your product (no matter what the reason is) it's because your business model
sucks, not because you're a 'victim'.

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aston
Piracy is stealing, whether the music industry sucks at business or not.

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brl
The music industry sucks at business, whether piracy is stealing or not.

The moral debate isn't even very relevant here because regardless of whether
downloading mp3s is stealing or impolite or a sin or whatever, in 25 years
nobody will even remember that record companies ever existed.

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brl
This essay is fantastic! I wish I could vote it up 50 times.

It's absolutely the best thing about the music industry vs. the internet that
I've read since Courtney Love's rant 7 years ago.

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rms
That Courtney Love rant was mostly plagiarized. Figures, right?

The original: <http://www.negativland.com/albini.html>

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Tichy
Brief? That was the longest blog entry I have ever read on the internet.

Some interesting points nevertheless, especially as I didn't know Oink before.

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pixcavator
Another so-and-so-is-dead rant.

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ardit33
too long.

