Tired
of the entertainment industry treating you like a criminal for wanting to share
music and movies online? The entertainment industry has threatened innovation
in P2P systems and many other tools that help you get more from your media. And
it could get even worse - the industry is pushing Governments all over the
World to ratchet up civil and criminal sanctions for file sharing and to
restrict innovation.
And
there’s no end in sight; new lawsuits are filed monthly, and now they are
supplemented by a flood of "pre-litigation" settlement letters
designed to extract settlements without any need to enter a courtroom.
The
music industry initially responded to P2P file sharing as it has often
responded to disruptive innovations in the past: it sent its lawyers after the
innovators, hoping to smother the technology in its infancy. Beginning with the
December 1999 lawsuit against Napster, the recording industry has sued major
P2P technology companies one after the other: AudioGalaxy, Morpheus, Kazaa, LimeWire
and Pirate Bay. In short, suing the technology has never worked.
Every
time you download something for nothing a record company boss has to adjust his
lifestyle; especially in these trying times where it has become increasingly
difficult for music industry executives to maintain a truly opulent lifestyle. RIAA
and MPIAA offices are piled high with cheap bottles of glue and bags of chips.
In fact, word was out last week that a record company executive had to cook for
himself; at least he had someone to do the dishes.
People
talk about it being a ‘crime’– at least
technically; but taking money from the pocket of someone like Simon Cowell is
about as close to a victimless crime as it’s possible to get, surely?
How
can I, in good conscience, pay money for some music when I know that some of
that money might ultimately end up supporting someone like 50 cent or Fergie? It’s
a risk I’m simply not prepared to take.
Given
the choice between paying for something, or getting the same thing completely
free, is not much of a choice at all. Is it? If you have a situation where 90%
of your population is doing something that is deemed illegal, then it’s not
really a very good law.
I'm
never going to pay for music downloads; therefore they have lost nothing from
me. What they gain though is my love for certain artists I’d never otherwise
listen to if I had to pay for it.
Why stop with music? Everything from movies, PC games, books, software programs, TV series are applicable for file sharing.
What
next? Ban Wikipedia for informing the world?
I’ll end the article with
these quotes:
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it."
-John Lennon
“Since the dawn of time, human beings have felt the need to share – from food to art. Sharing is part of the human condition. A person who does not share is not only selfish, but bitter and alone.”
-Paulo Coelho, Brazilian novelist.
