...I don't really see what exactly inherently outrageous about this. Granted, its a slippery slope, having unions finance educations...but come on, who can really defend pirating whole movies? Dont give me that shit about "its not worth 10 bucks to see it in a theatre or the 20 bucks for the DVD," either. If you don't want to PAY for something, you dont deserve to have it. And if you have an honest problem with the pricing system, then refuse to pay. Just because you might think a car is over expensive doesnt mean you just jack it and ride, do you?
(And of course i'm referring to blatantly luxury items like movies.)
The bottom line here is that most people just dont have any respect for other people's work. And thats where it's really at, respecting another person's product enough to, if not purchase, then at least not blatantly steal.
Just because something is in an easily transferable medium does not mean that it should be free. Thats bullshit.
Technically you're quite correct. But what annoys me (and, I suspect, many Slashdotters) is the following:
1. Mass-produced CDs have a unit cost of a couple of pence/cents. 2. Many musicians never get signed to a major label, and thus never get any of their music in stores or on the radio. 3. The musicians who are signed to a major label are sidelined by whatever the label thinks will sell - eg. Britney Spears. 4. The label charges the artist for the privilege of advertising & distribution. So much so that in order to make $1,000,000 the artist may have to pay various suits $900,000. 5. The Internet eliminates parts 2-4 - if you want to ensure everything's fair, a bunch of artists could easily set up some sort of a "co-operative" to market their songs over the web, charging a nominal fee for the song and giving most of it for the artist, only keeping a relatively small amount back for bandwidth and system maintenance. The only reason this hasn't happened more is the dot-com boom has taught us that such things are very difficult to market successfully. 6. The RIAA is well aware of point 5. If it actually takes off, their entire business model evaporates. 7. The RIAA is therefore doing everything in their power to prevent this from happening. Brainwashing people that "MP3s are Evil!" is vital to this.
Honestly... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Honestly... (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Mass-produced CDs have a unit cost of a couple of pence/cents.
2. Many musicians never get signed to a major label, and thus never get any of their music in stores or on the radio.
3. The musicians who are signed to a major label are sidelined by whatever the label thinks will sell - eg. Britney Spears.
4. The label charges the artist for the privilege of advertising & distribution. So much so that in order to make $1,000,000 the artist may have to pay various suits $900,000.
5. The Internet eliminates parts 2-4 - if you want to ensure everything's fair, a bunch of artists could easily set up some sort of a "co-operative" to market their songs over the web, charging a nominal fee for the song and giving most of it for the artist, only keeping a relatively small amount back for bandwidth and system maintenance. The only reason this hasn't happened more is the dot-com boom has taught us that such things are very difficult to market successfully.
6. The RIAA is well aware of point 5. If it actually takes off, their entire business model evaporates.
7. The RIAA is therefore doing everything in their power to prevent this from happening. Brainwashing people that "MP3s are Evil!" is vital to this.