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sounding like a broken record about file-sharing
Apparently Lily Allen has recently goosed a new spate of activity in the debate re file-sharing, artistic copyright, etc. I'm sure I have posted about this before but can't lay my hands on it now, so I'll weigh in yet again with my $0.03 CAN:
If I am, say, a professional musician, that means I am trying to earn a living by making music. Part of how I do that is by selling recordings of my music. If you obtain a recording of my music without paying me for it, you are depriving me of a portion of my livelihood. Basically, you are saying that you are entitled to decide “how much money I am allowed to make at my job”. [I've actually heard people argue that so-and-so “has already earned enough, they don't need any more”...] Or, you're telling me that I have no right to expect to be able to make a living this way.
Yet if I, the professional musician, were to take it upon myself to decide how much money you are allowed to earn, and I actually had the power to do something about it, how would you feel about that? You OK with it? Or are you merely OK with the idea of you being able to screw over an artist in a way that you yourself wouldn't wanna be screwed over?
If I am, say, a professional musician, that means I am trying to earn a living by making music. Part of how I do that is by selling recordings of my music. If you obtain a recording of my music without paying me for it, you are depriving me of a portion of my livelihood. Basically, you are saying that you are entitled to decide “how much money I am allowed to make at my job”. [I've actually heard people argue that so-and-so “has already earned enough, they don't need any more”...] Or, you're telling me that I have no right to expect to be able to make a living this way.
Yet if I, the professional musician, were to take it upon myself to decide how much money you are allowed to earn, and I actually had the power to do something about it, how would you feel about that? You OK with it? Or are you merely OK with the idea of you being able to screw over an artist in a way that you yourself wouldn't wanna be screwed over?
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However, the larger reality is that people will generally do what they want and can get away with; larger abstractions won't matter. What they perceive and act on is simply that they want X and can easily get X, and there's nothing abstract about that.
Similar myopia results in a failure to believe in global warming, a willingness to start smoking, inability to care about several hundred thousand Iraqis dying in a war America started for no apparent reason, etc.
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