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I agree with you in theory about the MP3/Internet revolution. In most regards, it's been good for artists and fans, if lousy for an admittedly bloated record industry. Your "information should be free" statement, however, comes from from people who don't make their living creating intellectual properties - ie, music, books, etc. As one of the people who does make my living that way, my perspective is, shall we say, somewhat different. It's a nice idea in theory, but creating that "information" involves a LOT of WORK - inspiration, emotion, skilled labor and innate talent. And just as you wouldn't expect a stranger to come tile your bathroom, grow your food or fix your car for free, it's unreasonable to assume that an author or musician should just create neat free stuff for everyone with a computer.
File-sharing in small, consensual doses is viral marketing; on the scale it had attained before the Napster suit, however, it had become a one-sided "deal" in which hard-working musicians, producers and the labels that had put up thousands (if not millions) of dollars to record their work were having that work taken by people who were offering nothing in return. Sure, it's easy to say, "Dude, Metallica doesn't need a the money - they have plenty!" Thing is...
1: Metallica works REALLY GODDAMN HARD for that money. You think it looks easy? You try becoming a world-class musician, writing, composing and recording albums worth of material, than then spending most of your life on the road promoting it, playing it near-perfectly several hours a night for months on end. It's not easy, trust me. Just ask S.J. "Sooj" Tucker
2: Metallica and their label spend thousands of hours and millions of dollars creating that material. Why do you think you should be entitled to have it for free? Just because of some shop-worn hacker slogan? Fucking please.
3. Metallica's label depends on the money generated by that "information" to pay its employees. If everyone suddenly downloads the music without paying for it, who pays those employees for their labor - and with what?
When you're talking about "information" like stories, music or artwork (as well as computer software), your "information" becomes someone else's labor - and very probably their living as well.
If those parties choose to share it for free (as I do when I blog), then that's cool. However, if you just download my books - books I had written to pay my rent and without which I could not eat - because you thought you had a "right" to them, then we, my friend, have a problem.
Ditto that - and square it - if you think you've got the "informational right" to take my work and claim it as your work (maybe even profiting from it) just because - hey, it should be free and unregulated. Now you know why copyright law exists. :)
You may still buy CDs from artist you support. Many other folks, though, don't bother. And who defines "support," anyway? "Yeah, I kinda like that dude's music, but it's not like I support him or anything." How does "that dude" pay the bills or get compensated for his labor if even a small part of his audience says something like that? And given that situation, why should he bother putting anything out at all? Is it his "right" to work for nothing so you can share it with 10,000 of your friends?
Sure, I believe in small-scale personal-use copying, especially when the source of the work is publicly attributed to the creator. There's s huge gulf, however, between that usage and a "totally free and unregulated flow of information" - a gulf that we're only now beginning to address.
And Sooj
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