As I mentioned before, I pirate music. And I really don't feel bad about it. Now, I don't pirate all music: if there's a new Great Big Sea or Jeremy Fisher album, I'll happily spend money on them. I'll also happily buy cool tracks from individual artists online, such as the music from Play or Ignis Solus (both completely worth watching, incidentally). But the newest tracks from any major artist, from Britney Spears to Kanye West? Limewire for me.
My reasoning behind this is threefold: First, the mainstream artists really don't need more money. It doesn't really hurt them if I download the track in the first place (a topic I'll discuss in another post in this series), and I don't really want to contribute to their disgustingly wealthy lifestyles. A poor, starving artist who produces great stuff or a guy who makes great stuff for fun? I'll absolutely pay for that . But I'm not going to help finance Beyonce's private jet, y'know?
My second reason for pirating music is I'm simply not that into music. I'm a fan of movies (and scared of the MPAA), so I don't download those. Comics? No way I'm going to pirate those; the industry needs all the help it can get, and I want to help because it's an industry that I love. I'm happy to spend money on comics, despite their exorbitant cover prices, because I want to see the industry and the medium thrive. But I don't really care about the music industry, so it doesn't bother me at all to pirate MP3s. Now, for people who love music but don't care much about comics, their attitudes should be the polar opposite. You simply shouldn't pirate files from mediums you care about: spend your money supporting them.
Finally, I'm now going to pirate all mainstream commercial music I would be inclined to buy because of the record industry's idiotic and insulting treatment of their legitimate consumers. When The Dark Knight came out this summer, I really wanted to have the soundtrack. So, since it was a comic movie and created by a director and actors, not to mention composers, I'm a big fan of, I decided to buy the CD. So I bought it, brought it home, and tried to make a copy for my MP3 player, only to find that it was copy-protected such that Windows Media Player wouldn't let me rip it. So as my reward for paying for the CD, I was unable to put a copy of music I bought legally onto my MP3 player, where it would be much more convenient to have than on my computer.
How does this make sense from a business point of view? Obviously pirates are going to break through any copy protection the record industry can throw at us; that's been demonstrated time and time again. Denying the average consumer who wants to support you a copy of the music for their MP3 player is simply idiotic. Sure, no copy protection makes it easier to pirate, but the vast majority of the people who buy the CD aren't going to be throwing it up online for the world to download. All the record industry is doing by adding that kind of restriction is driving their legitimate consumers to piracy; it certainly sealed the deal for me. Incidentally, I did download a copy of the Dark Knight soundtrack for my MP3 player; it was certainly a hell of a lot easier than fighting with their narrow-minded copy protection.
--The Almeister
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