Poll: How Do You Justify Music Piracy?

haddaway234

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So I read that article on anonymous and Gene Simmons, and apparently they (Anonymous isn't really a group, just a bunch of unrelated guys who think its cool to go under the same name) are mad at Gene Simmons for wanting to sue everyone who pirates music, but honestly, I think this would be a good idea. Maybe not everyone, but people who distribute pirated music, sue a bunch of them, and then that will send a good message.

I understand that many musicians are rich and don't 'need' all the money they get but what about newer artists who are just starting out? How about the many people involved in the music making process, there are many people who need to be paid and a lot of people in the music industry have lost their jobs because of piracy.

Also, from the point of view of some guy on a computer, I'm sure its easy to say "I wouldn't care" but if you were really a musician, you would care that people are taking your music which many artists consider a part of them that they spent a LOT of time on, and then people just steal it.

So I wanted to know, with my reasoning in mind, how is piracy of music (We are just talking music) justified and made okay? Do you feel 'entitled' to somebody else's work?

NOTE: I'm not sure how to delete a poll so I just changed it to have no real options because the only thing a poll did was have people answer with no reasoning whatsoever.
 

kasperbbs

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I don`t think that stealing can be justified. As for the artists that just started, piracy can be a good thing, it can help them gain some popularity = more sales.
 

cookyy2k

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Aug 14, 2009
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I'd probably justify it as they should be doing it for the art not the money, I wonder how many musicians (and profesional sports players, though not really relevant here) would be still there doing what they do because they love it if they only made minimum wage.
 

nukethetuna

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To be fair, Gene Simmons said something more along the lines of "If they take your music, sue them for everything they're worth and send them to jail to become someone's *****".

But piracy can't really be justified with anything other than not wanting to pay, in most cases.
 

MisterGobbles

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cookyy2k said:
I'd probably justify it as they should be doing it for the art not the money, I wonder how many musicians (and profesional sports players, though not really relevant here) would be still there doing what they do because they love it if they only made minimum wage.
Most musicians don't make jack shit, though. It's only the top few that get extremely rich off of it, and they aren't hurt by music piracy very much at all.

Copyright infringement is wrong, but at the end of the day, people wanna listen to lots of music, but people don't have lots of money. People need to do more to ensure money gets into the hands of the artists they like, whether that's by buying their albums or t-shirts or going to their shows or whatever. People need to support what they like or else it'll go away.

And yes, piracy does help people find new bands, but it doesn't help the band much if that person just downloads their entire catalog and doesn't support them in any way.
 

cookyy2k

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MisterGobbles said:
cookyy2k said:
I'd probably justify it as they should be doing it for the art not the money, I wonder how many musicians (and profesional sports players, though not really relevant here) would be still there doing what they do because they love it if they only made minimum wage.
Most musicians don't make jack shit, though. It's only the top few that get extremely rich off of it, and they aren't hurt by music piracy very much at all.
I wonder however how many of those who don't make much now but are aspiring to the top are also doing that for money.
 

AgentNein

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cookyy2k said:
MisterGobbles said:
cookyy2k said:
I'd probably justify it as they should be doing it for the art not the money, I wonder how many musicians (and profesional sports players, though not really relevant here) would be still there doing what they do because they love it if they only made minimum wage.
Most musicians don't make jack shit, though. It's only the top few that get extremely rich off of it, and they aren't hurt by music piracy very much at all.
I wonder however how many of those who don't make much now but are aspiring to the top are also doing that for money.
I can assure you that a lot of bands learn quickly that the chances of "making it big" are close to nil. Hell, if you plan on touring the chances of just breaking even are stacked against you unless your a cover or tribute band. Or Canadian. Smalltime Canada shows pay SO much better than the states, it's obscene. Not sure why.

As a musician I don't really care too much. I've come back through to towns, and kids who borrowed our cds and shit from friends (who got it the last time we were around) and ripped them, and quite a few still feel the urge to buy their own copies from us in person. Plus we've always ever made more cash off of tees and stickers and buttons anyway. In the end I don't care how people get our music, as long as they get it, and maybe dig it, and maybe come out to our shows so next time we come to this town we can ask for a bigger guaruntee. It really is the musicians' prerogative though. Can you really blame a band if they're pissed that someone is ripping them off instead of helping them support themselves?
 

cookyy2k

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AgentNein said:
As a musician I don't really care too much. I've come back through to towns, and kids who borrowed our cds and shit from friends (who got it the last time we were around) and ripped them, and quite a few still feel the urge to buy their own copies from us in person. Plus we've always ever made more cash off of tees and stickers and buttons anyway. In the end I don't care how people get our music, as long as they get it, and maybe dig it, and maybe come out to our shows so next time we come to this town we can ask for a bigger guaruntee. It really is the musicians' prerogative though. Can you really blame a band if they're pissed that someone is ripping them off instead of helping them support themselves?
You hit the nail on the head here though, if I was to rip a cd of a band I din't know if I liked or not (it's VERY rare I do this) And it turned out I did like it the next time they're touring I'd be buying tickets and probably a t shirt from the gig, I'd reccomend them to friends who I think will like them and ultimately go see them live buy albums and t shirts. I use the ability to download these things as a demo if you will, one album then if I like them I'll buy a real copy of that plus any others they have.

The "pirated music" route offers people the chance to sample something risk free. People who just download a band's entire backlog and never go see them or buy merch are undefendable, but I think my position isn't bad, I'm on well over 75% of those I download I've bought that plus others and been to see them live if it's been possible.
 

AntonicKnight

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Maybe they're just pissed that they can't get free music, I mean it really is just "sound" so why pay for it? For example, you don't pay to breath, right? (but then again air is necessary and sound is not so much so i'm kinda chasing my justification around pointlessly.)

BTW,this is a wild guess just in case anyone is wondering.
 

flying_whimsy

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kman123 said:
I dunno...it helps artists spread their music kinda.

I don't think you can justify it, ever. But, it's less frowned upon I guess. It's a law no one follows. Like speeding.
Oddly enough I follow both those laws; I don't speed and I don't pirate music...at least, not anymore. I pirated a couple albums back in college, but it was all stuff I wasn't going to buy anyways (the usual defense for piracy). By the time I got out in the world and got a real job I realized that my excuses were shallow and that someone making that music was working as hard as I was to be able to buy it. It's one of those personal responsibility things, I guess.

I always enjoy the irony of a musician complaining about not finding good-paying work when they have a large pirated music library on their computer at home.

TL:DR - pirates need to grow up and take some responsibility for their actions.

captcha: the diferh
 

Arisato-kun

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Apr 22, 2009
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I've seen plenty of artists advocate it.

The way I choose to support my bands is to go to their shows and buy some merch. They see more money from that. If the artist is operating on their own independent record label then I'll buy their CD.
 

ThatDaveDude1

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Feb 7, 2011
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Hmm...that poll seems a bit one sided...

I can already tell that this is going to be one of those respectful, unbiased discussions, where each side is given equal respect!

Sarcasm Aside:

The problem with assigning a value to a nonphysical item like music is that it has no inherent value. CDs and things of that nature have manufacturing costs, but downloads have no value in and of themselves, making it impossible to price them fairly. The issue at hand then becomes "How much is the effort of an artist worth?" Not, "How much is the product of an artist worth?"

The problem with that is that there is no uniform amount of effort that goes into the production of an album. One musician may pour their heart and soul into an album, while another might hire songwriters, hire producers, then mutter the lyrics halfassedly and finish it up with autotune. These two albums will be sold for the same price, which isn't fair to either artist.

Add to that the fact that what the artist thinks is a fair price will almost certainly differ from what the consumer deems a fair price, and we're left with a system with two competing markets:

One market (the legal one) has artificial prices, arbitrarily assigned by those who (generally speaking, not always) have money as their primary goal, a system tantamount to extortion.

Meanwhile, we've got another system (the illegal one) in which dickless little shits with false senses of entitlement take whatever the hell they want for free, a system tantamount to theft.

This is the very definition of a lose-lose situation.

When the choices are "More or less be Extorted" and "More or less Steal Shit," Piracy can be somewhat (and I stress somewhat) justified as the lesser of two evils, and honestly, if lost profit helps to once again launch the same type of paradigm shift [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes] that it did in 2001, and helps create a system in which both consumers and musicians can stop being fiercely raped (metaphorically speaking), then I suppose I'd be willing to at least turn the other cheek to music piracy.

tl;dr The current system by which we sell music is flawed, and it isn't completely inconceivable to view piracy (functioning outside of the system) as preferable to buying things legally (functioning within the system), if you agree that piracy is the "lesser of two evils."

I'd like to reitorate my position, however, that most pirates are "dickless little shits with false senses of entitlement." This is just a hypothetical justification that may be applicable, not a blanket "PIrATES r AWSOME FUK DA POLICE HERP-A-DERP!!!1!!1" generalisation.


Oh, and there's the fact that (most mainstream) Record Labels are money grubbing succubi (again, metaphorically speaking) who value nothing but profit. That may or may not possibly have a little something to do with the whole "lesser of two evils" justification that I mentioned earlier...
 

Sean951

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I buy merch at shows. CD money largely goes to the record company, and unless I like them as well I'd rather not help rich people get richer while I myself have had a very stagnant wage.
 

haddaway234

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cookyy2k said:
I'd probably justify it as they should be doing it for the art not the money, I wonder how many musicians (and profesional sports players, though not really relevant here) would be still there doing what they do because they love it if they only made minimum wage.
If people who made music only made minimum wage, people wouldn't be able to spare enough time to make good music and produce it.
 

haddaway234

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Mar 19, 2010
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kasperbbs said:
I don`t think that stealing can be justified. As for the artists that just started, piracy can be a good thing, it can help them gain some popularity = more sales.
"Popularity" among people who aren't paying for your music is not going to get an artist another album produced.
 

Strain42

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Mar 2, 2009
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I don't. I never feel good about it. I don't do it nearly as often as I did when I was in High School, but during the rare times I am guilty of it, I don't make up some BS excuse to somehow convince myself that I'm not doing anything wrong.

"But, I just want this one song, not the whole album" is one I hear a lot, and I do agree that to an extent it seems unfair that you should have to pay for a full album in a case like that.

So yeah...I dunno. I don't judge people who do what they do, but trying to justify whatever you're doing is just lying to yourself.

And I'm just too lazy to do that.
 

BanthaFodder

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Jan 17, 2011
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I don't try and justify it.
music doesn't "belong" to you, you do not have the "right" to free music. anyone who thinks this is an entitled little shite.
stealing is stealing is stealing.
 

haddaway234

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Mar 19, 2010
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ThatDaveDude1 said:
Hmm...that poll seems a bit one sided...

I can already tell that this is going to be one of those respectful, unbiased discussions, where each side is given equal respect!

Sarcasm Aside:

The problem with assigning a value to a nonphysical item like music is that it has no inherent value. CDs and things of that nature have manufacturing costs, but downloads have no value in and of themselves, making it impossible to price them fairly. The issue at hand then becomes "How much is the effort of an artist worth?" Not, "How much is the product of an artist worth?"

The problem with that is that there is no uniform amount of effort that goes into the production of an album. One musician may pour their heart and soul into an album, while another might hire songwriters, hire producers, then mutter the lyrics halfassedly and finish it up with autotune. These two albums will be sold for the same price, which isn't fair to either artist.

Add to that the fact that what the artist thinks is a fair price will almost certainly differ from what the consumer deems a fair price, and we're left with a system with two competing markets:

One market (the legal one) has artificial prices, arbitrarily assigned by those who (generally speaking, not always) have money as their primary goal, a system tantamount to extortion.

Meanwhile, we've got another system (the illegal one) in which dickless little shits with false senses of entitlement take whatever the hell they want for free, a system tantamount to theft.

This is the very definition of a lose-lose situation.

When the choices are "More or less be Extorted" and "More or less Steal Shit," Piracy can be somewhat (and I stress somewhat) justified as the lesser of two evils, and honestly, if lost profit helps to once again launch the same type of paradigm shift [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes] that it did in 2001, and helps create a system in which both consumers and musicians can stop being fiercely raped (metaphorically speaking), then I suppose I'd be willing to at least turn the other cheek to music piracy.

tl;dr The current system by which we sell music is flawed, and it isn't completely inconceivable to view piracy (functioning outside of the system) as preferable to buying things legally (functioning within the system), if you agree that piracy is the "lesser of two evils."

I'd like to reitorate my position, however, that most pirates are "dickless little shits with false senses of entitlement." This is just a hypothetical justification that may be applicable, not a blanket "PIrATES r AWSOME FUK DA POLICE HERP-A-DERP!!!1!!1" generalisation.


Oh, and there's the fact that (most mainstream) Record Labels are money grubbing succubi (again, metaphorically speaking) who value nothing but profit. That may or may not possibly have a little something to do with the whole "lesser of two evils" justification that I mentioned earlier...
As to your point in the spoilers, here's all the response you need: Buy what you consider quality, don't buy what you don't consider quality. Simple as that, there are tons of ways to listen to music for free and legally like the radio, music stores, and many legal and free online sites like youtube. Nobody is forcing you to buy anything.

Record companies wouldn't be able to stay afloat if they stopped caring about the money, or do you not understand how a business works?