Poll: How Do You Justify Music Piracy?

[P.Tsunami]

The way I see it, a real Musician just wants their Music to be heard.

Now, real musicians need to eat, too. But don't accept the spin; musicians aren't harmed nowhere near as much as the RIAA insists. Merch and gigs is where the money's at, and even discussing a musician's income in this debate is in my view completely irrelevant. That's simply not what the issue is about.

 

[MrMrAwesom]

I justify it as not actually stealing... It's like drinking from the sea, yeah I'm sure there's a way to pay to do so but I can just sort of walk around Mr. psycho asking for money

Oh! more like a swimming pool! you can go pay to do so or you can go to a friends & do it for free or go see a guy but his pool might not be clean & give me the sniffles.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

Hypothetically, if I were to try and justify such despicable behavior (even though the very thought of such a thing makes me want to vomit my intestines), I would, hypothetically, use the utterly fake and terrible "They are rich. They don't need the money".

This, of course, is a horrible thing to even think and the very notion that I would even [i/]attempt[/i] to make the act of music piracy seem morally right is an utter and complete falsification.

Also, if I were to pretend to counter the "What about the little guys" argument, I would imagine my response would be somewhere in the area of "Steal from the rich, pay the poor"

Spoiler: tl dr

 

[DannyJBeckett]

I only download music for free if I ABSOLUTELY cannot find it for purchase anywhere.

 

[frizzlebyte]

I don't. I buy the music I listen to, or I listen to radio stations (air or internet). Music piracy just takes money away from the artist.

Granted, if it were legal, I probably would get a free track here and there, simply because I might like something enough to get it but not the whole album, but I'm not hurting anyone by buying the music I listen to.

 

[SilverHammerMan]

Something something corporate fat cats.

 

[Jedoro]

I don't justify music piracy. I go on Amazon and order CDs. Yes, that's right, CDs. I still buy them. Deal with it.

This

I work 40 hours a week making just under $10 an hour. What I want, I pay for. Hell, I don't even buy used, I get my CD's new so the artist gets their share.

That and, you know, I can be pretty sure it works.

 

[OrokuSaki]

I like to justify pirating music by buying the CD if it's good. If not I just delete it. With most music being removed from YouTube by Warner Music Group it's become very annoying to try to listen to a whole CD via streaming video.

So I find it easier to torrent the music and then go to the local Best Buy if the music is something I like.

For instance, I bought the A Perfect Circle CD's because I listened to them through and thought them great. However, I didn't really like Puscifer so I deleted it and didn't buy the CD. I consider it more "Research" than "Stealing".

 

[Averant]

I justify it by not caring.

Suck it, reason!

 

[LostCrusader]

Looks like I'm a bit late to the show here.
I saw a few justifications for pirating being as a free sample of a band but I don't buy that with other free sources of music such as pandora or youtube.

 

[locoartero]

Artists usually don't earn CRAP from CD sales, which is what piracy screws with. It's the multi billion dollar record companies who are affected by it, since the artists make money off live performances and copyright when their music is used for a soundtrack. I don't think you or me downloading a few tracks does crap to an artist. In fact, several of them advocate piracy. Google "Joaquín Sabina" and you will see.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

First of all let me just say that I'm not really trying to say piracy is completely justified, but rather that piracy doesn't necessarily take much away from the artists. In fact it actually technically contributes to the artist, just not as much as legitimately buying the album would. Out of 100 people who pirate an album, probably no more than 10 might have actually bought it otherwise. However, out of those 100 people, probably around 60-90 will be or will become fans, and a fanbase is the most valuable thing you can have in any type of media industry. Even if they don't buy the album, they become potential sales for merch and concert tickets. They may recommend the band to a friend, go to the band's website, or look up the band on youtube giving the band ad revenue and upping its relevancy on the search bar. Hell, maybe when they pirated the albums they had never heard of the band, and now that they're fans they won't mind spending the 10 bucks on the next one.

Also let's say hypothetically somebody has hundreds of artists they like and doesn't have thousands of dollars to spend on music. I would hope they would at least have the common decency to buy at one of the band's albums legitimately, but an entire discography (especially from a band that's been around for a while) can cost a lot, and with diverse enough musical taste, having everything you want would literally cost you a fortune. In this case, I think piracy is something the industry can handle. Someone who's bought 50 albums and pirated 100 has given far more to the industry than somebody who's bought 5 albums and pirated none.

 

[clipse15]

Artists usually don't earn CRAP from CD sales, which is what piracy screws with. It's the multi billion dollar record companies who are affected by it, since the artists make money off live performances and copyright when their music is used for a soundtrack. I don't think you or me downloading a few tracks does crap to an artist. In fact, several of them advocate piracy. Google "Joaquín Sabina" and you will see.

While you have some of this right you're still mostly wrong. When a song is licensed for a film the record company who owns the song gets the money not the artist. Also pirating of course hurts the artist. If a CD isn't selling then do you think a record label will be willing to pay the artist for another CD?