TheBoost said:
Mithrandir said:
One of the most interesting things I've read about piracy and copyright was strangely in the words of Liam Gallagher:
“I hate all these big, silly rock stars who moan – at least they’re fuckin’ downloading your music, you cunt, and paying attention, know what I mean? You should fuckin’ appreciate that – what are you moaning about? You’ve got fuckin’ five big houses, so shut up,”
"Interesting." Yeah, that's one word for it.
At what point does someone not deserve to get compensated for their labor? What's the exact dollar ammount where it's now 'enough' and it's ok to steal from them?
Is it the same for civil engineers or financial planners as it is for musicians?
If I develope a cure for a disease and people steal if from me, should I just be happy people are enjoying my cure?
Well, that's where the social idiosincrasy starts to play. For instance, here we've got one the highest rates in universitary population in the whole american continent (don't know what the rates of Cuba are), and College happens to be public here (in case you want good education, if you want just a degree, you can go to private universities). By public, it means, you don't pay, although it doesn't mean "free", for it is sustained by the State, and utterly, the civil society's taxes. So most of professionals here have it clear that, in some way, their achievements are product of the collective effort of a society who payed their studies. This, for some people, is indeed a "moral debt"; and even if we all have some point of individuality, and ambition, no one lives and progresses completely on their own. At least, this is how I see somethings in this part of my life...
Besides, I wouldn't underestimate the market, surely they'll find someway to solve this "piracy" problem and keep making money.
And regarding what's been said above about professional middle-class musicians; I think that the worst thing you can do to those people is, instead of downloading their music, not recognizing who the author is (don't know, by changing the name, or confusing their voices with other musicians). If that people upload their music to Internet perhaps they're looking for people who pays attention to them, and maybe they could have fame first on youtube or some site, and then reach to sign a contract. Honestly I don't think there are plenty of middle class musicians whose files are there being pirated, Cinema industry is even wealthier than musical, and it took me a good time to find a site where I could watch some USSR movies. Don't know, perhaps I'm giving my point from a very parcialized place, our market is not as extense as yours; bands here rarely have "merchandising". What's more, it's common between musicians to measure their success by "being" (appearing in) a sticker, a t-shirt; a student bag, etc, but while they're in the underground time of their careers, no one pays for copyright, or commercial name rights, and at some point, they're ok with that if it leads them to a path of success and an increase in public recognition. Not that here people are not jealous at all of their own production, but it seems to be that they're less than in other lands.
