Quote from JamesF1 :

But that's according to your perception of karma... At the end of the day, that's irrelevant anyway - by living in the UK, you submit yourself to UK law (and, hence to the UK government's perception of right and wrong), regardless of whether you think karma is the way forward or not.

Are we talking civil or criminal, here?

Exactly.

Quote from SamH :

Large TVs are not life. Music is life.

Yes, in your opinion! Opinion counts for nothing against the letter of the law.

Quote :

If you don't understand what I'm saying then I could expand, but if you don't already understand what I'm saying, you'll never understand. Perhaps you're good at math instead.

Well, I am, as it happens I understand your point but I still don't see how this justifies breaking the law to get what you want. There's plenty of free music out there.

Quote :

A fair price starts at being a competitive price. Now that there is more than one way to purchase an album or track, it's more possible to pay a fair price. It's not difficult.

I maintain that any price is fair if people will pay it. That aside, I have no problem with people purchasing music by download on legitimate sites. Your reasoning appears to be "I can get it free...that's a fair price!", without regard to the fact that it is illegal.

Quote :

No, the problem with right and wrong is that it's different for everyone. Karma is the relationship between two rights, or two wrongs. Even if your perception of right and wrong is different from someone else's, your perception of relative karma is likely to be more consistent with theirs.

It's still subjective though, which means that it's impossible to account for in law. It's not a good defence to claim "My personal belief system makes it OK, so you have to accept this.".

Quote from SamH :

Are we talking civil or criminal, here?

Exactly.

What are you trying to suggest by that? It has no reflection on whether downloading music is legal or not - or on any other avenue of our debate.

Quote from JamesF1 :

I don't disagree that people *will* do it and I'm not saying that what the record industry is doing is great - all I'm saying is that it's against the law no matter which way you look at it.

Fair enough... but you know what I'm going to say next! You know that changes, breakthroughs, or paradigm shifts generally happen when laws are broken. You are arguing for a personal choice of not breaking the law, I am arguing that the majority should not be criminalised whilst indulging, not just a desire, but manifest common sense.

Quote from nihil :

Fair enough... but you know what I'm going to say next! You know that changes, breakthroughs, or paradigm shifts generally happen when laws are broken. You are arguing for a personal choice of not breaking the law, I am arguing that the majority should not be criminalised whilst indulging, not just a desire, but manifest common sense.

You're right, I did know My point is, why do something illegal to make a change - boycotting almost always results in an identical outcome... and no-one gets criminalised.

And if what you desire matters so much to you, then surely giving it up for a short while in order to gain easier access to it in the long run is worth it?

I'm really not the one focusing on the legals/rights/wrongs of the whole matter. Other people are doing that. Don't give a poop about copyright at this point.. I'm just enjoying the moment.

All I'm saying is that I'm not crying a river for the music industry. Whether or not I've been screwed over by the industry, it's allowed me to believe that I have. It's failed to court my affections, by blatantly charging artificially inflated prices for music. I was wholly dissolusioned by the industry long before the MP3 appeared on the scene. Since then, things have just kept getting better, as far as I'm concerned.

I respect your points of view on it, but make no apology for not sharing it. If they came a-calling, the industry would be hard-pressed to find a single MP3 on my PC that I haven't bought on either vinyl, cassette or CD. But that's really not my point.. I'm just observing and enjoying.

Fair enough, I understand your view - and I cry no rivers for them either... but I can see why they kick up a fuss.

Quote from Dajmin :

These days musicians make most of their cash from merchandise and gigs. Which is frankly quite scary, and complete reversal of what it was in the 60s and 70s.

i think its great and the only way that makes any sense in a world where something as intangible as intellectual properly is increasingly hard to hold on to
reminds me a bit of the way open source has become a business model but comming from the exact different direction (although you might be able to push this anology way past its logical boundaries and go back to the days when there was no medium to store music on other than paper and orchestras to compile it but thats a bit much)

Quote from StewartFisher :

so it's still theft!

no its not its a copyright violation which luckly still is covered by civil law and not crimial law
as much as the record companies would like you to believe its theft it isnt

Quote from SamH :

Perhaps you're good at math instead.

music is math

Quote from Shotglass :

music is math

True! Funny, actually.. kids who learn piano are better at math in school.

and inversely a whole bunch of well known mathematicians physicists and people in other sciences based on math were avid musicians

Quote :

What we have been charged has not been a fair price since the 60s. Don't believe me? Ask anyone.

Especially, probably, musicians.

I agree with anyone who says, cut out the middleman. Cut out the machine. Turn music back into something which people actually want to listen to again, rather than building up these cookie cutter market research driven ideals which are soley created for generating profit for big companies. Give top down taste a hard time, and support the artists on their own terms. That's the human media strategy of the times. Many to many, not one to many.

EMI!! There is no reason why

I just quickly read over this thread... and all i have to say. this is why I live in Canada...

For those of you who don't know... (can't remember exactly how it happened) But the music buisness here put a tax on ALL of our CDs..
So because of that we are LEGALLY allowed to download music and burn it onto CDs... However, we can't burn it for a friend, for give it to a friend.

...Not to boast or anything