Billy, stop using morpheus OR I'M TELLING MOM YOU'RE BEING EVIL AGAIN!

[nfotxn]

Disney Channel cartoon portrays music downloads as evil. You see, because mindless consumption of music, video, text and licensed goods at artificially inflated costs is far more wholesome and family like.

So obviously self-serving.

Comments

[plaidninja.livejournal.com]

*shrugs*
It is self serving. But that doesn't mean that they are wrong either. Your desire to have free music definitely conflicts with their desire to please shareholders, but neither of you really has the moral highground here.

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

Well, I think technology has changed the price of information. It always has, think Guttenburgh Press. Disney and other MPAA and RIAA backers do have a platform that the marriage of art and commerce is what drives modern entertainment media. But if Julia Roberts can't get $60 million per film anymore do you think that the genre that is cinema is going to be really irreversibly damaged?

As for the plight of "The Little Guys", frankly indie cinema can't get a bone in the big time unless it's given to them.

[plaidninja.livejournal.com]

Julia Roberts makes $60 mill because she does her job well. You may think that her job is to act, but, It isn't. Her job is make the film open well for the first two weekends. Stars are the only reason most people go to see films. For most people the content of the film is secondary, if they even care at all. True, films may get cheaper without stars, but will people go to see them?
Almost nobody cares about theatre anymore. Part of that stems from the fact that any shmuck can put on a play (a popular perception. not mine). Movies have always been something that only special people can do. Will film suffer the same way without starpower to drive it?
What about music. Both film and music are becoming radically democratized, such that more people have access to high powered technology. You, would like to make a career in music. Do you want to make money off of it? Gotta pay the bills somehow.

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

All very true. But is it appropriate to legislate that by distributing any Julie Roberts' film to your friends via the internet or even by designing a protocol to make it possible you are a criminal? Intellectual property is such an ill-conceived thing, it runs under the assumption that all IP "thefts" translate into possible purchases. I think IP is a belief more than a logical extension to our judicial system. Not unlike the belief that if I take your picture I'm stealing your soul. I'm only stealing your soul and doing so maliciously if we both believe that is the out come. If I don't believe in it, am I committing a crime?

[plaidninja.livejournal.com]

That pushes the question into a relm of moral relativism. Good and Evil are dodgy issues to muck arround with, and impossible to define. Theft, however, is clearly defined in most dictonaries.
And you are right that whether you consider a particular act of theft to be moral or immoral, is completely up to the individual. But I have always squinted at arguments that involve people saying "Since I won't get caught doing it I feel moraly justified" Such things are the birth place of savings and loan scandals.
Keep in mind that while I say this it doesn't mean that I would never download music files. Probably the only thing that stops me is bandwidth. However the fact that I WOULD do it wouldn't make it morally justified, even if it was.