Reply #103: fine, then

[pop goes the weasel]

Before the advent of sound recording, if you wanted to hear music, you had to go listen to a musician play live. Sound recording put musicians out of work, since a band could be replaced by a record player. And now the recording industry, which was never a friend to musicians, is finding themselves the ones who are increasingly unnecessary, since musicians are increasingly going directly to fans again. Massive fines against people who freely trade mp3s will only drive the trend faster.

Then there is the issue of what is being traded. I have downloaded ripped music that is unavailable to me in the US or difficult to get. It's stuff I never would have heard if it wasn't for "illegal" downloading. And people elsewhere in the world do the same with music from the US. We're not evil pirates out to sink the artists. We would buy the artists' works if they were both available and affordable. I would certainly pay extra if I could get quality translations of song lyrics instead of what my ripping friends manage to conjure up. We just don't like having our music availability limited for us by corporations and governments that decide what nations can have access to what art, and in what quantities, and at what cost. And then, just imagine--more musicians known in more places, playing to new audiences, bridging gaps between cultures and nations. Art should flow freely across borders.

Then there is the comparison with crafts and graphic arts. Go to any site on the internet and you will find graphics. These graphics are easily ripped. It is so easy that very few visual artists make any strong attempt to maintain control over the images that they create, unless those images are used for profit or someone else tries to claim creative ownership. Craft patterns are easily duplicated by those who know what they are doing. And the upshot for visual artists as well as for crafters of all sorts is that they actually have more people buying from them than they would have before if the only place they had to display their work was a local coffee house. I know crafters and artists who have been pretty hard up trying to sell in their local communities but are now selling their work internationally. So someone else steals their images or ideas? A lot of good those images and ideas would do anyone if they had never been seen at all. And what if the government decided to start going after everyone who downloaded an image to use on the desktop or as a screensaver, or just to share with friends? All the people who are so high and mighty about never having illegally downloaded music--have you sought out and paid the artist who created that last cute picture you just had to share with everyone on your mailing list? What? No? Why not? Would it be OK if the DRM approach was applied to your image files? How about to your church craft sale?