Now how would you like to work on a job for 3 months and find out at the end that you’re not getting paid for that 3 months? That would hurt isn’t it?

That’s what you are doing to authors, wether they are musicians, writers, or programmers when you pirate their works.

Oh and don’t forget; you reap what you sow. What goes around, comes around buddy.

The main thrust of your argument is that if you cannot afford to buy it, it is not stealing if you just take it for free. You could not base a society on that rule. I cannot afford a Porsche, should I be allowed to break into a dealership and just take one? If someone else is poorer than you and cannot afford an MP3 player, would you just shrug and say “fair’s fair” if they took yours? Of course not.

You can say I’m immoral all you want, but it doesn’t matter. Because in the end, the band got more money for their intellectual property through my method. To think otherwise is fallacy.

I could not have bought even ONE of the albums I own. But you know what? Why not ask Modest Mouse? Why not ask Wolf Parade? How about Cloud Cult? Oddly enough, all of these bands support downloading. Oddly enough, it’s still considered illegal. But you know what? Lets use a band that isn’t okay with downloading.

I have downloaded all of Metallica. Let us call that a $80 value. Let us say they would have gotten $10 from that (very generous). I’ve spent $40 on shirts that i never would have, because of illegal downloading. Ah, but, I also have my $12 Metallica figurine. Oh, and a $6 poster. And $2 in ring tones. That’s $60. I’ve been listening to Metallica for four years. Damn. So basically, $60 every four years… if I live even two years more, they will have gotten 90 from me.

Shut your goddamn mouths a with this anti-piracy BS. It results in me spending far more money than I would have been able to on them anyway. if I spent that money on their albums, I’d have -20. So let’s say I just didn’t buy two of their albums. Well, I’d probably like Metallica less. And would probably buy even fewer albums. It’s common damn sense. I’m 17, you think I have 4k lying around?

With regards to software and music companies, presuming piracy causes a decline in their sales, they are forced to compensate by raising their prices. Therefore, people who chose to buy these goods honestly must pay higher prices. A loss is therefore incurred by these honest consumers.

Thank you, Jal Park, for giving me a much simpler way of arguing it for those who don’t have time to get into details right away.

Even if every song cost only $0.10 to “own” through the travesty of IP law, it would cost ~$2,000 to fill an 80GB iPod, to say nothing of one’s own hard drive.

Anyone who is familiar with IP is invited to read a critique of it by one much more familiar with it than I:
http://c4ss.org/content/521