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Old 12th September 2003, 14:32   #16  |  Link
Doom9
clueless n00b
 
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: somewhere over the rainbow
Posts: 10,579
Quote:
I like to consider it sampling, more than anything.
This is perhaps the hottest issue in all of this, because it's a moral question rather than a legal one. In the eyes of the law, both are the same. However, I find it a bit strange as well that the industry claims losses due to people who have no interest whatsoever in getting the product if they had to pay for it. It is still wrong, but if a college student pirates a $30'000 software you cannot reasonable assume that he'd have the means to pay it so it makes no sense that the company that made the program claims it lost $30k. Personally I don't have a definitive answer to this issue either.
Now, if you download a certain song first, then decide you like the music and buy the entire album, I don't think the RIAA should sue you for $150'000 (that's the max they charge per song). In the end, they got more than if you hadn't downloaded the song. However, if you keep the song without payment then the situation is different.

The problem with music is that there is no alternative product. You cannot decide to get your music from a non RIAA sanctioned source so you are bound by their prices, and being the only source, they have in fact a monopoly and can fix prices (and they've been found guilty of doing just that). Perhaps, if the US government investigated the RIAA a bit more they'd find that this organisation is harmful to the industry and would abolish it. I have no idea what effects this would have, but perhaps it would open ways to more consumer friendly prices, and prices that are determined by the market, not some all powerful monopoly organization. In basic economics you learn that monopolies are bad (with a few exceptions... certain government monopolies actually ensure more fairness for the population), so I think it's legit to ask how things would work if that monopoly were abolished.
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