"Downloading music that should be paid for, and not paying for it, is wrong if you keep that music for longer than you need to decide whether to buy it or not is wrong. Most people would make an exception for format shifting. EG you own a CD and download a pirate MP3. In theory this needs to be paid for (and is included in law in some areas) but in practice it's not much different to ripping your CD yourself."
"if you keep that music for longer than you need to decide whether to buy it or not"
I never understood how people came up with the caveat about trying before you buy. To me, it always seems to make a mockery of the whole thing even more. DOwnload an album. Listen for a couple of days. Go to the record store. Buy a CD. Throw it in the trash. Keep listening on your ipod guilt free, but still illegally.
Anyway, my point is that a lot of people don't agree that downloading music without paying for it is wrong. You could argue the point but I you can't just dismiss it with a "we can all agree that.."
Then, where is it written in the law that downloading is OK as long as you keep it for only the time required to make a decision on whether to buy it or not? And why would the opinion of "most people" matter to what it legally wrong?
WHen people say "wrong" I assume morally wrong as opposed to illegal. But legally I'm pretty sure it's "wrong" to download songs to hear them before you buy a CD too.
I know everybody loves to offer anecdotes when it comes to piracy, but I would never purchase music if I hadn't first downloaded it. One example, I heard of a band called Imaginary Cities from somebody online. Gave 'em a download, absolutely loved them. Sent $10 to the band's Paypal to cover the pirated album.
Six months later, I still really love this band. I go to their website and buy the album digitally. My thinking being "I might as well purchase it the right way".
Six months later, they come to my town. I buy a ticket, and also purchase a physical CD (cause I'm a sucker).
I wouldn't have bought their album 3 times if I hadn't been able to pirate it first. I would have never even heard them play.
Now I don't claim this is the case for all the music I download. A lot of it is terrible (I grab the SXSW compilation every year). But I would spend far less money on music if I had to buy an album before I could listen it. And not just a 30 second sample, but enough time to really learn to love it. I didn't care for the newest Metric album at first, but after enough listens I came to really like it. The new Jonathan Coulton album, pirated, and again donated directly to him to pay for it.
This system may not work for everybody, but it sure works for me. I can filter out the crap, and pay directly to the artists I love (usually bypassing a huge cut taken from the middle men).
So if you have one take-away from this point, it should be to go listen to Imaginary Cities right away.
The band has uploaded a version to Youtube, but it's a "music video" version with a much slower intro, so I opted for the album version. Perhaps that was a mistake.
No, I loved this band immediately. Some music such as Metric's new album took me some time though. Maybe it's just conditioning but I now really enjoy both.
Unfortunately this kind of retrospective format shifting isn't legal in a bunch of jurisdictions.
In the UK one commits two separate acts of copyright infringement by purchasing a CD, ripping it to their computer, and then copying the files to a portable music player.
Ideally the people creating the content, but realistically the people distributing that content for the creators.
cstross makes good points about all the other people involved in publishing - especially editors. I'm not sure this argument is as strong for music, but maybe I'm wrong.
