Good discussion on piracy

"Am I the only one sick of music downloaders acting like they are crusaders for the greater good? I love music. I don't like paying for it. I steal it. Simple as that. I am no hero. Those that want to protect their investments are not Nazis." (Reddit.self.technology) submitted 1 day ago by damron

Good, long, discussion follows:

"ItsAConspiracy 311 points 1 day ago: A lot of people really do feel that the copyright regime has been vastly overextended. It used to be 14 years with an optional 14 year extension. Now it's effectively unlimited, because the Supreme Court said it's ok to extend the term retroactively. It also covers a lot more derivative works than it used to, and has nearly eliminated fair use rights.

Some of us even think copyrights should be done away with entirely. A business model based on limiting the right to copy is simply obsolete in the face of a technology that can copy information without limit, for free, and store it at a cost far lower than the license fee.

There have been several successful experiments already in collecting funds from the public in advance of releasing the work. Even if that didn't work, people make and publish art in all forms for free. People can't help themselves. If all that were available in the public domain, easily accessible on the Internet and legally reusable, we'd see a flowering of art the likes of which the world has never seen.

I don't view the content industry as Nazis. I view them as buggy-whip makers, protecting their investments by getting the government to pass laws against automobiles."

Click on link to read arguments, including this one:

"The problem is not piracy, although as a former musician I have to say it's kind of rude to steal someone's work. However that work is essentially stolen by the labels. If you look at most recordings it says "all rights reserved" What most people don't realize is that those rights are held by the labels and the publishing companies and that the artist get only a tiny fraction of the revenue, by and large. So what we need is a more equitable market, I believe it's coming but the labels and their promotional arms and the publishing houses, the FM radio stations, Live Nation, Ticketmaster, are going to have to die first. They have to be taken out of the equation because they are bad on just about every level. The labels are responsible for all the me too crap and total rubbish that chokes the airwaves right now. So keep up the piracy everyone should do it until these fucks are bankrupted out of existence. Then we can start again."