It is this concept of infinite reproduciblity that is behind all these rationalizations. It’s just bits on a drive somewhere. There’s no “thing” that’s being stolen so how can it be theft. You can make infinite copies and the original will still be right where it always was. Nobody is being deprived of that original.

Except that the original was placed on the market as part of a free exchange of value. The artist sets a price, and the buyers decide if they want to pay that much for it. Exactly the same as the creation and sale of physical objects. The cost of reproduction has no bearing on the cost of purchase. Do you honestly think physical thing you buy costs only what it took to make it? No, it takes creative people to invent it, people to detail the design, people to build the factories, and a host of people to keep things running so you can buy it. Just because a digital music copy only costs you a bit of bandwidth to reproduce, doesn’t mean that a lot of money wasn’t committed in making it, and that in placing it on the market for sale, the hope that some of that money will get paid off.

This is where the issue of consent comes in. If some indie band wants to make a low fi recording on stuff they bought at Guitar Center and then give it away in hopes of getting some attention, that is their choice. They have given consent for people to have their product at no cost. But the reality is that all these folks are hoping to make it big and get signed by a label. Who will then front the bill for a proper recording studio with gear and engineers that will make them sound great. Which will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. And now, they need to withdraw that consent to free copies, because they have bills to pay.

Yes, there are exceptions to the rule like Radiohead. But even at that, a lot of these exceptions rode the train of letting someone else front the money for them to get big enough to turn around and thumb their noses at the industry and afford professional level personal studios so they could do it themselves. Even Nirvana let someone else in the form of small indie labels foot the bills for them. And when Dave Grohl says that his last album was done in his garage, he’s talking about a professional level studio with more than a hundred thousand in equipment paid for off of sales of Nirvana albums. Nothing is as free as you think.

And if you think a musician can exist without sales of their music (or teaching on the side) then you have obviously never been on a tour, which is the only other way to make a living unless you happen to get a plumb union gig for Cirque de Soleil in Vegas. Imagine you had to ride in a van for 6 hours every day and then move a ton of equipment just so you could put in a days work. Only to be limited to grabbing some fast food and crashing in some roach motel. Or jumping back in the van and trying to sleep which sharing driving duties. It’s not a sustainable occupation. So if you manage to convince some folks that you can come up with a business model that is immune to piracy, I’d like to talk with them in 10 years and see what their lives are like. And whether they agree with you model then.

Someone should seize and freeze his banking activities, I bet he is DEEPLY involved in fraud on VERY GREAT LEVELS. Including and not limited to cancer foundations, laundering dirty money from over seas for other head chairman of departments in USA. perhaps the largest in history

BTW, Lamar Smith… you too should stop breaking copyright laws, while you are at it, resign and allow more proficient young spirits to fix our nation and planet, before you old farts destroy what little you have left to the future generations. Lord knows how much cleaning is already needed thus far all over the place in so many ways.

Namaste to all, research PUFMM on facebook.

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