Should it be illegal to download music?

How ironic is that!:haha:
Here we are talking about how illegal is to download music and we encourage that piratery isn't a good thing and he makes a post right in this thread about finding a crack to a program which gives you the opportunity to download cracked programs and music.
:unch:

But still, If you seriously like the person who sings the songs or what ever you're downloading, you'll still buy tickets for their concerts and Tshirts and stuff so it's not like they'll go bankrupt over the songs you'll download over Limewire

I completely agree that buying is the way to go, but I strongly disagree with the sentiment that music these days is cheap. Yes, it's far cheaper than back in the day when Granny had to go out and buy a wax cylinder to listen to anything, and run the risk of it melting in the pre-AC days, but it's still far from as cheap as it could and should be.

Remember the days when a traveling minstrel would be lucky if a family put him up for a day, even if he was the best performance to ever grace the village? Ah, those were the days. I bet he never had Ye Olde Record Label breathing down his neck, taking 98% of his profits. Bureaucracy sucks, eh?

Firstly, I'd be very careful about mentioning LimeWire on TechSpot. We don't take kindly to the name of any piratical program being brought up nonchalantly. And, though the artists are completely made, and they do get money from merchandise and live performances, it's still nice to give them a little gratification every once and a while. Especially independent artists: they make little enough as is.

A P2P program is not "piratical" in itself - it is the people who commit crimes, not computers.

If we went down that road, then pretty much everything computer-related (plus photocopiers, DVD recorders and any audio equipment with recording capabilities) would be taboo (because you can use computers for copyright infringement (and I believe most people here have done it (unknowingly at least))).

I completely agree, however, we did rib a guy earlier for mentioning BearShare. And both programs are, well, usually exclusively used for copyright infringement. Not to mention his quote:

Which mentions it in a piratical context.

steal from the rich...give to the poor - robin hood

The poor in Robin Hood were starving. We are not. And we cannot eat music.

Times have changed.

Now it's more like 'steal from the poor... give to the rich'

Well, the artists still aren't exactly poor. Though I bet they yearn for the days of vinyl (and, in turn, lack of piracy).

You just mentioned LimeWire just now

It doesn't really matter if I say it because i'm not specifically saying what people do with it, Im just naming a program.

That's from a post I saw earlier, yet you didnt go in and complain about it

About the "two P2P" post: well, I don't go around the forums searching for the word P2P. I just mention it in posts I look in.

And I normally have no problem with the mention of a P2P program, but you mentioned LimeWire being used to download songs. However, I did just notice that you said "you'll download" instead of "you download" or "I download". So that's okay.

Anyhoo, it's beside the point. I'd just like to reinforce the idea, to all future posters: mentioning a P2P program being used in a method that is currently illegal, without the proviso that your statement is hypothetical, is against TechSpot forum rules.

Sorry, I didn't imply that artists are poor.

www.stealingisillegal.com

Nice link. An excellent website, which nicely sums up the thoughts I have on the subject.

yeah i found it on other forum and i thought that it matches to this thread. it sustains that music is illegal and it explains why it should be.

Of course stealing is 'illegal' (unethical, immoral, ...). Problem is to define stealing.

It's not stealing when it's freely available on a website. When it's on a P2P program maybe, but if it's on a Website, if the owner really cares, they can sue the website unless they have it taken off.

So if you download an emulator and/or ROMs from a website, that's not stealing.

I have tons of emulators and ROMs, so much that I don't have any consoles because I play all those games on the computer. I didn't steal any of them because I got them from websites.

I can see how it's stealing if it comes from a P2P program, but if it's music well, the artists get a very small share of the sales, most of it goes to the publishing company, and most of that amount goes to the CEO who just sits lazily in his/her office every day drinking $100 cups of import coffee and practicing his/her golf skills.

That's why I don't give a **** if I download "illegally" or "steal" music.

Good speech

I agree with you 100% on that, it's the person who puts the files on the internet for free who is stealing, if you just happen to download it it doesn't matter because all you did was Rightclick and save...

So I can exceed the speed limit in my car simply because the car goes that fast? The government can sue the car company for enabling their cars to exceed the speed limit.

If your friend stole $20 from someone and gave you half of it, would you accept it just because it's there? According to your logic, the police could arrest him but not you because he was the one who stole it and gave you some. All you did was accept it.

End of rant.