Secondly, you have inspired me, and it’s probably for the better. I’ve never really put any serious thought into pirating via P2P or whatever- my mentality has always been that it’s like stealing from the cookie jar, it’s kinda bad, but not really. I’ll help people out when I can. But after seeing these posts by fanatics who not only feel it’s their God given right to pirate other people’s work, they feel morally righteous about it- I can’t help but realize it’s been too long. The music industry has already paid it’s dues for falling behind the technology curve. Give it a rest. It doesn’t seem like any of you could give less of a sh*t about the people who create the content you freely consume. Betting your financial future on your creative passion is a huge risk, and you’re helping to grow the margin of people who decide to just become office drones. Art that really changes the world isn’t just a hobby that people do in their spare time.

As for some of your other bullsh*t comments, artists getting paid for their work isn’t welfare, it’s business. Maybe when you actually have to work for a living you’ll realize that 40 hours a week is almost half your waking life. And people who dream of doing their passion for a living don’t need to be shot down by @ssholes like you. Real advertising isn’t free, no one’s going to find your website unless you tirelessly promote yourself or pay for real advertising space with a large audience exposure. And getting your band reviewed on a reputable blog or a well known website like Pitchfork is world’s better exposure for an artist than being freeloaded on Bittorrent. Hell, people might even decide to buy your album. So congratulations, you’ve inspired me. Just based on the fact that you’re a self-righteous @sshole. I actually feel bad now for all the songs I have that I haven’t paid for. So if I decide to go buy an album tomorrow, you may have actually helped the economy and the creative industry, in the most roundabout way.

literally, 99.9% of it is god awful.

the reason for this is simple: it takes a tremendous amount of time and study and talent to make any piece of worthwhile music or film. anything of quality was not derived from the efforts of a hobby. the copyright free world you want everyone to embrace would bring down the overall quality of art from “mediocre” to “abysmal” as no one would have the time or financial incentive to devote to bettering their skills.

and yes, there is a financial incentive to art. here, in the real world, outside of your parent’s basement where you are provided a limitless supply of mountain dew and hot pockets…money matters. your idealism is hysterical.

you are the single dumbest, most inane poster here, roze. you have the logic and reasoning skills of a typical fifteen year old. why don’t you expend some of that social frustration somewhere else?

This brings me back to my original point. Maybe music just isn’t as good now because it’s not a viable career option for most. And most people who are serious about making art don’t want it to be a hobby they do in their spare time. They want to be able to make a living. No limos, no champagne in the back room. Just rent and food and gas money. A lot of great bands are indie bands, bands that don’t make a lot of money. I could give less of a crap about whether Britney Spears or Metallica sell another album.

It’s not a big deal if you make a copy of an album for your friend. That’s been happening since the days of the cassette tape. It’s the scale of P2P that has thrown the balance completely out of whack. It’s thousands or millions of people copying files that creates a problem. Now we have the RIAA threatening to sue bars if they don’t pay up for every song they play on the stereo. And they have every right to do that. They’ve just never had to it before because they were making enough money. I met a guy the other day that works at a recording studio, and he told me to stay out of the business, because it had totally dried up.

Everybody downloads. It’s a fact of life right now. If an album gets leaked before it’s released, everyone in the downloading world has their free pre-release copy. I do it. I’m just saying, I know that I want to help out artists who really need the help. And I don’t think the average person does. I think the average person, when given the opportunity, will take things for free, and never give a second thought to it. And P2P creates unlimited opportunities for those average people to take and take and consume and consume without ever giving anything back. The average person is not going to create an awesome remix from an mp3. And for the artists who want to be successful and quit their shit jobs so they can spend more time being creative and refining their craft, just consuming their work isn’t enough. Pass the tip jar around. Wake up to reality. Bills need to be paid, but nobody else wants you to be able to eat or pay your rent. And I’d like to see someone else here admit (aside from freetard), that’s fucked up.

Umm, you know other people have to eat to survive, too, right. It’s kind of a basic principle of life. They say Kurt Cobain’s death was the greatest PR move of his life, but he was already famous by then.