No wonder the music industry is afrid of Internet, when people realise the cost of distribution is a fraction of what it used to cost the artist might ask for a bigger percentage. I bet they will replace breakage fee with piracy fee.

I’m not naive to the point of believing all ppl that share files are good guys that will do their best to pay for what is worth their money. There are the ones that draw a bad picture for the file sharers. I believe they are not the majority and that’s precisely why I strongly disagree with the current copyright laws and that non-commercial sharing should be completely legal.

I’m the owner of a respectable amount of CDs and DVDs (ironically I haven’t bought many digital tracks yet due to the lack of availability and abusive prices in my country). Much of this content was downloaded either before or after I bought them (yes, I download because it’s easier than ripping and I prefer not to use the original DVDs to keep them as clean and well cared as possible). And yet in the eyes of the MAFIAA I am a criminal. I am only lost sales.

And Mr Horn, do not be naive from your part too. I’m not the only one. Most of my friends do the same. Some of them even buy PHYSICAL pirated content and then the originals for the ones that are really worth it. I completely condemn the act of buying physical media with copyrighted content because many factors such as but not limited to organized crime involved. However he did buy the original so what can I say against them? I do have one friend that believes he’s entitled to everything for free. But he’s what, 1 in 20? How is 5% for a percentage? Is it worth treating every1 as criminals? Why not provide services and experiences that no ‘pirate’ copy can do?

When you and others come with the assumption that all of us file sharers are criminals and that downloading is theft you fail to grasp the true essence of the whole thing. Downloading might be considered theft if (and that’s a huge IF) the downloader doesn’t have any intention of buying ANYTHING he downloads, including what he’ll always use or what he likes to the point of watching/listening several times. Even if you consider this to be theft, will you criminalize everybody because of this single individual.

The old one is no longer active

Ironically, I think we might be more on the same side than these posts reveal.

Particularly your last paragraph – I agree. The issue we Creators face is that it is the corporates we consider to be unfairly exploiting the Creators.

One recourse taken by many is to try to stem unfair profits by not paying for product and finding free and pirate downloads. Of course as the video shows, the first person picking up that tab is the honest Creator.

So Ninga, as a Creator possibly affected by this, I can empathise with your anger.

I have been personally affected by sharp practice as an innovator, as have many of my peers, which lead to the Creative Barcode mechanism solution/launch for designers and visual artists created, at own expense, by designers and innovators.

We are not a corporate or government organisation – we are a not for profit created by Creators for Creators.

As such we know, feel and are trying to address the pain in a positive way.

I appreciate you are a maverick – I have some of those tendencies myself – however, I have had to curtail them to try to achieve positive change for the better, for all. It’s just my mission and my job.

Best regards

Now where to start crushing your flawed arguments?

“…you took it without permission and laughed.” No I didn’t take anything. I copied. And I paid a fair amount. No raw materials were used in the process of copying. Anyway, it was just some funny analogy because comparing physical goods to digital stuff is not quite right exactly because there’s a limiting factor to the physical goods that’s the raw material used in the manufacturing process. Actually it’d be nice if we could ‘download’ cars and do long run tests to see if they are really worth paying when we felt it was worth. But that’s another story.

“..well it’s new and most producers are being rewarded commercially and/or are providing App download legally through a small $payment price or free via Apple and other stores and sites.” Funny, I own an Android phone and I plan to root it at some point to install cracked apps. Still, at prices as low as $0,99 and free versions of the same program that give about the same experience than the paid one I haven’t felt the urge to install anything illegal so far. That doesn’t mean I won’t do in the future and even if I do it doesn’t mean I’m not supporting the developers from apps that are worth the money. I always do it.

“Choose to copy from them or download illegally and cheat the talented people and be smug about it – fair enough but be true to yourself. ” I am true to myself. I download like crazy. And I spend more than I would like in the originals of stuff I’ve downloaded. I don’t “cheat” talented ppl. I prevent opportunist idiots pretending to be talented ppl from cheating me. I also do reasonable spending of my earnings. Unfortunately I have to eat so I have to be selective and buy what fits to my earnings. Sorry if I can’t support all the freeload ‘talented ppl’ that happen to be in my downloaded folder.

“Don’t rejoice and believe you got one over on a profit making corporate.” Oh no, this article along with several other examples show that the corporations in question are also fucking up the TRUE talented ppl. So, even if I DID cheat on those ppl, I wouldn’t be the only one =) Difference is MAFIAA does it legally. Actually, I’m rethinking my spending and now I give full priority for direct donations to the artist whenever possible.

“What do you do to earn a living? Whatever it is – let us all have it for free without your permission or remuneration.” If it’s bad I won’t even release to the public, I don’t expect to earn anything for a bad work. Actually I’ve done several jobs where the any earnings were bind to the end result. And, wow, ppl pay MORE than you ask if you do a good job. So, I don’t work expecting remuneration. I work to deserve what I earn.

“Most people in this discussion group are talented, honest, individual Creators not faceless corporates.” Yes, and quite a few of those talented creators happen to agree with me.

“Did we two lose? No, we never even entered your self-invented competition, so how could we?” Learn to read. I said you failed in adding any good argumentation to the discussion. And you failed twice now.

“See http://www.creativebarcode.com.. (trimmed)” Oh, now we are talking about it. COMMERCIAL use you say. File sharing is NON-COMMERCIAL USE. Hopefully those bar code guys will solve this problem: http://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20110708/16213815026/patents-as-theft-how-oracle-microsoft-seek-to-profit-android-despite-having-nothing-to-do-with-it.shtml

And Mr Horned Guy:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110625/19243714865/trolls-town-drunks-internet.shtml
Please, you are making assumptions about me much like MAFIAA assumes all sharers are freeloaders that pay for nothing. The educated TF readers know this is bs. I would smack your face with several recepits from original goods I’ve downloaded but I don’t think it would matter if you are truly extremist as you sound.

Choose to copy from them or download illegally and cheat the talented people and be smug about it – fair enough but be true to yourself.

Don’t rejoice and believe you got one over on a profit making corporate. You got one over on an individual talented person and their rights to earn something from what they produced, that you couldn’t and that you valued enough to download. So stealing cheats the individual Creators and by default, their family.

What do you do to earn a living? Whatever it is – let us all have it for free without your permission or remuneration.

Most people in this discussion group are talented, honest, individual Creators not faceless corporates

Did we two lose? No, we never even entered your self-invented competition, so how could we?

We stated ethics and honesty as our preffered way of approaching the subject and our choices in life. You can do the opposite – its your prerogative but don’t co-join us in your life choices.

If things were so bad that creating wasn’t worth then why the Android Market is so damn full of good and free apps?

You two failed ;)