[setanta]

Originally Posted by Stu

Yes, I do believe it is okay to 'steal' from some artists and not others. That's my personal opinion. Well, actually, it's more a fact, but at the risk of sounding pretentious, god forbid, I will leave it in the opinion basket.

'Stealing' an album from an artist who is overpaid and who is underworked, studio wise, and 'stealing' an album from a band struggling to make ends meet who put effort into creating genuinely interesting, unique soundscapes are two very, very different things.

I don't really see where you are coming from, to be honest. Your just running off on tangents instead of confronting the arguments I have posted. I don't see why you are using TiBB of all places as the template for gauging what illegal downloaders do. Your argument has no real statistical merit and merely boils down to ''well I reckon most people download artists and never buy them''.

Your probably right, the majority probably don't buy all of what they 'steal', but people are different. They, like this issue, can't be generalised into such daft concepts as 'good' and 'evil'.

Again, I show you the upsides of this 'crime' : Increasing live ticket sales, exposure for new bands, new channels of media for pre existing bands, slashing long overpriced record sales, wider consumer choice, easier access to otherwise rare and experimental material, a greater shift to independent labels where artists have both more of a say and more of the profits, a return to genuinely trying to create records the public will want to buy because it's not the same old shit, a D.I.Y approach to being able to create and share - bedroom production - the very thing that kick started both Punk and the 90's dance explosion.

I could go on...

God, you go on a bit. I never said it was good or evil and don't accuse me of having daft concepts; I'm talking about what's right and wrong and how this thread illustrates how people view the internet as a tool for accessing other peoples creative endeavours for free, with free and illegal being the important issues here.

You can go on and on about the advantages of having an outlet to promote a more expansive and wide ranging range of music and creativity (which in part I agree with) until you're blue in the face, but the reality is that most people are motivated by greed and how much they can get for nothing - they wont go out and buy the cd after getting it for free online.