Yarggh, I be a pirate

I am neither Johnny Depp, nor a professional baseball player. I am a common, middle class citizen who loves music, movies and computer applications. The only thing I love more than those three things is not paying for them. Is it my fault, or has the trend of on-line users pushed me in that direction?

Ever since the invention of Napster, music was a large target for illegal downloading. Since then, there have been many other free on-line peer-to-peer music sharing such as Kazaa and others. Post shutting down of Napster at the hands of a band you may have heard of, Metallica, there has been a a tug of war between bands, their production companies and the middle class Joe schmoes who have found a way to still enjoy their favorite jams at no cost to themselves. I found a pretty funny video on You Tube about the Metallica-Napster lawsuit. Peer-to-peer file sharing has sparked CMC between total strangers, and not all musicians think that free music is such a bad idea.

Though Metallica made a big stink, there is another ban who has recently given their CD away for free digitally from their site. Radiohead offered their most recent CD "In Rainbows" for free from their website. They took donations from fans, but the CD itself was free to the public, and they actually made more money than if they went through conventional terms with a Record Company. This was in response to the recent difference between the money made by Record Labels and what is in turn passed on to the Band itself from digital sales. Just like the Writers Strike, managing firms who sell creativity by individuals didn't have a set percentage of digital sales in their contracts because, simply it didn't exist whenever the contracts were written.

In conclusion, I don't "condone or participate" in such activities, but i know of people who do. People who "Steal" their music. People who illegally download movies and burn them onto DVD's from sites such as The Pirate Bay. I know of people who download applications for computers, such Adobe Photoshop, because of their outrageously overpriced merchandise. I even know a person who can modify their X-Box's so you never have to pay or another game. I don't view it as stealing. Aside from the computer applications, it's the nature of the beast. If people want something bad enough they are going to find a way to do it. Nobody refers to Bill Gates as a thief since he stole windows from working on an Apple Computer, but the 19 year old kid who found a way to share music to the world via his hard drive is. All he did was keep $13.99 out of the pockets of greedy Hollywood companies who need a new Benz. I dunno if it's just me, but it seems that ingenuity has been lost between the dollars. As it relates to class, this is CMC at it's best state. You are sharing something as intimate as music with complete strangers, and it doesn't cost you anything. They say the best things in life are free. I say it's a little bit better when you get it for free in spite of greedy millionaires.