I love nubs like you.

You offer nothing of substance or value...you act as the defender
of the universe..go away.

So this is rational?
"...it's people like you that causes..." (nice absolute)

"... You believe every artist is rich." (Gee, don't remember
saying that..that's quite an assumption)

"If everyone acted like you, there would be no musicians or
writers and you would have no music to copy." (wow...talk
about a bleak outlook and gross generalization.)

I want bother with addressing the rest. But you sir should shut
the hell up and go hug a tree or save a whale. This nub you are
defending is not worth it...and neither are you. Not one of you
understands what it is you are referring to.

Get...a....clue.

Can you debate anything without resulting to childish insults?

You copy and allow others to copy music - which is illegal. This is also the reason record companies are trying to put in DRM technology into music. My comment "people like you" is perfectly valid.

You also referred to artists as being rich. Do you personally verify the net worth of every artist from whom you steal? Again, my point seems valid. Maybe you don't believe *every* artists is rich, but I don't believe you think about that when offering up music to be copied or copy it yourself.

You also made up a story about you being some kind of consumer "big-wig". Based on your grammar, spelling, and inability to debate or state an opinion in a mature manner, I don't believe you. What I believe is that you are under the age of twenty, and haven't learned what it means to work for a living. I could be wrong, but we'll never know unless you admit it. I'll let others decide if I am correct in my assumption or not.

Back to the point: if an artist works hard to produce music that people want, it is the artist who decides if compensation is due, and it is the artist who decides who gets the right to distribute. Somewhere along the line, you mistakenly believed you have that right. I fail to see how you can justify deciding who has the right to freely copy and distribute a product that you had no part in creating.

I haven?t decided on which side of the issue I support at this
point, but some of your logic is flawed. You say that sharing
coping music is illeagal, which is true. But, there are many
things we do daily that are illeagal and yet we continue to do
them because they are just plain stupid. Do you speed? I speed.
Yet, I could make the arguement that we are threatening
national security because we are causing our police to have to
occupy their time monkeying around with us when they could,
potentially, prevent a terrorist attack. I know that is extreme
and plays on some serious emotions, but it is true.

Now as far as distributing music. If you look at the topo music
that is being downloaded from iTMS, I can make a good
arguement that those same artists are are high up on the
GNUTella network downloads as well. And please don?t tell me
Bono is hurting for the scatch.

Like I metioner before, I still don?t know where I sit on this, but
I can say I don?t feel bad for the artists or the recording industry
execs.

Do I speed, sometimes. If I get caught, I will pay the fine because I
deserve it. But that is a flawed analogy. Revenue from speeding
tickets pays for the cops that patrol for speeders. Because of
speeding tickets, police precincts can afford to hire extra cops - so it's
not like they'd be out finding murderers or anything. They'd be
working at other jobs.

Also, Bono is not hurting for cash, but he is hardly an "average"
musician. But who cares? It's irrelevant. How much money should a
musician make before it's ok to copy their music? How about a record
company? How big do they need to be before it's ok? Who is any of
us to decide it's ok or not? Who are we to decide who has a right to
copy and distribute music made by someone else?

What if everyone copied the music? Who will pay the musicians to
make the music? Who will pay to produce and distribute the albums?

My point about the cops is we do things that are illegal, that
they really are not issues that are too terribly important. There
obviously are extremes consequences for breaking the law, but
how often do they occur? Not very often. So when you say ?what
if everybody copied mp3s,? I say that will never happen. It is
stupid to think that would happen. Its ridiculous. People are
always going to steal music, but there is always going to be a
market to sell it as well.

My comment about Bono is not irrelevant. I was illustrating my
perception of what bands? music are being taken off the gnutella
network and other services. Bands like The Clarks are bands I
think would be hurt by these free music services. But, people in
EBFE are not going know about The Clarks until they reach a
level of success that is probably significantly above the poverty
line. A level of popularity beyond the city/region they are from.