buy/sell: complaining about people stealing digital media (music, etc.) is like complaining about the library?

[Beni, got 12 bisexuals on deck]

before you answer think about the purpose of a library and how it compares to the new age of file sharing and digital pirating...

...i don't necessarily agree with this sentiment...just something that came up in my head...
@walrus, that doesn't really address the parallel i was trying to make but rather describing the basic constructs of a library...also if you borrow from the library you are consuming a product you did not pay for which you can keep borrowing so I don't see the difference with DL music for free...
i'm not trying to justify pirating....i just want a valid reason why stealing music is 100% bad and should be abandoned by society...
also you can borrow music in the library...and rip the music to your computer...so what's the major difference between that and DL that exact same music online?
@quato, you don't need thousands of money to create music...sure it helps tremendously in the overall quality of your music but there are "indie" musicians that manage to create projects w/o professional studio time...
@quato, i think they are very comparable, the only difference is that piracy is still deemed "bad" by society because most haven't caught on to its benefits and how it is the inevitable future for media consumption...books can even be pirated...i mean you can argue that we should spend less time arguing if piracy is bad and more time thinking of ways to take advantage of how easily media can be distributed and shared now...
...i mean to be against being able to DL music, movies. etc. for music is like being against television or the telephone back when they were first invented...the only difference is that the methods of obtaining these media is within the old-school doctrine of "thou shalt not steal" which i think we need to look past, at least regarding this topic so we can progress technologically...i mean human genetics has its moral qualms but its the future too...
...i mean experimenting and manipulating human genetics...
@quato, last time i checked creating music wasn't a job necessary for human survival so "hell no" i don't think musician's deserve to be compensated for what they do and if they got into creating music SOLELY for the monetary gain then that's up to them to work with the current technology to achieve that...that's not my problem as a consumer...musicians don't have to release their work to the public but once they do for the most part due to the our currently technological advances it's out of their hands how it is manipulated and distribute...

also people who create film, videogames, etc. have to deal with pirating too so you are DEAD WRONG about that....
to be perfectly honest i don't think any of you guys are comprehending my point...not that you don't have your own point to make but it's detrimental to the debate I presented if the main topic at hand is not understood and therefore not addressed...
@mic, y u so smart?

[giganticscarecrow929]

I think it depends which artist you take it from.

[Old Fogey]

stealing is stealing. Borrowing is borrowing

[skinnybutter966]

sell.

libraries buy their books legally, or get books donated to them which were bought legally

a library loans books, it doesn't give them away for free, plus authors don't have to pay thousands of dollars for studio time to record their books.

ripping music from a loaned CD is piracy, it doesn't only start being piracy when the internet is involved.

and it's not okay to pirate those indie bands either, regardless of recording costs, I'm not suggesting that it's okay to steal books either, so I guess that point I made about studio time doesn't really mean anything.

libraries don't buy new books all the time in order to loan them out, so new books stay on book shop shelves long enough to remain profitable.

you can only re-loan a book if someone hasn't reserved it, some books can be popular.

I don't think you can compare libraries to piracy at all.

**so it's like being against television, that would make sense if bands packed their lyrics with advertising, you're basically saying they SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED to gain any sort of financial benefit from releasing their art to the public, that's a stipulation that no other type of artist has to deal with, everyone rightly expects to be paid for their work.

[Awesome Gan]

Buy

[MuckyCat]

You can borrow music cds from the library though.Anyway when i was a lad we copied tapes , vinyl records,cds etc and shared them with mates so its not a new thing and music still goes on as usual.

I personally prefer buying cds but maybe if i was younger i would download for free.

[screechingdaughter027]

I'm leaning towards sell, though like me, often times the point of your question isn't really in the question at all. I doubt this is simply about drawing parallels between the library and pirating music, it's more about questioning the absurd morals that allows someone to deem one form of consumption to be fair, yet another as abhorrent behavior. To say it's fair to "borrow" a book without needing to pay the artist for their labor, yet it isn't fair to "steal" an artists work is hypocrisy, because they're essentially the same thing. There's contextual differences (which leads me to lean towards sell), but the end result is the same. The artist doesn't get paid. That said, both lead to valuable word of mouth. Many attempt to discredit this as being beni-ficial (cwuteyedidthair) but there are many fanbases built off piracy. The only difference is the way they're consumed and the way our current social constructs deems them, one being a place for learning while the other is a way for reprehensible derelicts to forgo paying the artist, when in actuality, they're the same. It's taught and internalized to be antipathetic towards it, because it's a new way of consuming media.

While I'm certainly sympathetic towards an artist who's work is pirated, musicians are affected less than someone like a game studio, simply because the majority of their profits are garnered through other endeavors aside from their albums. I'm not fond of an artist not being reimbursed, but I can rationalize it pretty easily, especially since many of these artist themselves support their artwork reaching as many people as possible. In the end, that's what I feel an artists goal should be, to somehow touch and affect another, even if it's just one person or if it's a million and the money that comes with it should just be a pleasant bonus, not the goal driving them.

tl;dr At the end of the day, a library and piracy have the same impact and the artist themselves shouldn't be cast as sympathetic figures.

All of this knowledge was beseeched upon me by God, whom told me that I needed to become a Messiah of the people, forever being a nobel vagabond...