hehe i said it for humor more than anything else

I think what you mean to say is ‘Piracy wouldn’t be an issue if people were moral.’ Honesty has nothing to do with it.

Oh, I beg to differ.

I could say I’m honest, I could say I honestly download leagal copies of media illegaly; yet despite the fact I pirate whatever, im being honest about it.

On the odd ocassion, I use my own personal website to search the net for free music I can’t immediately find on iTunes. Is it wrong? Yes. I don’t care. I do my best to “correct” the situation at my earliest opportunity, but sometimes I just wanted to listen to the song once anyway. –But it bugs the crap out of me that people think they’re “taking a stand” against something by piracy. –No… you’re just getting what you want and saying you don’t care about the consequences in aggregate. Just SAY IT. Don’t spew moralistic hogwash about how musicians don’t get a dime anyway, as if you’re broad brush is plastering a universal canvas.

My actions, arguably, however, are immoral. Honesty is whether or not something is true, as opposed to false.

Given the way the world is, I’d prefer dry honesty over feigned and inconsistant morality anyday of the week. Any man’s morality is usually at the mercy of whether he is honest with himself. How much time is wasted because a pirate tries to argue things like: a.) do musicians deserve to make a living from their records? or b.) do I really think piracy impacts sales, even if not one-to-one? c.) am I trying to discern an agreeable truth, or simply argue my position? The “truth” is, that the pirate is simply doing something they want to do, and will tend towards any arguments that makes them feel they are a good person… honesty be damned.

The very notion that “piracy is a competitor” is dismissed if you see piracy universally as a “remarkeably novel means of advertisment” (as some idiots… um, “pirates” do). There’s a little truth in everything, and a little rationalization goes a long way towards coloring the moral path. Some people think the recording industry and everything about it (except the music of course) to be pure evil. In such a case, the only “moral” approach would be to “strike back”… which reamains the festering, bubbling, steaming pile of manure argument its been for a while now.

I’m glad a musician can make a living off their music, and even retire from the fruit of their creative spirit. That’s something I’ll be damned before letting anyone eliminate. Slate had a great article about possibly better options for revolutionizing the industry. Although it tip toes near the somewhat amorphous “compulsory license”, I like the idea of a real-time commodities [link] market for music. In the meantime, we get to deal with cyclical arguments about why how the recording industry is both enemy and friend, antagonist and lover, pluto and prometheus all in one with a thousand heads.

Ah well. At the end of the day, the least we can do it say what we really mean after the smoke clears.