by Jonny Quinn

Created on: November 22, 2008

I have been reading through most of the arguements presented here and found this to be very interesting. I have decided to write my response on the "No" side, because there is actually no debate on whether illegally downloading music is ethical. The question is where do your ethics lie ? I fully agree that downloading music, through p2p or torrents or similar forms, is illegal and unethical as perceived by our culture. However, has the music industry, attempted to reason with society to bring this to an end, other than trying to close download sites, for example. "Dear public, we are starving .. our Artist are starving, our producers are starving, our record label is about to collapse, so please purchase our reasonably priced CD/DVD, legally ! The interesting thing is that nothing in my previous statement was correct, Artists, Producers and Labels are filthy rich, because their product is ridiculously over priced. I know, i know it costs millions of pounds/dollars to produce an album, or a movie, whatever, but if the resale price was relative to the cost of producing it, then would the above mentioned be driving a different Bentley every day of the week, with a property on the Costa Del Sol, one on the Cote D'Azur and one on Barbados.. the answer is simply NO ! I am a musician, i am a fully qualified sound engineer, for many years i supported the music industry and my favourite Artists, but as the cost of CD's/DVD's spiralled out of control, i turned to the internet. Don't get me wrong i still fully support the little guys, the unsigned, buying CD's at gigs, but while mainstream labels return a 1700% profit, i will continue to download ... The reason there are so many unsigned Artists, is because a record label needs to be confident that they are going to return lets say five million in their first year, but what about this why not bring everything back down to earth, let us have a choice, let us hear all these great unsigned Artists, why not let them return fifty thousand in their first year, simple because its all about ridiculous sums of money, it hasn't been about good quality music for a very long time. In summary : Is downloading music ethical ? No! Are music industry bosses ethical in ripping us off ? No! ... Drop your prices, make a reasonable profit, where less "Bling" own two reasonably priced cars and one modest home ... and you know what i might just start buying CD's again.

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