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Poll Question: Is it right to download music for free without the artist's consent?
Poll Choice Votes Poll Statistics
13 [22.41%]
24 [41.38%]
4 [6.90%]
17 [29.31%]
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The Pessimist View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 17 2009 at 18:52
If you look it up, most of the downloads that take place are from the "big" artists, the top 2-3% as you say. Chart artists. Now judging by all their living conditions on programmes like Cribs and such, file sharing hasn't really affected them. Big deal, Justin Timberlake will now have to get a gold plated bentley instead of a diamond encrusted one. I feel for him, really. 

Also, pretty much all fans of underground bands like Meshuggah and Napalm Death that I know of pay for their CDs to support them. I hang round with a lot of metalheads, and this issue often pops up in conversation, and all of them buy CDs because they feel like they are making a difference. I myself use iTunes to get my music (or other alternative legal sites), so I am on that bandwagon also.

The fact is though that file sharing will never stop, much like pirate DVDs, and no matter what the governments do society will always find a way to cheat their way to music, there is no way around it. Sad but true, artists have no other option but to deal with making money another way. Or simply have faith that their fans are not stealing from them. Either way, it won't stop so long as we have the internet. So why not legalise it? No-one is doing anything about it anyway, and I imagine it's pretty damn difficult to catch musical pirates. So let them be, if they want to be a thorn in the side of musicians, then so be it. Let it be on their conscience. They are only frowned upon by the rest of the music loving community, and if they can deal with that then they are stronger people than I am.
"Market value is irrelevant to intrinsic value."

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 17 2009 at 18:57
So it's ok to violate the rights of the rich because they won't notice it as much as if you violate the rights of the poor?
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 17 2009 at 18:57
I've said it before and it bears repeating, you should never illegally download, except for Prince and Metallica, in which case you should download illegally and never listen to. LOL

Edited by Slartibartfast - February 17 2009 at 20:46
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 17 2009 at 19:23

First off, once you legalise illegal downloading then the flood-gates open and no one will buy music ever again - CDs and DVDs will vanish and all the legal download sites will close. Why use iTunes when you can legally get it for free?

Secondly, to legalise illegal downloading you would have to scrap all copyright law, because you have decided that anyone can copy anything without paying for it - that means that no one would be able to protect their intellectual property - if you wrote a song and Bruce Springsteen said it was his and that he wrote it there would be nothing you could do about it, no one would believe you over him, you would be branded a plagiarist.
 
Thirdly - Justin Trousersnake, Prince and Britney Spears are irrelevant - more people download from those artists because more people buy their CDs - however no one knows the actual numbers of illegal downloads - all numbers are extrapolations based on information gathered from a few monitored sites.
 


Edited by Dean - February 17 2009 at 19:26
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 17 2009 at 19:43
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

First off, once you legalise illegal downloading then the flood-gates open and no one will buy music ever again - CDs and DVDs will vanish and all the legal download sites will close. Why use iTunes when you can legally get it for free?

Blatantly false, since I would.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 17 2009 at 20:12
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

First off, once you legalise illegal downloading then the flood-gates open and no one will buy music ever again - CDs and DVDs will vanish and all the legal download sites will close. Why use iTunes when you can legally get it for free?

Isn't that the case now? I use iTunes because I serve the artists, but I can just as easily download my music through torrents and I most likely won't get caught. The only thing stopping me is my morals, the government can't really do anything.

Secondly, to legalise illegal downloading you would have to scrap all copyright law, because you have decided that anyone can copy anything without paying for it - that means that no one would be able to protect their intellectual property - if you wrote a song and Bruce Springsteen said it was his and that he wrote it there would be nothing you could do about it, no one would believe you over him, you would be branded a plagiarist.

However if I recorded my works then Bruce Springsteen couldn't possibly say it was him singing because he sounds nothing like me (I sound bad by the way). Things are no different now anyway, just on a different scale. If I wrote a song and a fellow muso heard me playing it, then he could easily just play that same song with his band and say it was his. My word against his. But how does that relate to file sharing? I see the connection a bit, but I don't get how that backs up the argument. Playing is completely different to listening. Does this mean that it's now illegal for bands to cover someone else's tune?
 
Thirdly - Justin Trousersnake, Prince and Britney Spears are irrelevant - more people download from those artists because more people buy their CDs - however no one knows the actual numbers of illegal downloads.

If you look on the most popular torrent site statistics (I won't name it to protect PA), then you will see that the most downloaded album this week is by Eminem. If you look on the second most popular site, the top downloaded is ABBA Gold. Let's face it, these artists are huge and are even household names. You actually have to go to the very bottom of the list to find underground bands like Isis, and even Marillion are pretty low on the download levels. Total them all up from the sites and you will soon find that not very many people download lesser known material. Face it, underground bands are suffering because they aren't popular enough - whether that be because their music is too inaccessible or because their publicity is limited - not due to illegal downloading.

All numbers are extrapolations based on information gathered from a few monitored sites.

Most popular torrent sites I've seen take statistics, and they wouldn't have any reason to lie about them.

By the way, I don't use these sites. All it takes is a little googling and you'll find the same information.
 

These are bold statements I am making, but please think about this for a second. How many negative results would there be exactly from legalising file sharing? Nothing is done about it nowadays anyway, so it is a pretty useless law. I challenge anyone to find a substantial amount of arrests made due to illegally downloading music. One person isn't enough, because one person couldn't possibly single-handedly make a difference to the music industry by file-sharing.


Edited by The Pessimist - February 17 2009 at 20:13
"Market value is irrelevant to intrinsic value."

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 17 2009 at 20:30

Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

Secondly, to legalise illegal downloading you would have to scrap all copyright law

Good point but even harder Dean, a country may change their laws, but this countries:
 
Quote  
 
Source WIPO
 

Member States

* Afghanistan * Albania * Algeria
* Andorra * Angola * Antigua and Barbuda
* Argentina * Armenia * Australia
* Austria * Azerbaijan * Bahamas
* Bahrain * Bangladesh * Barbados
* Belarus * Belgium * Belize
* Benin * Bhutan * Bolivia
* Bosnia and Herzegovina * Botswana * Brazil
* Brunei Darussalam * Bulgaria * Burkina Faso
* Burundi * Cambodia * Cameroon
* Canada * Cape Verde * Central African Republic
* Chad * Chile * China
* Colombia * Comoros * Congo
* Costa Rica * Côte d'Ivoire * Croatia
* Cuba * Cyprus * Czech Republic
* Democratic People's Republic of Korea * Democratic Republic of the Congo * Denmark
* Djibouti * Dominica * Dominican Republic
* Ecuador * Egypt * El Salvador
* Equatorial Guinea * Eritrea * Estonia
* Ethiopia * Fiji * Finland
* France * Gabon * Gambia
* Georgia * Germany * Ghana
* Greece * Grenada * Guatemala
* Guinea * Guinea-Bissau * Guyana
* Haiti * Holy See * Honduras
* Hungary * Iceland * India
* Indonesia * Iran (Islamic Republic of) * Iraq
* Ireland * Israel * Italy
* Jamaica * Japan * Jordan
* Kazakhstan * Kenya * Kuwait
* Kyrgyzstan * Lao People's Democratic Republic * Latvia
* Lebanon * Lesotho * Liberia
* Libyan Arab Jamahiriya * Liechtenstein * Lithuania
* Luxembourg * Madagascar * Malawi
* Malaysia * Maldives * Mali
* Malta * Mauritania * Mauritius
* Mexico * Monaco * Mongolia
* Montenegro * Morocco * Mozambique
* Myanmar * Namibia * Nepal
* Netherlands * New Zealand * Nicaragua
* Niger * Nigeria * Norway
* Oman * Pakistan * Panama
* Papua New Guinea * Paraguay * Peru
* Philippines * Poland * Portugal
* Qatar * Republic of Korea * Republic of Moldova
* Romania * Russian Federation * Rwanda
* Saint Kitts and Nevis * Saint Lucia * Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
* Samoa * San Marino * Sao Tome and Principe
* Saudi Arabia * Senegal * Serbia
* Seychelles * Sierra Leone * Singapore
* Slovakia * Slovenia * Somalia
* South Africa * Spain * Sri Lanka
* Sudan * Suriname * Swaziland
* Sweden * Switzerland * Syrian Arab Republic
* Tajikistan * Thailand * The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
* Togo * Tonga * Trinidad and Tobago
* Tunisia * Turkey * Turkmenistan
* Uganda * Ukraine * United Arab Emirates
* United Kingdom * United Republic of Tanzania * United States of America
* Uruguay * Uzbekistan * Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of)
* Viet Nam * Yemen * Zambia
* Zimbabwe    
 
 
 
BTW: 1. Anyone may use or reproduce any information presented on this website, subject to any specific terms of use that might appear with such information, provided that the use of such information is accompanied by an acknowledgement that WIPO is the source.
 
Are members of The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), which is an international treaty, with at least Congresional Law rank, but if you want to leave  a treaty, you have to denounce it and wait some time, plus approval of the Congress by qualified number of members.
 
In Perú a treaty is only under the Constitution but above the law (Except Human Rights which are at least uin the same level), you have to modify it as you would modify the Constitution.
 
So we are talking about a big deal.
 
Iván
 
EDIT: Had to correct the list, it was outdated, now there are 184 countries and not 165 as in the previous list.
 
 


Edited by Ivan_Melgar_M - February 17 2009 at 20:50
            
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 17 2009 at 20:45
My country doesn't have a good history of honoring treaties. Embarrassed
Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 17 2009 at 21:18
A couple of points I would like to make.

1. Offering your albums to be downloaded for free need not be charity.  The internet has many free-service revenue sharing models where the seller gets paid for the number of hits or through ads.  The presence of ads too need not spoil your experience because AFAIK Google uses the same model and I at least don't find Google to be horribly cluttered but maybe I am less choosy, what do I know.  Heathen - a US thrash metal band - already offers their entire discography on their own website for free - helps pay for the website because of more hits generated and spurs sales of their CDs and also promotes their tours all in one shot.  AFAIK, most metalheads - myself included! - I know downloaded the Heathen albums from there instead of using torrents. The rationale of using an official channel to download is very obvious:  secure, assured quality, no viruses and no question of illegality most importantly.  You may ask why would anybody go to the legal free channel if there is an illegal one? I ask why wouldn't people make the shift, it would be a lot more convenient to use an official site or general music portal than to use myriad combinations of search and download engines.  As Mike -  or was it Debrewguy - pointed out, it's really the big labels who are reluctant to move onto such a model because they can't make a lot of money through such a model and can't pay for the big bosses' private ranch or yacht or what have you but it could help smaller bands survive and subsist instead of disappearing after two albums as they are usually forced to do.

2. As far as underground bands are concerned, I believe many of them use channels that don't depend entirely on the stores for income.  I have a copy of a demo by an Indian metal band passed onto me by my friend who had attended their concert.  The CD was sold as a compliment to the concert ticket.  That's then not a lot of money but at least it's SOME money and people get to know about the band.  Afterwards, when a full length is released on a label, you already have potential customers and people here at least do try to support local bands by buying their releases.  It's not patriotism or charity, just mutual benefit: the band survives and in a gig-starved nation, you've at least got some decent bands to watch once in a while.  Ergo, the underground scene depends more on keeping its proximate fanbase interested; few of them are going to break into the international market and if they do, it is ironically the internet that would have helped them to get attention through word-of-mouth promotion on music forums. Obviously the situation would be different in USA or Europe where you get to see the big bands on a more regular basis and maybe people don't care so much about smaller bands. Wink  

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 17 2009 at 22:18
If I am able to procure an album legally it is the preferable method. I do not support the stealing of intellectual property, but there are just some albums you will never hear otherwise.Embarrassed For example, a few years ago i found a recording of "Dominoes" by Syd Barrett off bbc and even though the sound quality is bad, for some reason i prefer the lower quality sound to the cd recording, the static fits the song well for me. That said, I still don't like the idea of being able to take anything you want without paying the artist. I have alays wondered, If it is illegal to share files, is it also illegal to read a book in the store so yu don't have to buy it?Is it illegal to use a privately owned movie in school?
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 18 2009 at 01:43
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

Alex, you're dreaming - the real world isn't like that - there is no descrimination between rich and poor artists by the downloaders - in their eyes all artists are rich. The reality is only the top 2 or 3% make millions, a few make a comfortable living and the rest struggle. Most signed artisits in the Prog world have day jobs to subsidise their "hobby". Dream Theater have sold something like 12 million albums in 20 years - at 5% royalty the band has earnt $6million total - or $300K per year, or $60K per band member per year... that's before they've paid the roadies, techs, the management and all the other staff they need to employ to keep the band going - so the reality is probably closer to $30K per year - that's less than the USA average wage. Now convert those numbers over to a less successful band...
 
Mac McDermott left Threshold last year and quit the business because he couldn't afford to go on tour with them. Marrillion ask for advanced payments from their fans to finance the recording of albums - it's an excellent business solution, but would a cash-rich band need to do that?


Agree 100%. Fortunately, as I mentioned before, today the cost of recording, producing and promoting albums have dropped significantly, and that might be the chance for musicians to make music without having to make contracts with big companies to finance them. Of course making music in your spare time while working in a regular 9-5 job is not for everyone, and many artists will need to find other ways to finance their living. One possible solution that comes to my creative mind: Concerts transmitted live over the internet. Bands could perform in a small venue and increase the audience size massively. Payment would be in advance (you card gets charged as you open the stream).
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 18 2009 at 02:13
Originally posted by Pnoom! Pnoom! wrote:

Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

First off, once you legalise illegal downloading then the flood-gates open and no one will buy music ever again - CDs and DVDs will vanish and all the legal download sites will close. Why use iTunes when you can legally get it for free?

Blatantly false, since I would.

Neither blatant, nor false - Not everyone downloads from iTunes to support the artist - many do it because other methods are illegal. In this instance Justin Timberlake, Britney and Prince are relevant, because it is their fans that make iTunes viable. Once illegal downloads are legal then those fans are the ones who will abandon iTunes - sales from our demographic will not keep iTunes going.


Edited by Dean - February 18 2009 at 02:16
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 18 2009 at 02:58
Originally posted by The Pessimist The Pessimist wrote:

Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

First off, once you legalise illegal downloading then the flood-gates open and no one will buy music ever again - CDs and DVDs will vanish and all the legal download sites will close. Why use iTunes when you can legally get it for free?

Isn't that the case now? I use iTunes because I serve the artists, but I can just as easily download my music through torrents and I most likely won't get caught. The only thing stopping me is my morals, the government can't really do anything.

Secondly, to legalise illegal downloading you would have to scrap all copyright law, because you have decided that anyone can copy anything without paying for it - that means that no one would be able to protect their intellectual property - if you wrote a song and Bruce Springsteen said it was his and that he wrote it there would be nothing you could do about it, no one would believe you over him, you would be branded a plagiarist.

However if I recorded my works then Bruce Springsteen couldn't possibly say it was him singing because he sounds nothing like me (I sound bad by the way). Things are no different now anyway, just on a different scale. If I wrote a song and a fellow muso heard me playing it, then he could easily just play that same song with his band and say it was his. My word against his. But how does that relate to file sharing? I see the connection a bit, but I don't get how that backs up the argument. Playing is completely different to listening. Does this mean that it's now illegal for bands to cover someone else's tune?
 
Thirdly - Justin Trousersnake, Prince and Britney Spears are irrelevant - more people download from those artists because more people buy their CDs - however no one knows the actual numbers of illegal downloads.

If you look on the most popular torrent site statistics (I won't name it to protect PA), then you will see that the most downloaded album this week is by Eminem. If you look on the second most popular site, the top downloaded is ABBA Gold. Let's face it, these artists are huge and are even household names. You actually have to go to the very bottom of the list to find underground bands like Isis, and even Marillion are pretty low on the download levels. Total them all up from the sites and you will soon find that not very many people download lesser known material. Face it, underground bands are suffering because they aren't popular enough - whether that be because their music is too inaccessible or because their publicity is limited - not due to illegal downloading.

All numbers are extrapolations based on information gathered from a few monitored sites.

Most popular torrent sites I've seen take statistics, and they wouldn't have any reason to lie about them.

By the way, I don't use these sites. All it takes is a little googling and you'll find the same information.
 

These are bold statements I am making, but please think about this for a second. How many negative results would there be exactly from legalising file sharing? Nothing is done about it nowadays anyway, so it is a pretty useless law. I challenge anyone to find a substantial amount of arrests made due to illegally downloading music. One person isn't enough, because one person couldn't possibly single-handedly make a difference to the music industry by file-sharing.
(I don't do multicolour-quoting, so you'll have to work out which of my comments go with which of Alex's comments the hard way...sorry)
Part of the morality that stops most people downloading illegally is simply that - because it is illegal. The Governments can do lots of things, at the moment ethics and statutes stop them (Data Protection Act etc.) - every action you do on the Interweb can be tracked and monitored by your ISP, since every request and every delivery starts and ends at your PC hiding your IP address is irrelevant because your ISP knows who you are - if Governments and agencies put their minds to it, they can do plenty about it. They don't even have to go that far - they can set up fake torrent sites and grab every user who attempts a download (and who says they aren't doing that already Wink).
 
Copyright is the whole basis of music ownership - taking away the owner's right to sell (which is what making illegal downloads legal actually means), is taking away their copyright. The Springsteen example was to show that at the moment copyright is legal protection against Intelectual Property theft. A recording of a song is not proof that you wrote it. It is not illegal for a band to cover another artists song in a live situation, but it is illegal to record it (either live or in the studio) without permission or licence.
 
It's all proportional - if 40% of Eminems music is downloaded illegal and 40% of Marillions is also downloaded illegally the obviously Eminem is still being downloaded 1000s of times more than Marillion - however, if Eminem loses 40% of his income he is still rich - if Marillion do, they are even more broke.
 
Torrent sites have every reason to lie about their stats, even they want to be popular LOL
 
The negative affects are already evident - not see a correlation between downloading and reduced sales is just an excuse to justify downloading. Removing the legal restrictions of illegal downloading would dismantle the entire music business infrastructure - not just record labels, disty's and music retailers, but independent studios and sessions musicians - whether you believe that is a good thing or a bad thing is immaterial - personally I like home-studio recordings, but I prefer top-end studio recordings. People are complaining about the blandness of modern recordings as it is - imagine the situation where everything is recorded at home-studio quality to the same homogenised standard.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 18 2009 at 04:46

Illegal downloaders only do it because it doesn't affect them. If the boot was on the other foot and they were being stolen from you can bet that they will be the biggest complainers around. This something for nothing brigade really get my goat.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 18 2009 at 05:36
I don't have a staunch, anti-thought opinion on illegal downloading. Personally, the only thing I find annoys me about the practise is that it trivialises legitimately free music, since most people in the pirate mold consider it all free anyway and we, biased by what's gone before, all come to associate a physical CD/LP/etc release with quality and free music be damned. That in turn lowers the bar on the quality of what people will choose to self-publish, out of desperation or a lack of respect for the material of real musicians, degrading the average free song and making it seem unworthwhile for musical gold prospectors to even bother at all.

Edited by laplace - February 18 2009 at 05:37
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 18 2009 at 05:38
Originally posted by Pnoom! Pnoom! wrote:

So it's ok to violate the rights of the rich because they won't notice it as much as if you violate the rights of the poor?


God, yes. They're not being taxed enough. =P
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 18 2009 at 06:26
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

Part of the morality that stops most people downloading illegally is simply that - because it is illegal.


On the other side of the coin, one reason people do download illegally is little to do with cost or morals or ethics (although it should be), they do it because it's so easy to do; it's a crime committed from the comfort of your own home with the click of a mouse button - it's so easy, it's ridiculous, you don't need to be furtive, you don't need to dodge store detectives, all you need to do is know the right website... how can that be a crime?

Becase it is still theft

It doesn't matter if you're downloading the latest U2 album or an old IQ album - you are stealing.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 18 2009 at 06:51
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

Part of the morality that stops most people downloading illegally is simply that - because it is illegal.

Not sure I agree with that. I mean, I've done things that are illegal in the past (not naming anything here), yet I still don't download music for free. I'm not particularly scared of the law at all, and I know a fair few people who have the same views as me. A lot of my friends take class B drugs (please don't judge me on that), yet they don't download music illegally because it's not fair on the artists, not because it's illegal. As mentioned above, the law doesn't exactly do much about file-sharing anyway, it's all idle threats from the government, so why would you need to fear the law on that basis? As I said, it's all down to your own moral views at the end of the day, and it is the only thing stopping most people from downloading music for free.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 18 2009 at 07:21
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

Originally posted by Pnoom! Pnoom! wrote:

Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

First off, once you legalise illegal downloading then the flood-gates open and no one will buy music ever again - CDs and DVDs will vanish and all the legal download sites will close. Why use iTunes when you can legally get it for free?

Blatantly false, since I would.

Neither blatant, nor false - Not everyone downloads from iTunes to support the artist - many do it because other methods are illegal. In this instance Justin Timberlake, Britney and Prince are relevant, because it is their fans that make iTunes viable. Once illegal downloads are legal then those fans are the ones who will abandon iTunes - sales from our demographic will not keep iTunes going.


So when you say no one, you don't mean it?
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 18 2009 at 07:29
Originally posted by Pnoom! Pnoom! wrote:

Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

Originally posted by Pnoom! Pnoom! wrote:

Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

First off, once you legalise illegal downloading then the flood-gates open and no one will buy music ever again - CDs and DVDs will vanish and all the legal download sites will close. Why use iTunes when you can legally get it for free?

Blatantly false, since I would.

Neither blatant, nor false - Not everyone downloads from iTunes to support the artist - many do it because other methods are illegal. In this instance Justin Timberlake, Britney and Prince are relevant, because it is their fans that make iTunes viable. Once illegal downloads are legal then those fans are the ones who will abandon iTunes - sales from our demographic will not keep iTunes going.


So when you say no one, you don't mean it?
Aggh! you got me - damn pedants! Tongue Okay "no one will (be able to) buy music ever again" Wink
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