Salocin

To sue downloaders... or not?

In the UK, the music industry is now taking dowloaders to court over their illegal copying of music. The BBC has some reactions from the downloaders themselves. It's interesting to watch how opinion has evolved. Not so long ago, most downloaders were arguing that is was legal, that the record companies were getting what they deserved, that it was unfair to sue them, and a bunch of other ill-conceived arguments.

What for me really nails the issue is the comment made by Cerise (page 6).

I might download for free but I would never shoplift from a record store. The risk of being caught is much greater, and the punishment is far worse. Downloading is not as bad.

What it all comes down to is "the risk of getting caught", and what the use of that phrase implies is that although she downloads, she knows that it's illegal, and that she's better off not getting caught. While it's less calculated than the approach of a career criminal, the same tradeoffs are going through these kids minds : how much do I get out of breaking these rules? What are the odds of getting caught? Is it worth stealing these songs then?

Richard thinks that since he's paid for his broadband connection, he's already paid for the songs. Hard to even credit that with a response, but I'm going to go steal a car because I've already paid my road tax, so it's justified. Once I've done that, I'm going to demand all my telephone calls for free, because I already pay a fixed price per month for the landline, and then I'm going to steal lots of playstation games from a store because I already bought the playstation. Moron.

Kharis thinks legal music sites are too complicated to use. I use both Rhapsody and iTunes and they're frankly simpler to use than most p2p clients. I expect the most challenging bit for most downloaders is the part where they put in their credit card number.

But the interesting thing here is that most of these quotes have a very different tone to what we used to hear. Before, all was very accusatory - kids had discovered this new freedom: the ability to own any piece of music they heard, just by typing the artist's name into a search box and waiting 10 minutes. When that was challenged by the artists, they clung to their new freedom with a fair degree of intellectual violence, and through spurious justifications such as the price of CDs (as I've always said, you don't have to listen to it, you don't have to own it, if it's too expensive, then don't buy it, don't own it and make your statement about the price that way, rather than stealing it and feeling that this is somehow justified.

There's now a gradual understanding, probably due to the fact that people understand the courts will systematically uphold the claims of record companies, that this is illegal behaviour, that it's in the same category as petty vandalism or shoplifting from the point of view of society, and that when you get caught, it's going to hurt, and you'll just have to suck it up. I think the RIAA and its equivalent organizations across the world are going to win this fight.

Posted by nlvp at October 10, 2004 11:39 AM