>From: Peter Gannushkin <shkin(a)shkin.com>
>
> AM> Burning unauthorized audio IS stealing.
>
> I think burning a CD technically is NOT stealing at all. Stealing is
> taking somebody's else property away, so this person doesn't have it
> anymore.
Well, it is stealing. It's stealing the artist's royalty that otherwise
would have been paid if the burned-copy-recipient had bought a legit copy
instead.
However, I still burn unauthorized copies, because as I think has been
established, getting the music out to people who wouldn't hear it otherwise
ultimately constitutes a GREATER GOOD that trumps the small royalty theft. I
go all the way back to 1982 and getting a couple of homemade compilation
cassettes of punk gems ("Lose Your Job" and "Lose Your Friends," in a punk
trilogy that will probably never be completed [in true punk fashion] by
"Lose Your Self-Respect") that led me to buy gobs of legit releases by the
Huskers, Minutemen, Clash, Buzzcocks, Pistols, Meat Puppets, etc etc.
Still, I try not to kid myself -- the greater good started then and starts
now with a small theft.
V/A compilations definitely have more good karma than burning whole albums
for friends; burning OP albums has more good karma than burning in-print
albums; burning albums from major labels is better karma than whole albums
from indie labels, which I don't like to do anymore if they're in print.
The same friend who made those tapes 20 years back gleefully downloads
everything he can via various peer-to-peer methods, because his contention
is that the music industry as it currently exists is evil, with labels
stealing from artists, and the sooner we crush the existing recording
industry and cut the corporations out of the loop, the sooner the artists
can deal directly with their public. In this vision of the future, studio
recordings would exist only as free tastes to be freely disseminated, which
would encourage the artists and their audiences to get up offa their couch
and conduct the REAL business of music -- live performance, with as much of
the gate going to the artist as possible.
It's not a fully-formed theory, and even if it were I'm not sure I would
agree with all of it (I have a hard time with artists doing studio work
entirely "on spec," as it were), but it brings up some interesting and legit
points, so I thought I'd toss it out here.
William Crump
