Music Piracy Makes People Stupid
Tagged as: May 14In an article at Yahoo! about cracking down on college music pirates, I read about one Sarah Barg, a sophomore from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. It portrayed her as a girl who was just taking part in what everyone else was doing. The article wanted to put her in the role of one who is definitely not the worst (I mean she only downloaded 381 songs when others were downloading thousands!). In response to it all, Barg says
Obviously I knew it was illegal, but no one got in trouble for it
Now, I know that all higher education is not equal. And I know that maybe not all of them are as good as the University of California, San Diego, but that does not allow for such ridiculous thoughts. I think that ignorance is not a good excuse for doing wrong. The onus is on you to do what’s right. However, I think that actually knowing that something is wrong and yet still doing it speaks of some darker black.
In any case, I don’t think that it’s a matter of intelligence. I think it’s a sign of the times.
Piracy does not just affect music as I wrote in Even Worse Than At First Glance, Cheain’ Chinese, and (in regards to cheating in general) Cheaters 4 Life. Wow I did not realize that I had so many entries devoted to ranting about cheaters! But I digress.
Reasons why you shouldn’t be a (music) pirate:
- You can afford the music (or whatever it is that you’re pirating).
- If you can’t afford it, you don’t need it.
- If you really can’t afford it, you have things that you should be doing other than listening to music anyways.
- You can support and encourage the artists that you like to keep making music. It’s kind of like writing a blog and getting encouraged by people leaving comments. Except for them it’s people giving them money. I’m applying my energy to the wrong thing.
- You know it’s morally wrong.
- It’s actually against the law.
Now I admit that I’m not perfect, but I would like to think that once I knew the truth then I would change my behavior to match what I know. Not everyone is like this. But they should be. It just makes sense to have your behavior in line with your opinions, does it not? Don’t be the person who gets laughed at for coming off as stupid. Nobody wants 15 minutes of infamy.
you’re getting so many comments now. i need to comment more to maintain my #1 commenter status.
i guess people haven’t commented on this one because they’re all guilty of it.
including yours truly.
and i agree with tiff up there. you are so popular. i need to learn so much from you!!!
@tiff
I don’t think that I’m getting that many comments. You should see how much work (I mean going to other sites and commenting, etc) that I’m doing in order to even get people to come. It’d be pretty nice if more people commented because I think that one of the big positives about blogging is getting to interact with the readers. I post something, people comment, and a discussion arises. That seems more ideal anyways.
You lost your #1 commenter status to me. (You can check that in the statistics link in the navigation bar at the top.) For a while, I was surprised to see that you didn’t comment. I think that allowed me to catch and surpass you. But nonetheless I appreciate your comments!
@mat is awesome
You bring up a good point. People don’t like to be confronted with their wrongs.
Don’t be silly, I feel as if I barely have a readership! I have 10 subscribers for crying out loud! Nevertheless this blog is still pretty fun to have.
[...] As of this moment, I have over 22 GB of music. As well as the over 250 CD’s that I legally bought them on. (I obviously don’t like that Music Piracy Makes People Stupid) [...]
Surprise. It is the notorious Sarah Barg, the sophomore (now senior) that you cited in this post. I would first like to agree with you about that quote from me…it does not sound intelligent, but also I wouldn’t take it back because it was absolutely true (although possibly taken a bit out of context). I enjoy how easy it is for people to sit in the comfort of their own homes and pass judgment about other people’s intelligence and motives. The downloading I did was legal. The sharing of the files I did was illegal. I am guilty of that and I paid for it. And yes, I knowingly broke the law; therefore I deserved to pay the price. What I would like you to consider however is the law itself. I am about to have a degree in journalism therefore I fully understand and appreciate copyright laws, but I believe the RIAA is abusing their power that they get from those laws. The RIAA isn’t targeting college kids and giving the money to well-deserving musicians; they are harassing and bullying young adults who have access to the money and are easily intimidated.
I received an e-mail telling me that I would be sued if I didn’t pay $3,000 within 20 days. Important, legitimate documents are not usually e-mailed to me; thus the reason I initially thought it was a scam. When I discovered it was in fact a lawful document I was horrified that I was being treated as a criminal (you can argue that I am because I stole the music, but I still maintain that downloading music online does not make you a criminal, that’s another argument though). With my 20 days quickly ticking away and my obvious guilt (according to the copyright laws anyway) I worked with my parents to pay the RIAA and get the whole ordeal over with. The RIAA practices scare tactics. If they were serious about combating the issue of piracy they would approach their legal battles in much different ways. They only targeted between 10-20 people a time, every couple of months. Consider that they also target young (easily intimidated) enrolled in college student (meaning that they probably have access to some sort of money)…
I feel as though the copyright laws regarding online music should be modified or at least the providers of the illegal music should be monitored so the “free” music isn’t so easily accessible. I also believe the RIAA is out to fill their own pockets. In these economic times should our society allow a large industry to harass our youth in order to make the rich more comfortable?
I’m thrilled my stupidity gave you something else to write about. Enjoy the holiday season and tomorrow be sure to express gratitude for all of your intelligence and straight arrow, law abiding ways.