Piracy is theft. I am going to give one go to prove this, but some people simply will never accept the truth of this, so it's not worth trying beyond one.
The only moral transcation between two individuals, or an individual and a group, or two groups, is one that is voluntarily agreed upon by both sides. Theft is a transaction that is performed by one side without the other side's consent, where the thief takes the property of the non-consenting party, usually without payment.
Since Megadeth is controversial among people here, I will use Iron Maiden as an example instead. The songs written by Iron Maiden are the intellectual property of the songwriters. Steve Harris owns Hallowed Be Thy Name. Bruce Dickinson owns Powerslave. Adrian Smith owns Wasted Years. Why does Steve own the particular combination of notes that makes up Hallowed Be Thy Name? Because he put in quite a bit of his own effort to create it. It is a product, no less a product than food or a cell phone, even though you cannot touch it. It is a product of his mind.
Most people agree that part of the definition of intellectual property is true. Most people realize that if another band were to record Hallowed Be Thy Name and take the songwriting credit for themselves, and not pay royalties to Iron Maiden (or Maiden's label, likely, in this case), that this would be wrong and should be illegal. Most people even recognize that if they were to do this, but change the song a slight amount (for example, have the line "Hallowed Be Thy Name" repeated 3 times instead of two, or just have it said one time or any such minor variation), it would still be wrong. And most people realize that if they changed the name of the song, or changed its lyrics and kept the music exactly the same, this would be wrong (there are exceptions with the changing the lyrics thing, for example, The Four Horsemen by Metallica and Mechanix by Megadeth which was written by members of Metallica including Mustaine, then Hetfield rewrote the lyrics after Mustaine's ejection, but Mustaine recorded the original version on Megadeth's debut. This is naturally okay because members of both groups were involved in the songwriting. Though there is an argument to be made that since Mustaine asked them not to, Metallica should not have continued using his material. But I digress).
Many of these people, however, do not understand the extension of intellectual property to the prevention of unwanted nonconsensual downloading of the material. I will now try to explain why it should and does, in fact, extend that far.
The central focus of every sale or trade is the consensual, mutually beneficial exchange of value. Money is something of value. Food is something of value. A computer is something of value. Even .intangible things can be considered valuable to people, although this is far more personal than something like money or food. MTo some, respect or love are values. In any case, a CD is something of value. And, whether you believe it or not, a music download is something of value. And if you question whether a music download is something of value, consider this:
This item is a set of 50 blank CDs. It costs around 16 US dollars. It doesn't matter whether you're familiar with the currency, because a comparison is coming...
This item is a CD. It is essentially the same product as one of the 50 CDs in the item listed above. There are two important difference between this CD and the other 50: 1) This 1 CD costs around 10 US dollars, which is 2/3 of the price of the previous item, which has 50 CDs instead of 1. 2) This CD has
The Number of the Beast on it.
So why is this 1 CD 2/3 the price of a pack of 50? Surely, if digital music files do not have value (they are not tangible items and can be copied, so the argument goes), then a CD that has a "valueless" digital music file burned onto it, should not cost more than 31 times as much as a CD without a file on it. Surely, if the only reason that stealing a CD is wrong is because of the cost of the physical item, then either a music CD should cost 0.32 US dollars (the price of the 50 CD pack divided by 50, giving you the price of one blank CD), or the 50 pack of blank CDs should cost 500 US dollars.
Of course, this is ludicrous. The reason is obvious: The cost of a CD with music on it does not only pay for the physical CD, but it pays the band who performed the music, the producer who recorded the band and ensured that the music sounds right, and the record label who promoted the album and made sure the CD would be sold in stores.
So why is this truth that is so obvious to most of us when discussing CDs suddenly abandoned when we talk about digital music files? Some of the same people who consider the idea of a 0.32 dollar CD ridiculous are now arguing that media files have no value, and therefore to take them without paying is not theft.
When you download a song or album from iTunes or Amazon, you are making the same exchange as you are when you buy a CD. You voluntarily agree to give the artist a value, your money, in exchange for them giving you a value, their music.
So when you, instead of buying a CD or downloading music legally, choose to bypass these moral principles to save money and go to an illegal download site, you are bypassing the fair exchange. In essence, you're telling the artist: "I will take value from you in the form of this music, but I refuse to give you any value in return."
How is this not stealing? If anyone can argue that this is not stealing in a rational argument, without emotional appeals, I am listening. However, I suggest saving your breath, because this is impossible. To pirate an album is irrational and immoral.
You may believe that you are doing a good thing by refusing your money to Dave Mustaine. I have no problem with that act, in its essence, the idea of voting with your wallet. But you cannot morally or rationally have your cake and eat it too.
I'll give one last example, this one related to what you're talking about doing.
In the United States, we have a fast food restaurant called Chick-Fil-A. This restaurant sells fried chicken, but is in the same vein as McDonald's. Recently, the owner of Chick-Fil-A revealed that he opposes gay marriage and that he gives some of his money to organizations that oppose gay marriage. This caused an uproar in the United States. Though it got a little crazy (mayors promising to prevent any new Chick-Fil-A's from opening in their cities, government officials on the other side trying to make Chick-Fil-A the official restaurant of something or other), aside from the government stuff, the recent Chick-Fil-A uproar was a perfect example of voting with your wallet. The conservatives who oppose gay marriage began eating at Chick-Fil-A more often, and posting pictures of themselves on the internet eating Chick-Fil-A. Meanwhile, the advocates of gay marriage did the opposite: they convinced people to boycott Chick-Fil-A.
This is a real-world lesson of voting with your wallet. Both sides were (putting views on marriage aside) expressing their views in a moral and legal manner. And by refusing to buy Megadeth music, anyone who made that choice would similarly be acting in a moral and legal manner.
Here's the important part. Zare, you said that pirating Megadeth music is okay because you "would never buy the record. They'd never get $10 out of [you]."
Since we have already established, I believe, that music is a value, just as chicken nuggets are a value, let's use the Chick-Fil-A example again.
To my knowledge, none of the boycotters of Chick-Fil-A stole chicken from them. I did not hear anyone say anything to the effect of "it's okay that I took these chicken nuggets without paying for them, because I would never buy them anyway. They'd never get money out of me."
In other words, maybe some of those boycotters enjoyed Chick-Fil-A. Maybe they considered it, to paraphrase you, "excellent food worth being eaten." But they did not harbor any illusion that they could have their chicken and eat it too*. They chose to not give money to the company, and at the same time, realized that this meant not receiving chicken from them. They refused to trade with the company. The company did not get their money, and they did not get chicken. In other words, they did not give a value, and they didn't get one, at least as far as Chick-Fil-A is concerned.
So, why do you believe that the rule of trade does not apply to you? Why do you think it is okay for you to receive a value from Megadeth without giving them a value in return? Because you wouldn't have bought it anyway is no excuse. You can't get something for nothing. If you think Rust In Peace is a must-have album, you have a few moral recourses. One is to break your boycott in order to buy this album, and it alone. This may not be optimal. Another is to buy it used on eBay or similar, since your money does not go directly to Megadeth, but goes to an individual who bought it from Megadeth in the past.
So, it's not even like you must choose between your boycott and owning that one album. There are other recourses besides a decision to violate rationality and morality by electing to pirate.
Zare said:
however the point of being an artist comes down to reaching people, not reaching for their wallets
This is not something with which I disagree. This is why I prefer the attitude of Iron Maiden to the attitude of modern pop artists. However, it is a cop-out and appeal to emotion when used as a pro-piracy argument.
Designing computers should be about making something that you are proud of and that people will have a good experience using, not about making a quick buck. But this does not mean that no one should pay money for computers.
Making gourmet meals should be about making something that people will enjoy to eat, not about making money. But this does not mean that all gourmet meals should be free.
Of course the main focus should be about music, not money. This is why I would be far more inclined to boycott Metallica than Megadeth, though I will boycott neither. But it is completely unreasonable to suggest that you shouldn't have to pay for music. Producing the great (and say about Mustaine what you will, he has created great music) music that Megadeth does took effort. Mustaine gave up a lot to make it as a musician. I guarantee you his focus was not on making money, but on making music that he loved. Aside from Risk, which can be debated, Mustaine has rarely strayed from this focus. Dave also needs to eat. He needs to pay bills. He needs funds to put on a tour and to make albums. However, by pirating his albums, you have chosen to ignore the effort he put into them and take the fruits of his labor without paying him in an exchange. Frankly, I think Dave would be insulted by the implication that asking you to pay for his music is proof that he's only after money. Hell, Iron Maiden has asked that you buy their albums (I believe Bruce said this in the Wildest Dreams bootleg speech, check ** for "On Bootlegs"). I'm sure if you told Steve that expecting you to pay for his music is proof that he's only after money, he would hit you in the face.
So, yes, the focus should be on music, not large profits. But to say that this means that music should be free is a false equivalency, based on false premises.
Zare said:
Besides, all the people screaming "piracy is killing us", both in art and software world, are literally swimming in money. Just take a look who's signed on those anti-piracy bills, etc.
"Stealing from him is okay because he's wealthy. We can't take him seriously when he tells us to not take his things without asking, because he won't miss them anyway."
This is your argument in a nutshell.
*I'm terribly sorry for the pun.
**On Bootlegs:
The issue of bootlegs is a razor, and I walk the line on that silver blade***.
Yeah, the guy who just wrote the 4 billion word essay on piracy has bootlegs. Allow my explanation.
In this instance, by "bootlegs" I am referring to recordings of concerts that have not been released officially by the band in question as live albums.
Bootlegs are a borderline case. I personally will not condemn anyone who trades or downloads bootlegs (I oppose the sale of them), so long as they own the band's albums. Personally, I'm not certain how the whole thing plays out morally, but I'll explain how I decide:
1) If the concert is officially available from the band, I will not obtain the bootleg (example: Metallica)
2) If the band does not wish people to record/trade/download their bootleg concerts, I will not obtain the bootleg (example: Rush. Neil Peart has stated his disapproval of bootlegging)
3) If the recording is not officially available, and the band has stated that they are okay with it, I will obtain the bootleg! (example: Iron Maiden. Bruce Dickinson encouraged distribution of Wildest Dreams live bootlegs, with the qualification that those who enjoyed the song should buy the Dance of Death album when it was released)
This is my simple guide to bootleg ethics. However, since it is such a borderline issue, I will not condemn anyone who, say, has Rush bootlegs. I will, however, condemn someone who has a bootleg of a concert which is available as an official release, but does not have the official release (meaning I have no problem if you have a bootleg of the full Long Beach 4th night 1985 Maiden show so long as you own Live After Death).
***Truly, I am sorry.
I realize that to some people, this post is prohibitively long. If you have a short attention span, then you probably didn't read it. Unfortunately, the arguments involved in opposing piracy are complex due to their rational nature, and cannot be condensed (in good conscience) to a few buzzwords and emotional appeals, unlike the pro-piracy arguments. I highly recommend you read this, it may give you a better understanding of the reasons why piracy is wrong. But if you just said "tl;dr," I guess there's nothing I can do to make you read this. But I really hope you at least skim it.
So I'll just download it. Besides, it's not like the band/artist makes much off of each CD. I could totally be remembering this wrong, but I think in Slash's autobiography, he says that he only made a dime off of every record sold.
