Raepdog Posted:

The idea that record companies are losing money from bootlegging is bull****. The idea that everyone that illegaly downloads a song or movie would have paid for the song or movie is an utter lie. If anything people are listening to music they never would have before.

I pretty much agree with this. The actual monetary loss from online sharing is not nearly as high as the companies would have you believe. Further, the ability to seek out music online means that people can sample songs that don’t get radio play, and choose to listen to (and buy records from) artists they would otherwise not have taken a chance on.

The record and movie industry want to blame piracy for their economic downturn, but when Napster was at its height back in the day, CD sales were rising. The fact is that companies are putting out an inferior product, and they’re not adapting to deal with the new models and competition offered by the internet. Rather than shift gears to deal with the world as it is, they’d rather scapegoat some poor kid who can’t afford their product and enjoys it, and try to get the law to mandate stasis so they can keep their model.

TL;DR: Is it wrong to steal intellectual property? Sure. Would theft of intellectual property be so rampant if companies would evolve for the internet era? Nope.