I personally think it is just fine to use P2P sharing, why should we pay 500-1000$ for a program you can get for free and 99.9% of the time have no repercussions for? We shouldn't have to pay a ton of money for music and movies just so the money can drain back into the pockets of the corporations just so we can line their pockets with more cash. I pay 20$ USD per person when I go to the movie theatres now, I can get the same movie in high quality for free on the internet without having to waste all of my money for something I will see ONCE. I will admit to it, I rent DvDs and then rip them and save them as .avi files on my computer and returning the movie the next day, I spend 4$ on a rental and I can get a movie that I can have until I decide to delete it and I find no moral problem with doing this at all. Why should our money be given to greedy men monopolizing on OTHER PEOPLES work, I would have no problem paying if the profit went directly to the artist, but it doesn't.
Corporations wouldn't continue to make products if there was no profit in them. Like what you've alluded to, there are still people out there who pay for media.
I, for one, still go to the movies (although they are relatively cheap here - AU$5), I still purchase CDs (AU$10-AU$30) and I sometimes buy DVDs (AU$10-AU$40). Why? Because I enjoy that media. Even though I like to "support the artists", it still hurts me to think that a lot of my money is going to the head of those corporations and not the person producing the music/film. In the case of musicians, it's why bands *have* to tour. Because living off records sales alone just isn't enough, unless they have a library of hits under their belt.
Like I said, I'm all for buying the merchandise, but I also for downloading albums, films, games and even software. There are quite a few reasons why.
1. I'm a student who works a lacklustre job. My parents make me pay for everything I need or want, not to mention a few expenses for still living at home, when I am studying I have to pay for my own textbooks and travel expenses and, to top it off, I am saving for a big holiday. I just simply don't have the resources to fund movies, games, or music on a regular basis. There is a lot I wish to own, but I simply can't because other things take priority over something that I don't exactly need.
2. Where is the money going? There is an outlet from which I can retrieve games, music and films for free - however, the drawback is, is that it's considered illegal. Do I "steal", simply because I'm not in a position to afford it all? Well, in that regard it makes me feel like total scum, but like stealing a loaf of bread to feed my poor family, I can console myself over it. I justify it through the fact that if I did spend the money, it'd mostly be going to those cigar-smoking fat-cats who sit in their lavish office on the 50th floor. Whilst I'm one to consider, "Yeah, but it's only one person" - and that if everyone had that mentality, the business would go bankrupt - I also appreciate the artists themselves and I respect what they have done. I would like to see the majority of my money go to them, not the company-owners.
3. Try before you buy. I think this is the most common reason people give when the topic of media piracy is bought up. Let's look at it from this perspective.
I walk into a record shop to buy some band's latest CD.
Why am I buying the CD? Because I heard the artist previously and I loved their stuff.
How did I manage to hear their stuff previously? I either downloaded it off the internet or a friend gave me a copy of their album.
If I had never been able to download the music, or if my friend never gave me a copy of the CD (which, by the way, is piracy unto itself!), then I would have never walked into that shop and actually bought it for myself! Record companies seem to have this obscure mentality that when they bring out a new artist, everyone, all of a sudden, has heard of them and goes off to buy their album. That couldn't be further from the truth since not everyone listens to the radio, not everyone follows all the new bands that come out (especially now, new artists appear every day it seems) and certainly not everyone finds music all that interesting.
All I'm saying is, nowadays, if there was no way (beyond radio or word of mouth) which we could hear new artists, then record sales would plummet. No one likes to buy something, only to find they absolutely hate it. In a world of reviews, previews and mass media coverage, making a blind, uninformed purchase is becoming increasing rare. And the best way to know if you like something or not is to experience it first-hand.
Besides, if you download an artist and you don't like them, do you keep on listening to them? No, I assume you wouldn't. So even though we have the pirated media, we aren't exactly using it anyway. We've at least saved ourselves a couple of dollars and the time of getting it.
4. Internet piracy is the new, ultimate form of media sharing. If you want it, it's on the internet somewhere. Regardless of whether or not it's illegal, it's here to stay. It's become more big than anyone could have ever imagined. Back in the good ol' days of Napster, it was just downloading one or two songs. Then it turned into downloading whole albums. Nowadays, people download whole discographies. With the influx of all this new technology, you honestly can't say that people wouldn't have found other, more efficient uses for it.
I personally feel media companies have jumped ship too late, or not at all. Instead of embracing this new media outlet, they preferred to shun it and continue selling their products off at high prices. Any intelligent business person would have seen, with the advent of primitive file-sharing networks, that this was going to impact the future greatly. Only now have media companies tired to integrate a business plan for online distribution, however all attempts have never really taken off. Slapping the title of "free" onto anything makes it much more appealing than the same thing with a "$10" price-tag. As I said before, online piracy has grown to be that huge that it only seems natural to prefer it over paid methods of attaining new media.
What I do like seeing is how artists are taking the distribution of their stuff into their own hands now. Bands who release their music online for free and ask only for a "donation" for downloading their stuff. And if you contribute, then you can get the music in higher qualities. From what I've seen, people are more than willing to do this since the money is going directly to the artist. This is perhaps the future of media release, as more and more artists prefer this method over having to use medium to handle their affairs.
At the end of the day, it all comes down to your personal opinion on the matter. Yes, at the moment it is stealing, and yes, it is illegal. But unless some drastic changes are made to the media industry, then the only two groups that survive will the be the artists and consumers. Big businesses and industry labels will continue on for a while, but if they don't stop giving the consumers a hard time, then people will simply turn and find a more viable and fair way to get what they want.
