While I don't really want to defend the actions of someone who does
sound like a genuine fuckhead, not to mention an idiot (his legal
threats sound extremely dubious), I find the overall attitude of the
people on this list toward him to be extremely disturbing.
In essence, what you (Russ) are doing is assuming a position of
intellectual property owenership over something which you are freely
distributing, and which you are freely distributing in a way that breaks
the current intellectual property laws. You can't have it both ways, in
other words. By making mp3s of commercially produced music and
subsequently offering them for free, you are breaking copyright law and
"stealing" intellectual property (a sound recording). You are then
assuming intellectual property right yourself by claiming that someone
has no right to do with the mp3s as they please - to use an imprecise
metaphor, it's like yr stealing a few dozen CDs from the record label,
handing them out to people, and then getting all huffy when one of them
sells it at the pawn shop. If you believe that people who freely
receieve what you give them do not have the ability to do with it as
they wish, then you are a hypocrite, as you yrself are going against the
wishes of the people you received the music from.
And ultimately, if someone wants to pay for a CD of rare mp3s, why is
that so bad? Believe it or not, some of us don't have the time or the
internet connection to download mp3s, and some of us also don't have any
way to put those mp3s onto a CD. Some of us also don't have very good
speakers on our computer and much prefer to have the ability to
transport the music somewhere else, or play it in our cars or Walkmen.
PS - This isn't meant to be "mean" or any kind of personal attack. I'm
just pointing something out.
np:Bowery Electric, "Black Light"
--
Hard like Tarot cards, behold the one-man million man march.
Rev. Jack Godsey.
http://spill.tripod.com
Spiritual counsel and webmaster for Pegasi 51.
http://pegasi51.tripod.com
