RottenDeadite's Journal: Music & File Sharing

You know what? I've come to a conclusion. Maybe I'm just in the writing mood today, but I really think I've finally crystalized an honest opinion about music file sharing and mp3 piracy.

It's wrong.

I mean, I'm no angel. Right now I'm currently converting the Final Fantasy 10 soundtrack from PSF2 format to .WAV for .MP3 encoding, when I know for a fact that it's on sale at my work for $10.95. But then again, this is the actual in-game music and not what they chose to put on the CD... so maybe it's not quite the same but anyway...

Here's the truth that was hard for me to swallow: file sharing isn't the same thing as loaning a CD out to someone or even duplicating a CD or tape. It's very similar, but what makes it wrong is the scale on which you do it. You could legally copy a videotape, as most people have, and give it to one of your friends, and nobody could sucessfully sue you. But if you did the same thing a thousand times, you're gonna land some jail time. I'm abbreviating, of course, because a lot more thought went into this than I'm willing to devote to typing.

A lot of people claim that the RIAA doesn't loose money due to filesharing, and that may be currently true. But technology is only getting faster and easier, and not a human being on this planet would pay for something that they could get legally for free. If given the opportunity to spend $15 on a CD or download the whole thing for free in a matter of minutes, which will eventually become a reality for every person in America, the decision is obvious.

So should file sharing be outlawed? Nope. Should we get behind the RIAA's psychotic lawyers and endorse their seemingly random lawsuits? Absolutely not. You don't get people to buy your products by telling them to buy your products, which is what the RIAA seems to want to do. Doing so is arguably immoral, but certainly goes against everything capitalism is based on.

Instead, the RIAA has to figure out a way to convince its potential customers that owning an official, physical copy of a CD is better than owning a ripped version. This new SuperCD (or whatever it's called) format is a nice start. NeoGEO fans know that most companies encourage sales through marketing; they sell their games with a boatload of art books and fan-stuffs to get their fans to buy the official cart and not the arcade cart that costs half as much.

Best case scenario: an American downloads a CD from Napster or whatever, and digs it enough to buy the official, reasonably priced version because he wants the extra little movie clips, art book, collectable crap, whatever that comes with it.

Face it, the RIAA can't beat technology. Whatever they develop to circumvent piracy will be circumvented itself, and as the technology curve rises, the less time it'll take for people to ruin the RIAA's day. They can either spend all their time and energy fighting piracy head on, and possibly delay the inevitable for a short time, or they can rethink their entire enterprise and find a better, long term solution.