bmac's Journal: for the record (1)

If you download *and keep* a song, movie of software and have no intention of paying for it, then you ARE STEALING. Yeah, I know, copyright infringement, blah, blah, blah. In my book, it's called stealing.

I spent a significant amount of years in Charlotesville, VA in the years when Dave Matthews et al were coming up. I only saw a few shows (one particularly amazing outdoor one where Boyd Tinsley played his fiddle a la Hendrix on _All_Along_the_Watchtower_ through a Wah-Wah pedal - friggin amazing, but that's another story :-), but I do know this: if they hadn't made enough money by selling tshirts and cds at their shows, we wouldn't be seeing them today.

Those guys were scraping by and every dollar they made went into funding tours and studio time and whatnot. If it wasn't for those dollars we wouldn't be blessed with DMB, a band that is actually completely and totally full of real musicians.

Some, come on, people, if you like the product, ante up! I have a deep suspicion that all these people who "share" files haven't ever - and probably won't ever - create anything themselves. Software, music, movies, whatever. Write `em a check, jackass, even if the evil RIAA is making most of it. And don't worry, the days of those leaches are numbered. See my previous journal entry and extrapolate about what's going to happen to those sobs as the information devaluation freefall continues.