
Bass Master "K"
New member
Burden of Proof said:Holy crap. I know I'm wordy, but I just had to delete about 7 big paragraphs of text because it's wholly unneccesary to respond with. .............
To shift the discussion yet again, let's play pretends (well it's not really pretending) that there's no escape from a future where all music/software is available in a cracked form to all people on the internet. Then what becomes the solution? You have to accept that even if there's a large contingent of people with morals as strong as yours, that there's an equally large (if not larger) contingent of those with significantly weaker morals. How do we create an environment which is still healthy for the development of good artists/programmers/companies/etc? I don't claim to have the answer, but I think it's worth discussing, because I believe it's the truth of the future for better or worse.
-The Burden-
You hit on something that I feel is important, can you tell

Regarding the future you discuss, in my opinion there are few options.
1) You bring about a general social conscience about what software and music piracy really does to the industry. Try to make it not so accepted and not so cool to the average person, to steal. Heck, even making them realise they ARE stealing is a good start.
or
2) You prosecute all file sharers to the full extent of the law. This means five and six digit fines and/or jail time. This would take massive government intrusion into web activities, and would flood our courts. This however would most likely have the most chance of success long term. This would also require worldwide committment to address the problem. There are many asian countries who's main markets are black markets and their economy depends on them so while you might be able to stop quite a bit of the theft, there are places you couldn't stop it.
or
3) The software and music market find a fool proof method that makes their products uncopyable. (ya, right, and wild monkeys might fly out my...well you get the picture).
or
4) Musicians who depend on money from the sales of their art, and small software developers cease to exist in their present form.
Now you see why I push so hard for number 1.