Pandagon is irritated by some Democrats support for punishing filesharing with prison time -as well he should:
I’m still torn about the idea of intellectual copyrights, but, at the same time, my music purchasing increased exponentially when I was introduced to MP3s. I can’t believe that the dozens of CDs I’ve purchased from hearing a couple of good songs off a download are simply an abberation. In fact, it isn’t file-sharing that’s dissuaded me from purchasing CDs – it’s burning. I could never get a full album, the way it was intended to be heard, off of Kazaa when I used it. However, if a friend who had bought, say, the latest Radiohead album gave it to me on a CD-R (and yes, I did buy it retail, so don’t worry), that took a CD purchase out of the artists’ hands. Me downloading a single or two to see if I like the music got me more excited to purchase the album, not yes. Pretty much all file sharing has done is convince me that a bunch of one-hit wonders actually were one-hit wonders, and that Aesop Rock is the straight shit.
All in all, I’m 20. I’m a young, motivated voter. And I don’t like this from the Dems one bit.
The thing that annoys me most about the RIAA and similar organisations the world over is that their Holy Crusade against the evils of not paying for music is that the one person who actually has any moral claim to be compensated for their work, the artist, isn’t. We in the Netherlands now have the priviledge of paying up to 1 euro per blank DVD disc to the record companies, any guesses how much of that will reach the artists?