2.
As a musician I am glad that people make copies. If I charged for my stuff only 1000 people would buy it. If I let people copy, and 10 million people eventually listen, that is a HUGE amount of advertising. If only 10% of those 10 million give me donations, or wind up buying a different tune at some point, then I suddenly have a million customers.
So just because it is illegal to make copies of my music does NOT mean that I am losing money when people do.

3.
As a musician if someone is poor and can’t afford my music, I want them to be able to listen to it anyway. Why would I want to deprive someone of something that costs me nothing to give them? What kind of asshole would I be to do that?

4.
Would you steal a CAR?!!
Would you steal a PURSE?!!
No. Not if I could copy it.

5.
Why have the RIAA corporations lost business?
A. Because for decades they could force people to pay $13 for a whole album even thought the buyer only wanted one song. Well what did they think would happen when we can now pay 99c for the song we want? GUESS! They lost 90% of their profits. Well duh.
B. Because the internet allows buyers to be MUCH more discerning in their purchases. This affects the movie industry. With rottentomatoes people simply abstain from watching crappy movies.

Yes you are. You’re both, Lynton. Your opinion is both irrelevant and laughably out-of-touch. Especially the comparison of copying to “stealing.” No one is taking anything from you, apart from theoretical profits predicated upon two false premises:

1: That “pirates” do not pay for much of the media they consume, regardless of the results of numerous studies showing they’re MORE likely to pay.

2: That all of those (or even a sizable number of those) who download your material on the internet would actually pay money for it if denied the opportunity to torrent/p2p it.

Castello’s rebuttal was pretty much spot-on, except for the last bit about artists “raking in the bucks on album sales.” RIAA musicians making money on album sales? That’s a laugh.

- Wow another comparision to physical things to explain digital stuff, they still don’t get it. Ok if you want to use the store scenario to explain the interent fine, but the store should never be closed, its the interenet. And IT WAS NOT THE STORE BEING CLOSED THAT WAS THE PROBLEM! It was the fact that the store did not exist, and the content industry refused to build the store. As a matter of fact not only did they not want to open a store, they did not want anyone else to open a store. And if anyone thought of opening a store, goddammit they were going to close it down. And by gods they were corporations so it was their right to close it down. The intenet is after all evil just like the audio recorders and the VCR.

It’s all about the content industry wanted to control how I used my stuff, when I used it, on what I used it, etc. They want the illusion that you do not own what you paid for, they still own it. For the longest time they liked to say you only paid for the right to listen/view the ‘product’. Now they are getting away from those statments cause they want more control (well more money), they want it to be you paid to listen/view the ‘product’ on a specific device for a specific time period, etc. and if you want to hear/see it on a differnt device or outside of the limited time we gave you then pay again and again and again….. After all why should the corporations have to work for money, they spent lots of time and money to mangled the concept of IP so they don’t have to anymore.