07-09-2009, 12:54 PM
Haha! These are great stories, keep them coming!
Stealing is indeed an interesting topic, especially as it relates to digital files. We're all familiar with the phenomenon of music and movie piracy. I must admit, that for a LONG stretch of time I was completely indifferent when it came to stealing / downloading copyrighted music via the internet. I'm almost 30 now and I pretty much got started with it when Napster came out in '99 or 2000. Although I realized on some level that it was wrong to do, it somehow felt justified because there were literally millions of others doing the exact same thing. Add that with not having much money and supporting arguments (to myself internally) that these companies are rich and it won't hurt them, and you produced someone who downloaded as much music as his bandwidth would allow. Same with movies.
Of course I came to a point eventually where I realized that I did not feel right about downloading things like that anymore. But it was an internal decision and I'm not sure that anyone could have convinced me externally. Now the hardest part about being "legit" with my music is that a lot of my friends still do download lots of music, and often times will hand it over to me. "You've got to hear this band! Here you go..." Well, instead of lecturing them about the philosophy behind the actions, I just accept the music and treat it as if I were listening to it on the radio. Once I've listened, I delete the files. If I love the music, I buy it. (still doesn't make it easy to hit the delete button
I also let my friends know I do this with as small a degree of smugness as I can, so as to provide some sort of example.
Alas, I've come to value gold stars more than free music (or expensive dining room chairs... lol)
Stealing is indeed an interesting topic, especially as it relates to digital files. We're all familiar with the phenomenon of music and movie piracy. I must admit, that for a LONG stretch of time I was completely indifferent when it came to stealing / downloading copyrighted music via the internet. I'm almost 30 now and I pretty much got started with it when Napster came out in '99 or 2000. Although I realized on some level that it was wrong to do, it somehow felt justified because there were literally millions of others doing the exact same thing. Add that with not having much money and supporting arguments (to myself internally) that these companies are rich and it won't hurt them, and you produced someone who downloaded as much music as his bandwidth would allow. Same with movies.
Of course I came to a point eventually where I realized that I did not feel right about downloading things like that anymore. But it was an internal decision and I'm not sure that anyone could have convinced me externally. Now the hardest part about being "legit" with my music is that a lot of my friends still do download lots of music, and often times will hand it over to me. "You've got to hear this band! Here you go..." Well, instead of lecturing them about the philosophy behind the actions, I just accept the music and treat it as if I were listening to it on the radio. Once I've listened, I delete the files. If I love the music, I buy it. (still doesn't make it easy to hit the delete button
I also let my friends know I do this with as small a degree of smugness as I can, so as to provide some sort of example.Alas, I've come to value gold stars more than free music (or expensive dining room chairs... lol)