Pete5: Music downloading

StandForTruth

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A continuation of the thread in "Contemporary Music"

Pete5 said:
Jesus opposed religeous laws imposed be people who were more concerned with their own importance than in actual righteousness (such as not helping someone on the sabbath, and not associating with 'sinners') but he clearly told everyone to 'give to ceasar what is ceasars.' If Jesus tells people to pay taxes to a foreign country that is occupying their land, then I don't think he would be happy with us breaking the laws of the government we elected.

If it were taxation that was the issue I would probably have no problem with it. Labels taking shameless advantage of bands, though, I do.

And, eh, not sure who "we" are since I did not vote for the current government. Not like that is a real issue, though.

Pete5 said:
So don't be fooled. Maybe supporting the recording companies is like buying Nike shoes made by child slavery, but pirating music is like shoplifting the shoes from the store.

Not necessarily, if I am using the money saved to support the band that I am supposedly "stealing" from, and then the people who did the work, the musicians, get far more then if I had bought the album from the label webpage or somesuch. I was curious, and I will admit this is an extreme example, but do you consider the character Robin Hood to be a villain?

Also.. if I did not download then I would have much more limited music funds and buy everything used.. benefiting no one. Am I still stealing?

Or in short.. I do buy my music. I just choose to give the money to those who deserve it.

Now, I do not want to give the wrong impression here, either.. since I really do buy albums, I just choose to download when it is convenient. Especially for obscure or out-of-print material that tends to sell for outrageous prices (Moonblood - Blut Und Krieg, anyone?)
 

pete5

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Suppose (however unlikely it is) that North Korea invaded and America and won. Then they occupied the whole country, and installed their own overseers in each state. Each of these overseers were the FINAL law for their state. Then they start collecting taxes, to help fund North Korea's invasion of Brittain and France.

This was the situation that the Jewish people were in when Jesus told them to pay their taxes.


Jesus didn't say 'pay taxes to the governers who deserve it,' he was clearly telling people to pay money to people who were exploiting them.

So yes I do consider Robin hood to be a villain. Sure he looks cute when in Hollywood the bad guys aren't real people, and we all laugh when the fat guy gets his purse ripped off him... but suppose YOU were walking down an alley, and some guy jumps out from behind a dumpster with his merry men, beats the hell out of you and takes all your money to give to homeless people. Now it's not social justice, it's a crime and you want justice!



You said it yourself, you download music because it is convienient, and you feel justified because you do not believe that paying a recording company for music is very ethical when the artist gets very little of it. BUT it is not right.

I am not trying to convince you not to do it, but I am hoping that you will recognise that it is not 'moral.'
 
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StandForTruth

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pete5 said:
Suppose (however unlikely it is) that North Korea invaded and America and won. Then they occupied the whole country, and installed their own overseers in each state. Each of these overseers were the FINAL law for their state. Then they start collecting taxes, to help fund North Korea's invasion of Brittain and France.

This was the situation that the Jewish people were in when Jesus told them to pay their taxes.

Jesus didn't say 'pay taxes to the governers who deserve it,' he was clearly telling people to pay money to people who were exploiting them.

Not necessarily exploitation since the Romans were the legitimate rulers by right of conquest. However, the Lord was quite clear that we should follow the spirit of the law, not the letter of it. Do you really think that it's current use is anywhere close to the original intent of the copyright law?

pete5 said:
So yes I do consider Robin hood to be a villain. Sure he looks cute when in Hollywood the bad guys aren't real people, and we all laugh when the fat guy gets his purse ripped off him... but suppose YOU were walking down an alley, and some guy jumps out from behind a dumpster with his merry men, beats the hell out of you and takes all your money to give to homeless people. Now it's not social justice, it's a crime and you want justice!

I was referring to the actual folklore, rather then the hollywood misrepresentations of the story, in which no one really got the "hell beat out of them", as you put it, at least during the actual acts of robbery. And yes, gratuitous violence is immoral, but that is completely beside the point.

Heh, it was a bad analogy on my part in the first place, anyway.. since downloading music does not actually "take" anything from anyone, per se.

pete5 said:
You said it yourself, you download music because it is convienient

No. You were the one who said that..

pete5 said:
and you feel justified because you do not believe that paying a recording company for music is very ethical when the artist gets very little of it. BUT it is not right.

That is a reason, yes, though not the only one.

pete5 said:
I am not trying to convince you not to do it, but I am hoping that you will recognise that it is not 'moral.'

Welcome to try, I suppose.
 
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