Would it be considered piracy...

[DirectorTsaarx]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
It's fine for a professor of literature, who has a job teaching at the university to pay the bills, to publish a sholarly work and say it "belongs" to the reader. Or for someone like Jefferson who didn't have to work to put food on the table because he had labor of human slaves to do it for him to decry the ownership of "intellectual property". But when you can't exercise your talent at writing because you aren't getting paid for it and you have to work at a diner, you don't have the luxury of such lofty principles. For those people their right of ownership to the work they produce is just as obvious.

Geoschmo

And you have just hit the real issue in this debate: money. Specifically, whether a particular artist makes enough money to support themselves. The days when rich landowners would support artists directly are gone; now, those artists must find a way to receive compensation for their talent. And our society (particularly American society) doesn't place much value on most artists. Yeah, there are lots of performers making large amounts of money by having their performances distributed by a large corporation. But most of those performers are no-talent hacks who only make money because the huge marketing machine at a record company brainwashed the general public into believing it's a worthwhile investment. And that is the other problem with this whole issue: since the record companies are making money off CRAP by investing large amounts of money in it, they certainly can't afford to have someone listen to the CRAP for free.

Anyway, this whole debate would be pointless if we could find a way to provide a decent standard of living to all people without forcing them to work in jobs they either disliked or were ill-suited for. Which comes down to controlling resources and whether or not the planet has enough resources to provide that standard of living to the current population. And, of course, the "natural" tendency of people to want their lives to be a little better than their neighbors' lives (i.e. greed).

I think I'm just rambling now, but I wanted to share some thoughts that should at least fuel some more spirited debate.