Topic: COPYRIGHT - on January 10, 2004 at 2:10:00 PM CET
Downloading Isn’t Stealing
Stealing is wrong. But downloading isn’t stealing. If I shoplift an album from my local record store, no one else can buy it. But when I download a song, no one loses it and another person gets it. There’s no ethical problem.
“90% of the major label’s catalog isn’t available for sale”: speech by Ken Hertz
“60 million people used Napster”: according to the New York Times
“50 million voted for Bush or Gore”: according to CNN
“A Harvard professor found that a $60 per year tax on broadband connections would make up for all lost music and movie sales”: see Terry Fisher, Promises to Keep. “Assuming that the ISPs pass through to consumers the entire amount of the tax, that average fee would rise by $4.88 per month” (p. 31) 4.88*12 ~= 59, so I say 60/yr.
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