MTM2.com

Hi everyone!

This has nothing to do with MTM2, but I guess that's allowed in the General Discussion forum, otherwise it's not "general," right?

Anyway, I have to write an argumentative essay for my study English Language and Culture, for which I have the following thesis statement:

Downloading music from the Internet should become legal.

I'm not sure if I agree with it myself, but I'd like to start a discussion here in order to get some ideas/inspiration for my essay. I know it's a debatable topic, so there must be some various opinions in this area. So, what do you think?

i think it should be legal because artists already make millions of dollars. its not like they are broke on the street and we are costing them there jobs.

I agree with gator, those guys make millions and we shouldn't have to keep paying them. I mean come on, if they've already blown the millions they made on the songs, then it's their own fault.

So instead of throwing out a topic and asking to make an argument for one case or the other, they told you exactely which one you had to take a stand for? Doesn't sound too fun, but here are some ideas for you.

Personally, I don't think making it legal or not will have an impact on whether or not it is or isn't downloaded. Like always there will be some free method of illegally "sharing" the music. I think the industry is protecting themselves by offering songs for download at a small fee. Then again, you can form an argument that whether or not it is legal, peer to peer programs will still allow for illegal download of music from the internet.

I would rather go out and spend the money at a store as opposed to risking damage to my computer by using p2p programs that deliver all kinds of spyware, viruses, adware etc.

its not about the artists making money, its about the stores that gotta sell the crap. these owners have to make a living too and they dont if everyone just steals the music. Come on people think about it, stealing is stealing, and its a sin. nothing is free, if it was free it would destroy the music industry and u would never have any more music again. just go pay the *beep* 30 bucks for the 10 songs, if you cant afford it, then your not meant to have it.

LOL No, not exactly. This was my own topic, but I'm not sure what I think of it myself. I download a lot of music, so it would be convenient for me if it's legal. On the other hand, it feels like stealing. But, if those albums were cheaper, I would probably buy one every now and then, because areal CD is more beautiful.

Famous artists make a lot of money, but not all of them. I agree that the ones who do earn a lot of money can miss some of it, but the small ones cannot. On the other hand, if I hadn't had the opportunity of downloading, I wouldn't have learned to know a lot of the artists I like. I bought a few CDs, the past years, but I wonder if I would have bought more albums if I couldn't download music. I wouldn't know as many bands as I do now, so the desire to buy albums would be less.

You're making some interesting points, Kdawg. There is always a certain danger involved in downloading music. I've heard many people nag about virusses/trojans on their computer because they had downloaded music. It's not really easy to get what you want. I also know some people who buy music because they want to have the real thing.

I went out and bought a cd yesterday. When you buy a cd as opposed to downloading, you insure the quality of music sound-wise. If you can live with poor quality and threats of computer damage, then go ahead and pirate. Its just better to have the real thing in my opinnion.[/quote]

Well, i think downloading music should be legal. And those artists should make money giving concerts. I have been organizing some of those concerts and you would not believe what crazy amounts of money some artists ask. And then i'm not even talking about the crazy requests they sometimes have backstage. But OK..

However, now that downloading still is illegal (sorta.. i've always thought downloading was not illegal IF you were to use it for your own) i have some problems with some guys. Those that download in order to sell should get majar fines. I remember all the work i used to do on those concerts. Not one cent of the money gained i kept. Every cent went to the kids of the community where i lived. New playground, skate ramps,... But then i would see guys who bought 10, or even more tickets so the concert was sold out. Then they would sell those tickets at a higher price. Now those guys i hated. We did all te work and gained nothing, while those guys made money on our backs. There was even a guy who asked me for some free tickets since he was still a student and had no money. Well.. i gave him 5 tickets because he was so polite. Later i found out he sold 4 of those tickets.

What i read about people that sell CD's having to make a living to... OK, but they can sell other stuff i guess. Like computer games or something.

But computer games are also being stolen, DVD movies everything digital is being stolen. There is a reason that we all get jobs, there is a reason our economy is based on money. We trade in our labour for money which we can use to buy things we want. And others provide us with what we want by using a portion of the money they make, and the rest goes to buying what they want. its an endless perfect circle. But stealing movies, songs, games, ruins this, it puts 1000's of stores out of business every year and raises the poverty rate. it also causes there to be less and less new songs and just more crap on the market. For *beep* sake guys, stealing is wrong, are you all that blind??? It's not just about the artists making money. And besides, when those artist make money, they buy things that help millions of other people.


People that think stealing music should be ok and perfectly legal make me sick, your the reason the world is so *beep* up, why poverty and crime rates are higher than ever. and these people think its ok because (one song never hurt anyone). but remember, you download one song thiking that, but so do 200 million other people. at say 50 cents a song, thats 100 million dollars lost in the economy.

I don't agree with computer games being stolen. Because the makers of games can only make money selling these games.
But i do have a problem with artists who record an album and then sit and wiat for the money to come in. And if they want more they just give a few gigs and again money comes rolling in.

Let them give out there music for free, and let them make money by giving concerts. Now then they would be working for their money. What they do now is muck around a little and make tons of money for it.

isnt there a post about where to download mtm2.... yeah exactly, games are stolen often.

well.. if microsoft would still be selling mtm2 people would not need to download it.
You can't buy anything that just isn't on the market. Or you download it, or you try and find it 2nd hand somewhere. But after a while and not finding it 2nd hand you automatically decide to down it.

I'm a big fan of Grand Prix Legends. A game very difficult to find. But when i do find it, online or in a store i buy it. I have now 4 legal versions of it. Each one i bought for only 5 euro (about the same as 5 dollar). But i have 4 because it are all 4 different versions. The game is exactly the same, but the packaging is different.

I think it's less bad if old games are downloaded than new games, because companies have usually made enough profit when games are old. And indeed, old games are hard to buy.

There's an obvious difference between downloading music and games. That's why I decided to focus on one of the two: music. It's a subject that a lot of people talk about these days.

I actually think that music companies should invent better encoding techniques to protect their music. As long as someone can rip it, it can be copied. It's not our responsibility to make sure music isn't copied, but that of the companies. It would be wrong to re-sell it (like OLD_mumhra said), because then you're making money out of somebody else's work.

I think the fuss about downloading music is a bit like the fuss that was once about recording music from the radio, the copying music tapes, and recording movies from television. Years ago, there was a lot of debate about those things too, but you don't hear much about that anymore. I think companies have to get used to people downloading music and have to adjust to it. They're already adjusting to it by special download sites where music can be downloaded for a small fee (which someone mentioned before). A lot of people now download that way, and I think that's good. It's cheap, so it's affordable.

Music is free on the radio and downloading is like listening to the radio. That's a rough statement but I think you know what I mean. Why is it free on the radio? Because it's advertising for people to go out and buy records, cds and tapes. Well, downloading from the internet is advertising too. I've bought more music because I downloaded than just listening to the radio. Downloading means that musicians and recording artists make more money, not less.

People who claim that downloads take money out of the pockets of musicians are wrong. Just because I download a song doesn't mean I would have bought it anyway if it wasn't downloadable. I buy music when I have enough money. I download because I can. The two have nothing in common. If I can't download, it doesn't mean that I have the money to buy.

The people who lose money are radio stations. But that's not an accurate statement. I don't listen to radio stations anyway. Why? Because they don't play what I want to hear. Maybe if they played good selections I wouldn't want to download. But they don't. They play garbage, so I download to get what I need.




Companies didn't like recording from radio and tv because they felt like they were losing money. But the truth is they were gouging. They resented the fact they had to lower the prices to be competitvie. They've finally gotten use to it now and that's why no more fuss. The music industry hasn't learned the lesson yet. We can only hope they do.

are you all *beep* in the head????? stealing is stealing! whether it is 5 dollars or 100 dollars.



its the same as saying

its ok to kill one person, but its not ok to kill two.

I don't see downloading as stealing. Music i really appreciate i will buy. I have all cd's of all my favorit bands. But it happens i download music for my own use. And that is music i would never ever give money for. If the prices were a little reasonable maybe, but just look at the houses they live in. Those artists are making an ubelievable of money. And then you don't even see what the record company etc make. I, as a working class man, will never ever make that amount of money. We have a little saying here : "A church has less problems missing something then a chapel"

I have to agree 100% with Phineus here :

What's that in Dutch? I've tried to translate it, but it doesn't sound like a familiar saying. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. Or is it a French saying (not sure if you're a French or a Dutch speaking Belg)?

Phin made a great point there.
So, if anyone has any new points/suggestions, I'm interested in hearing them. Please don't start arguing about whether or not downloading is stealing. I don't think we'll ever agree about that.

i think of downloading music as the equivalent of taking a car for a test drive. If I like it, I'll buy it. If I don't like it, I won't buy it.

With downloaded music that I decide not to buy, I wipe it from my computer (why should I waste space to archive something I don't like and will probably never listen to again?).

.... but that's just me.

I'm a dutch speaking belgian whynni. I don't even know if it's a saying that is known all over belgium or just in our parts. I live near the city of Hasselt if you know where that is. I dutch the saying goes like this : "Het kan beter van een kerk af dan van een kapel"

All what it means achtually is that a church is much bigger. If it were to loose something the consequences would not be as big as if a chapel would loose the same thing. In other words.. what i have to pay for a cd hurts me more then what they gain when i pay it. They can miss that money way better then i can because they just have more of it.

No, that's not true. Most people who live in big houses lived there before they started music. Most of them play music because their wealth allowed them to be educated and trained well. If they want to make a career of music then they better consistently be the best in the business. But the fact is very few people go from rags to riches. Most people striving to make their mark never will. If I make a recording, even if it does well, it's unlikely that it'll have a life-changing impact on my home or life style. When people download they like to imagine they're playing robin hood and are stealing from the rich to give to the poor. That is not true either. In most cases, you are downloading music by people who are struggling just as much as you are - that's where the starving artist idea comes from... because it's true. It's not all money for nothing and chicks for free, you know.




Listening to the radio is not stealing. If I go to a freind's house and she plays a song for me, that's not stealing either. I hear it, but I didn't pay for it. If a car drives by on the street with the radio loud, and I hear it, it's still not stealing. Neither is listening from other sources... even if they are based on the internet.