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mikearthur

Listed below are comments made by mikearthur between Wednesday, 18th June 2008 and Thursday, 3rd July 2008.

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No defence for 'stealing' music 10:29am on 03 Jul 2008 I'm with Paul Freeman-Powell on this one. I too don't have a single illegally downloaded MP3, video or game on my system so I feel I can argue on fair ground.

Copyright infringement is NOT stealing. You've clearly been indoctrinated by watching those idiotic "PIRACY IS STEALING" ads before DVDs and the cinema. Legally they are completely different.

Morally, stealing deprives someone of something and copyright infringement does not. If I download an MP3 by Britney Spears then what has she lost by my download? A *potential* sale. In fact, as you hint to above, it may be that I never buy that song but do buy her next album as a result.

What you seem to be missing out on is that the music industry doesn't dislike downloading because it means they lose money, they dislike it because it lowers the barrier of entry to the marketplace. When someone can just stick their MP3 onto the net and have the world download it for free it gives them a great level of publicity and exposure that they couldn't get 20 years ago.

Notice that those getting enraged by the downloading are not the musicians but the labels. Some musicians go as far as to openly say "download my music". In these huge lawsuits and payouts in the US none of the proceeds go to the musicians. It goes in the pockets of the RIAA executives.

Wake up and smell the mustard. The music industry isn't dying just the mainline record labels are making less money because they don't want to distribute music for a price and in a fashion that people want to get it and prefer to sue than actively change their business model.
Good at games? 9:29pm on 18 Jun 2008 I'm a software engineer who graduated from a Computer Science degree last year and have been a massive gamer since a very young age.

Why didn't I go into the gaming industry? My fellow graduate friends who have joined gaming companies have informed me that you are expected to constantly work insane hours which escalates to unhealthy hours coming up to a release.

This would be ok if the pay was comparable with the rest of the software industry but generally it is insultingly low.

Maybe those reasons are why they are struggling with recruitment...

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