Rather than going over the whole 'Free Downloading is Wrong' rigmarole, how about this?
For everything you download or watch for nothing on YouTube (promotional items e.g. pop videos etc. excepted), you should at least try to make something that will entertain or interest someone else for the equivalent length of time.

You never know, people who think they're good for nothing artistic might discover a hidden talent.

(The problem is, if everybody just consumes, there'll be nothing new made and thence nothing left to download or whatever that isn't GC).

I'm serious about this, but not a bloody Nazi about it.
( fred zeppelin II: Electric Boogaloo, Sat 27 Apr 2013, 8:55, 17 replies)

Umm..
welcome to the small but insubstantial NON Reality TV input provided by your local area tv station.
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Sat 27 Apr 2013, 9:11, closed)

or /links! :)

( fred zeppelin II: Electric Boogaloo, Sat 27 Apr 2013, 10:00, closed)

Or how about.
We just admit that the current wages paid to some actors, producers, writers, musicians etc. are too high and unsustainable and go from there?
Nobody who makes the Hollywood blockbusters or pop album de jour makes minimum wage (well, artists screwed by Cowell et al aside) so even if the profit ever does drop considerably they'd still be as well of as, say, software developers, architects or builders.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Sat 27 Apr 2013, 10:34, closed)

I'm not really talking about the financial aspect,
it's been done to death already. I mean the cultural deficit (another angle might be Every Time a Hollywood studio remakes a film, it should make a brand new one - otherwise there'll come a time when there's no new films to remake and people will have forgotten how to write original material)
( fred zeppelin II: Electric Boogaloo, Sat 27 Apr 2013, 10:38, closed)

Ah, that's a more interesting way of looking at it.
The problem being a lot of us are shit at art.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Sat 27 Apr 2013, 11:06, closed)

Yes, but...
a lot of what people think is Shit, a lot of other people might love - especially if it's unconventional or doesn't conform to 'normal' standards of what 'good art' is.
( fred zeppelin II: Electric Boogaloo, Sat 27 Apr 2013, 12:02, closed)

Dear Sony
By way of thanks for the Spider-Man trilogy that I downloaded from TPB, here is an MSPaint rendition of my penis.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Sat 27 Apr 2013, 11:11, closed)

Although I did like that tube train sequence in Spiderman 2 (or was it a bus?),
I'd be just as happy looking at an MSpaint of anything rather than sit through the whole lot. But I did deliberately include the words "at least try" in my original bit.

And that "I demand 3 Spiderman films and will do nothing in return" is a good example of the sense of entitlement that is ultimately eroding our cultural future, I reckon. (Please take smiley face symbol as read here!)
( fred zeppelin II: Electric Boogaloo, Sat 27 Apr 2013, 12:04, closed)

awesome. pic should include some 'spidey web' shooting out of the tip. keep it relevant.

( sneep used to date Freddie Starr's hamster, Sat 27 Apr 2013, 22:30, closed)

Isn't this kind of, y'know, the whole point of money. You do something for someone, empty someones bins or make art out of used tampons or whatever it is that you do and someone pays you for it, then you use that money to buy the box set of "F.R.I.E.N.D.S.".
(Roger McGough-Pipe, Tue 30 Apr 2013, 19:52, closed)