I'm not blaming
the passengers, I'm blaming South West trains.

If a record company charges £12-15 for an album, of which the artist sees maybe 50p-£1 optimistically, then you can't really blame people for being tempted by getting it for free. Albums don't cost anywhere near a tenner to make, even with a record company's overheads. If music was cheaper to buy, you'd probably find a lot less people pirating stuff.

To say downloads aren't on the same scale is probably false. Literally everybody in the country has copied music from the radio or a CD onto a blank tape. Nearly as many have burnt CDs. The only difference is that with online downloads there's more ability to track the amount of copying.

This has been an issue for thirty years. Each generation has said that if the music were cheaper, they'd have bought more of it. I don't really have any sympathy for music companies as this is largely a problem of their own making.

OK, it's a bit of a straw man argument, granted. But that's only because there aren't any solid figures for music piracy until the advent of online piracy.
( Kroney, Mon 20 Oct 2008, 17:40, Reply)