While the Australia Institute was pouring over the numbers which show that the drivers of four wheel drive vehicles are solitary, nasty, brutish and short (well fat anyway), the Canadian Recording Industry Association was commissioning similar research about what a bunch of nasties the people they don’t like are. And boy are they not nice.
“Not only does music file-swapping harm artists, but it also points to an erosion of respect for intellectual property that threatens Canada’s economy and values at the core of our society,” said Graham Henderson, president of the Canadian Recording Industry Association, which commissioned the polls.
“The ‘if it’s there, it’s free’ thinking extends far beyond entertainment products and software to ideas themselves,” Mr. Henderson added, noting a rise in plagiarism in schools and universities. . . .
Among the Poll’s findings:
12 to 17 year olds are the most likely to strongly agree that “artists are too rich already so downloading won’t hurt them.”
37 per cent of respondents used a CD burner to record music within the last six months, up from 18 per cent in 2001.
The Environics findings suggest:
60 per cent of Canadians aged 18-29 are willing to download music from the Internet without paying for it, compared with 29 per cent of the general population.
Half of young people believe it’s all right to illegally download music because others do it too.
Nasty bunch really. They threaten our society all right. Fortunately there are people in the community who are prepared to stand up and be counted on this score. Naturally they speak in the name of society, though I guess it is possible that Mr Henderson drives a four wheel drive. Then we wouldn’t really know what to think about whether he was a goodie or a baddy.
These sure are confusing times.
When the music industry releases digital music in a non-DRM-crippled format (that I can burn to whatever device I want to play it on), then it will have some credibility. If “using a CD burner to record music” is automatically the same as piracy, then fuck the RIAA and sign me up. We’re not allowed to compile our own CDs in their world?
They haven’t used the monopoly rights they were given responsibly. I can see a strong argument for the rest of society treating them with contempt as a result.
Oh, and before I’m going to give a damn about RIAA bleating, we could start having some balance in copyright laws – all we’ve had recently is a massive increase in the terms of the recognised monopoly rights that comprise copyright, and a huge reduction in works entering the public domain after a reasonable period.
==12 to 17 year olds are the most likely to strongly agree that “artists are too rich already so downloading won’t hurt them==
That’s kids alright. No matter how much bullshit you feed them, sometimes they just say it as it so self evidently is…