It’s funny, but I have never knowingly downloaded any software, video or song that I haven’t paid for. I just don’t like the feeling that I may be hurting the creators of the content. I use a lot of “free” software … the stuff with GNU licenses or the free versions of professional software, but only in the way allowed for by the license agreements.
But still, I get hassled the same way as people who do – and it bugs me. I’ll tell you why.
You see, the companies that are making the biggest fuss over copyright infringement are often the same ones that sell you shrink wrapped product that cannot be “tried” before it is purchased. This means that consumers are left buying a pig-in-a-poke. Sometimes we get gold, other times we get refuse … we paid for gold. I don’t see the makers of the refuse lining up to protect my rights to buy good quality music, videos or software.
When we buy movies from one of the big production houses we often get bad quality product. I just bought a new Blue-Ray version of “Cars II” and right out of the box, the audio for the movie is sketchy. At various places in the movie, the audio cuts out completely for minutes at a time. Now, this movie is brand new, so I can take it back to the store for an exchange, but what about when it is a month old, or two months old? I have dozens of disks around the house that have failed after a number of plays and no amount of cleaning or repair will make them usable again. What do I do then?
Well, some companies will ship you another disk (at your cost) once you pay to ship the defective disk back to them. What a pile of rubbish! Why should I pay again to get what i already paid for?
Why not allow for perpetual downloads of the data so long as the user has a license key? Or if we are concerned about rampant copying of the media, why not require all stores that sell your movies to take them back for exchange in perpetuity and agree to reimburse the stores for their costs?
My point is, you never see content creators clamoring to find ways to protect our rights to use the products we purchased from them, but let some little old lady post a picture of her granddaughter lip-synching to a copyrighted song and she gets whacked by the record industry.
This is a message to the various content creators … there are a lot of us out here that buy your products. We buy them because we believe in supporting the artists and we believe in fair compensation for fair use, but if you don’t start respecting our rights too, we will stop buying your products.
We may be old and grumpy, but we spend a pile of money on your stuff.
Don’t mess with us!
Ken's Fine "Whines" 