+I'm not stealing your money, you bastards!

I have a beef with the so-called system. It seems to work in that people can get laws made/changed according to their needs, but the problem is that people are people (which is unfortunate), and that makes them greedy. Many times these laws don't really benefit anybody, and are only made because of a few greedy assholes who want to line their pockets a bit more. I'm speaking, of course, of the music industry. The latest news in the ban on file sharing as it pertains to music is that you can be fined thousands of dollars for downloading a song off of the internet. This is, to put it bluntly as usual, retarded.

If you think about it, why do you usually download a song? Because somebody recommended it. Either that or you heard it on the radio, but nine times out of ten I've gone out and downloaded a song because a friend said I'd like it. Most of the time they're wrong, but when they're right and I really love a song, I download another song by the same artist to see if they're actually a good musician/group and not just lucky. If they're worthy, I go out and buy the cd. I know I'm not the only person who does this.

If you look at the cd sales in the past five or so years, sales were at their peak during the time that Napster was also at its peak. People were being introduced to new artists and were going out and buying more cds. Yeah, there is always some greedy jerk that downloads entire cds because he's too cheap to go buy the cd for 14 dollars, but for the most part, if you like a band or musician you want to support them and get the cd. You want the little insert and the pictures and all the trimmings.

I guess that's the divine justice of it. Music downloads have declined (although not as much as the music industry would like), but so have record sales. People aren't being as exposed to as much new music, so they're not buying as much. Not to mention the fact that there are people like me who are pissed off at the music industry and would only buy a cd if the band was really impressive so as to avoid lining the pockets of the corporate bastards who placed this ban on us in the first place.

I mean, come on, several thousand dollars in fines for downloading a song that came on a cd with probably 14 other tracks that cost 12-18 dollars? Even if you take the top price, that's still only about two dollars per song. How is a two dollar song equal to 12k? And what about fining little kids, like that twelve year old girl? What good will that do? It pisses me off that some corporate ass would sue a little kid for infringing on their rights, when, by looking at our download records, they're infringing upon ours. Yet another stunning example of why people can blow me. The greediness of a few people ruined something really good for the people who didn't abuse the system. Thanks a lot, you selfish dickheads. I hope you slip in the mud.

Get me out of here!