Lars Has His Say
from the silly-drummer dept
Well, feel free to read what Metallica's Lars Ulrich had to say to Congress concerning Napster. It's a little more clear headed than some of the stuff he's said in the past, but I still think he's still completely misunderstanding what's going on. He makes it sound as if the government is completely responsible for determing how Metallica can make a living. The government hasn't helped me make a living. He also continues to compare downloading music to physical theft of CDs, which is obviously not true. When you steal a CD you have actually removed a tangible object from somewhere, thus denying the possibility of selling that exact item to someone else. Passing along a digital good is not the same thing.
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Courtney's comments
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Courtney's comments
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Re: Courtney's comments
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"theft"
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Re:
When talking about corporate information, you're no longer talking about a good that has been built to be put in the market place in any format. It is, rather, confidential information that has been designed to stay in one place.
The equivalent argument I can make in the music world, is that I do not think it's okay when some musicians have found that songs they haven't released have somehow gotten out into the world, and are available on Napster. That's a different story. Their product is not in the marketplace.
But, once the material is released into the market place (by the original creator of that material, or whoever owns the rights), then it's up to the market to set the price and find the most efficient course of distribution. I'm not saying that the original owner can't try to influence where it goes (exactly what Lars is trying to do), but I'm pointing out that technology has a way of pushing things to their most efficient, and trying to hold back that tide is close to impossible. And, once an item is in the marketplace, then putting false barriers on it and saying that digital copies are equivalent to walking into a record store and stealing a CD is misleading.
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re: price
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