Quote Originally Posted by miles View Post
It's a double edged sword for me. In terms of music, which is my main interest, I don't think downloading has stopped me buying a good product. I will download the album, decide whether I like or not, and if I do like it, then I typically go downtown and buy it. Yesterday I bought two albums that I had downloaded just a month or so previously. In this regard downloading has acted as a quality control on the purchases I make. Usually you can only go off the lead single or two and buy an album based on your impression of that. You can get the album home and then find that it's rather poor. Now, I don't think that is fair on the consumer either. I know not everyone is like me and that teenagers will take whatever they can get for free and not pay for it, so that is the part that frustrates me. If every music consumer was like me, then the corporations wouldn't have such an issue with file sharing. I see their concerns, but don't like my method of quality control being declared outright illegal. That's not fair on me or other music fans like me.

Downloading has been made illegal out here too, but the laws really aren't enforced; especially not for foreign products which are what I consume. I still download music quite freely and there are no repercussions. But I can see the UK being quite different and the system becoming quite draconian. The Koreans couldn't care less about me watching boxing streams and there is certainly no possible way for me to buy access to any of the fights anyway. Like I say, I can see both sides to the issue, but clamping down on everybody is only going to lead to a lot of bad will. The UK is such a nanny state. They take away half your income in taxes and then tell you where you can and can't blow your nose! A significant proportion of all laws exist simply to be broken and this might be one of them. It will be got around somehow. Where there is a will, there is a way.
I'm gathering that you're not too keen on big government and intrusions like this?

I also see file sharing as a big shit filter. I'm not out there to rip off the corporations or artists, but see it as a sort of preview of what I might be getting. I think it's mainly kids/teens/young adults that wants to get the free stuff, but I see the older folks as the type of person that if they genuinely like a product out there produced by their favorite artists or companies then they usually support them and I came from the generation when Napster was big 10 years back.

But then again it could be the same motherfukkers that don't support whatever great product out there and is just sponging off it for free that companies and artists are getting pissed off on. I've always been of the mindset that if you like a product, support it and get the legitimate thing.