I have to give a speech defending music piracy, proving that it is okay to do and that it is more ethical than buying a cd. I think the only way I can prove this is if I show evils of the RIAA or something like that. Any suggestions/websites?

you could talk about how very little of cd sales money actually get to the artist

You could add how much releases are there which makes it impossible to buy all this stuff. Or you talk about the quality difference which makes it usefull to download at first before anybody buys a record.

You might want to read this:

http://www.jdray.com/Daviews/courtney.html

You might want to read this:

http://www.jdray.com/Daviews/courtney.html

Woah...nice slice

Misleading topic! I thought there was something difficult here

I guess you could work on the angle that piracy from your britney spears etc is morally ok, because you are not giving money to manufactured pop when legitimate artists make so little money or something along those lines..probably a very flawed argument, like most of the potential candidates, but an angle you could explore

I have to give a speech defending music piracy, proving that it is okay to do and that it is more ethical than buying a cd. I think the only way I can prove this is if I show evils of the RIAA or something like that. Any suggestions/websites?

your teacher SO wants to fail you




but anyway
be sure to focus on these points:

- music piracy's been around for YEARS now, and none of the big (or small) companies and record labels has had a significant decrease in their profit and/or closed their doors because of mp3 downloading

- an absurd ammount of the cd sale money goes to the record company, and almost nothing of it goes to the artist

- small artists can get known and end up building a fanbase, which will be glad to pay for their albums solely to help them (if they're independent), or because they'd love to have the real deal

- recording a tape from a radio station isn't illegal

- "try before you buy": if you bought a jar of milk and it came sour, would you be happy to have paid for it after tasting a glass? Music is deeply personal taste related subject, it's not nice to pay for something you'd throw away

- you usually pay for the packaging and "technical" cost, the whole "chain" before that already got paid (except for the musicians themselves, usually), so you're not stealing from them (hey, it's a hard assignment, you gotta push the limit a bit )

- if you download an album and you don't like it/don't have the money to buy it right away, you can end up showing it to several people who would buy it. If you had a brand new CD on your hands, would you send it over to a friend who lives in another continent so he could know the band and maybe buy their product?

-exemplify and make a parallel with the tons of restaurants that popped up on europe that don't charge their clients, the clients pay the price they think the food and service deserve. They may even walk out and don't pay at all.

and i think it'd be interesting to close it up with this argument:

- usually some ads say (at least here in brazil they run a lot) "would you steal a car? Then why do you steal music?" and stuff of that sort.

well, this is a personal way of thinking, but
if your friend had bought a ferrari, and he could make an EXACT copy of the ferrari.... wouldn't you like one?

hope it helps, good luck

ART SHOULD NOT BE BOUGHT AND SOLD. YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE TO PAY TO EXPERIENCE ART.

ART SHOULD NOT BE BOUGHT AND SOLD. YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE TO PAY TO EXPERIENCE ART.

...and the way for artists to survive? Be realistic...

But don't you see yrosh? He used caps, he wasn't being realistic... He was joking :-p

ART SHOULD NOT BE BOUGHT AND SOLD. YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE TO PAY TO EXPERIENCE ART.

...and the way for artists to survive? Be realistic...

Art should never be used to make a living, or else it will be corrupted by the artists need to please others. The only reason art should be created is by the artist's need to create art.

Also you could talk about how Record Labels are outdated now that a more efficient method of distributing music has arisen.

Thanks everyone for the help....

I know, it seems like an easy topic, but my teacher is completely 100% anti-downloading. He said he downloaded a song once and felt bad so he immediately drove to a store to buy the CD. So it is going to take a lot to convince him.

What you'll probably find is that it's more about the process of exploring it and the argument you build, rather than "you must convince me that it's ok to download"

When do you have present your case (yeah the date)?