@AC
>>"I never said that I had sympathy for the TPB guys."
I know *you* didn't say it, but there are certainly people around here with a black/white view of reality (and a funny view of time) who would see record companies doing dumb things now as justifying TPB having done other things things in the past.
>>"I said they weren’t criminals deserving of such harsh punishment. They were businessmen seeing an undersupplied (or let’s be honest, almost completely unsupplied) market and acting upon it. They were no more or less amoral than most businessmen – "
Though unless the decisions in courts were wrong in law, then they are technically criminals, who at the very least, set up their 'business' in the wrong country, or didn't move it at a sensible time.
I'm not sure who they could blame for that apart from themselves.
There are laws I don't agree with (like a fair bit of drug legislation) but if I chose to break the laws and got caught, even if I thought that history might judge me correct, I couldn't really pretend the laws didn't count just because I disagreed with them.
>>"Listen; TPB was wrong…but at the same time they represent the only method of crying out against these sorts of megopolists that regular people have."
Well, people could simply make a point of not buying music made by people signed up to big evil record companies, but *not* rip it off from elsewhere for nothing.
If someone running any other entertainment business is pricing their product so highly that I don't think it's worth it, or I think the business itself is wrong, I do without.
I don't see that I have a right to music, any more than I have a right to theatre or opera or ballet (even if I might actually be subsidising some or all of the latter three).
Any amount of entertainment is priced at a point where I don't think it's worth the money, so I just don't spend money on it, but do something else with my money and time.
People disapproving of Big Media could buy music from somewhere legitimate that does have a business model they approve of, assuming the good business actually has anyone signed up to them that they like.
If the good businesses don't have anyone worth listening to signed up, that'd be at least a reason for wondering why, or even trying to find out.
Maybe it's down to scummy practice on the part of the big labels (cosy deals with the music media and radio stations, exclusive stitch-ups with venues, etc)
Maybe they actually are doing something legitimate in return for their cut of music sales.
Maybe (probably) it's a mix of both.