You've made a lot of good points but I take issue with the idea that I "don't understand the issue." I have spent years discussing this, reading articles, watching documentaries, and personally not partaking in illegal downloading myself and instead spending tens of thousands of dollars on movies and music.
I realize that I made a potentially charged statement there. However, to me, it is tremendously obvious that how much Spotify pays artists who agree to put their music on Spotify is completely irrelevant to the issue of piracy. It is an issue of the artist's ability to control their intellectual property, and I really found it bizarre that you tried to make a completely consensual business model that may not favor the artists that much out to be worse than theft. Though we talk sometimes about making sure that artists get paid for their work, and while that is important, the central issue is their ability to control their intellectual property. By not really addressing that, it seemed to me like you possibly did not grasp that. Because if you focus, laser-like, on the essential issue that defines whether piracy is wrong, Spotify's payment structure is completely irrelevant.
You are right that an artist should have a right to present the music in the way that they wish. I think it is lame to not care about cover art and liner notes because to me that is an important component of music. I still haven't listened to a few songs legally released by a different band that I love because I want to have the album in hand which isn't available until later this month.
Same. I don't really appreciate the recent trend that some artists, DT included, have participated in, where the whole album is streamed online a week or more before the CD release. I don't listen to those streams because I'm waiting to buy the actual album.
But, when a band gives into the demands of spotify which basically force bands to give into their ridiculous demands under duress, I do not believe the bands consent implies that they are happy with that at all. Simply because they signed over the rights to have it publicly broadcast is an act of desperation.
I agree. That's why I said that the payment structures of streaming is an important issue. It's just a separate issue from that of piracy. Whether streaming services give artists 5 cents or 50 dollars per play, piracy is still wrong. The morality of piracy is totally unrelated to the business dealings between streaming services and consenting artists.
I agree that streaming services should pay artists more. I also think it's great that big-name artists like Taylor Swift are standing up for smaller artists—Taylor will be fine no matter how much streaming revenue she gets, but she's still participating in the conversation because she cares about smaller artists who rely on streaming revenue. But it is a separate issue from piracy.
While I agree consent is important and the main difference between illegal downloading and something lame like spotify, I believe there is still very little difference.
It's the essential difference. Artists don't have to put music on Spotify. Some don't (Neal Morse). They got to make a choice about whether their music was available there. But they don't get to choose whether or not people steal it. One of those things is clearly wrong.
I think many of the people that illegally download are in the same position as the band when they make their decision. Because of their financial situation they aren't able to go out and purchase all the music they want so they give in to a bad deal. Of course there are those that have the ability to pay and choose not to and I think that is incredibly lame.
Can't be bothered to care about this. Making a bad deal with Spotify is one thing, deciding to steal an album because you can't pay for it is another. Just try following the idea "if someone can't afford something, it might be morally acceptable for them to take it without paying for it" to its logical conclusion.
As far as books go, I understand the analogy but lets modify it. Say you are doing research and cannot afford to buy a book but your friend offers to scan you a chapter of the book that they own that will help you immensely, are you now a thief? What if that friend let you borrow that book? You didn't buy it but now you get to benefit from the knowledge acquired?!?! What about borrowing CDs? You didn't pay for it! Legally you are allowed to make a personal copy if you purchase it so if your friend does that and lets you borrow the CD permanently, that is essentially the same as just burning a copy for them or letting them download it to begin with. Are you now part of a crime syndicate?
These are all borderline issues—in the issue of morality in media sharing, as with many ethical issues, there are some things that are clearly ethical, some things that are clearly unethical, and a smattering of borderline cases that require more intensive thought.
I would say that before even getting into those borderline cases, it's important to first define what is definitely right and what is definitely wrong. Buying a CD is definitely right, shoplifting one is definitely wrong. Buying an album on iTunes is definitely right, downloading one from Napster is definitely wrong. Streaming an album on Spotify is right. Torrenting an album is wrong.
Only after we clarify those (and understand the reasoning behind them), should we move on to the borderline ones. And to be clear, I wouldn't condemn somebody for honestly coming to a conclusion that I believe is wrong on one of these little borderline ones, unlike on something where it's clear. That is, if somebody makes personal copies of two or three albums and shares them with their one friend, I wouldn't treat that person the same way as I'd treat someone who downloads all their music from The Pirate Bay. I'll attempt to give some of my thoughts on the borderline issues you raised real quick:
All this was easier in the era of physical media. Borrowing a book or a CD is definitely okay. The deal that you make with the publisher or bookstore to buy a book is to buy one copy of that book (that's implicit when we're dealing with physical media). So if you take that copy of the book and let your friend borrow it for a month and then get it back, that's okay. Because you had the copy, then your friend had the copy and you didn't, then you had the copy again. The whole time, there was just one book. Same thing if that book had been a CD. See, the problem with mass online piracy isn't really that somebody is getting knowledge without paying for it. That would be impossible and wrong to regulate—even if you stopped people from lending their books to others, there's no way you could possibly keep someone from telling their friends everything they learned from any particular book. You wouldn't really want to, either. The issue with mass online piracy is that the thing is proliferating and multiplying beyond what the original owner consented to. The problem isn't somebody getting a CD that they didn't pay for as a gift or as a loan. The problem is many people getting an album they didn't pay for because one person who did put the thing on the internet.
So, what about a more digital form of borrowing, like sending a scanned book chapter (or my earlier example of sending one friend an MP3, with the understanding that they're just going to listen to the song a few times and then either buy the album or delete the file and not buy it)? This is where it gets tricky, and it requires a lot of thought. I believe this is still an issue where copyright lawyers don't really quite know where the line is.
My own preliminary thoughts (and I'm not proclaiming to definitively have all the answers here) are that, if one person sends the scan or the file and the "lender" does not use their own copy for the duration of the "borrower's" use of the file, then it's okay. That, in my mind, is the equivalent of lending someone a book or CD, just made faster by the internet. It's like using email instead of snail mail to send somebody the book or CD, and then when they stop using the file (preferably deleting it), it's like sending it back. That's one where I have a lot of confidence that I'm right.
A situation where a piece of media is temporarily shared between friends, but the "lender" does not stop all use of the original piece of media, is more questionable. But I would say it's questionable at worst. At worst, it's not the best thing you could do, but it's not awful, particularly if the duration of the "borrowing" is short (like a day or a week). I could also almost imagine a scenario where both people have the file for a certain time period, but only one of them accesses it at a time. That would be almost the equivalent of borrowing and returning and borrowing again multiple times in succession. It's not as clear cut to me as the scenario I described in the previous paragraph, but I think it's alright. This would be a good scenario for families that share media (though they could have the complicating factor of, for example, sharing an iTunes account where the license allows media to be shared between a maximum of five devices, or something. In that case, playing iTunes-purchased media at the same time while both logged into the same account would be fine. The question is whether you could apply that to files ripped from a CD).
Full disclosure: I'm currently in the last round of a roulette I'm running over in General Music. If anyone doesn't know, in a roulette people send me songs (often via YouTube, Spotify or other streaming link), I listen to them a few times and give them a score. A few of the contestants in my roulette sent me MP3 files. After each particular round, I've deleted these files after I was done listening (which was usually within a week). Personally, I don't feel especially comfortable with the scenario, but I also don't feel that I'm doing anything wrong. True, I'm not checking to make sure that the person who sent me the files isn't playing them at the same time as me, but I feel that would be unlikely and what I'm doing probably just falls into a form of borrowing. I'm deleting the files after a short time, as well, and in many cases plan to buy the album that the songs came from. However, I would still definitely describe the overall scenario as a borderline case, and one I'm not 100% comfortable with.
All these paragraphs of writing to say... there are definite borderline issues where there is room for debate. But the big-picture issue should be clear: piracy is not okay. Downloading music instead of paying for it is not okay. I will clarify right here at the end: When I condemn piracy, I'm not condemning people who send an MP3 to their friend so he can listen to it a few times and see if he likes it. I'm condemning people who download music from file sharing sites on the internet who have no intention of ever paying for it, and who often have vast libraries of stolen content. There's room for conversation about the technicalities of borderline cases, but in the clearest cases of piracy (which is what James, I think, was pretty obviously talking about), the pirates are definitely wrong.