22 October 2007

Out of the Mouth of Babes and Sucklings

Look, this content stuff is quite easy. It costs money to make a CD because it's a physical object, and if you take a CD from a shop, the shop no longer has it: that's stealing. It costs (virtually) nothing to make a digital file (electrons are cheap), and if you make a copy of a file, the original owner of that file still has a copy: that's not stealing (it may be copyright infringement, but that's another matter).

See, even nine-year-olds understand the difference:

TF. Do you think you should be paying for stuff off LimeWire? You have to buy CD’s from the shop…

- You have to pay for CD’s because they’re actually on a disc not on the computer. My cousin, right, she uses LimeWire when she doesn’t have any money for CDs.

Simple.

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