The Coburn Blog

In regards to this article I read about today on CNET

Well, the way I see it, It doesn’t help matters any, when the motion picture and music industries, point fingers against peer-to-peer networks like that. Its just like what they did with Napster, pointing fingers blaming them, when they had nothing to do with the problem.

I am the first to admit, motion picture and music artists need to be paid for their work, but the answer is not to put the blame on any one company. peer-to-peer file sharing services, like BitTorrent for example, don’t promote illegal downloading, Alot of P2P is used to distribute Linux distributions, which are completely legal and protected by law. P2P networks have many advantages over straight downloading, and its not fair to do that to the Linux Community.

Its like, walking into a store, stealing something from the shelf, then sueing the store owner for it. noooo, you go after the guy who stole from the store in the first place. Its just common sense, and I don’t think these companies get it at all.

If a person stands outside a store building, giving away free copies of MacOS 10.3  in front of Best Buy or something, you don’t go after Best Buy, or the people that walked up and grabbed the free copies, you go after the person who is giving away the free copies of MacOS 10  to begin with. again common sense.

Instead of blocking people from downloading illegally, they should be going after the people that are putting these illegal files on P2P networks to begin with. If they can track who is downloading, why can’t they track who is uploading these files to the network in the first place? Its not like we can put $200 into a slot machine and download a copy of Windows Vista, if a person sees it as available, there going to try to download it, more then likely obtain a virus in the process. That isn’t stealing, stealing is who put the file on the network for just anyone to grab in the first place.

Its like downloading a movie, why get all bent out of shape by someone walking into a movie theatre with a video camera and putting the AVI on BitTorrent? I wouldn’t download that even if it was free, I’d rather pay the $20 or whatever it is, to purchase a “good” copy so I can sit at home on my HDTV and watch it in full surround sound with a bag of popcorn like all us Americans do, right? Its crazy to think that could possibly hurt sales in any way,

Its no different then arresting people for swapping concert tickets, the police arrest those people, not the people who got the concert tickets, and that doesn’t hurt the sales of tickets any, concerts for popular artists are usually sold out regardless. Sometimes I think these companies just don’t think straight when it comes to Computer issues.

I think their just getting too greedy if you ask me, and there is more behind this then what they are telling us. I think the record companies are lying to the artists for one thing, because the artists don’t know, they just earn a paycheck like everyone else. My boss signs my paychecks too, but it doesn’t mean I believe everything he says. I do know whenever money is involved, people do get greedy and never think straight..

but it will be interesting to see how this story plays out. I think if software companies, like Microsoft for example, want piracy to stop, they should give students big discounts on Office and Windows products, because those are the heavy hitters in illegal downloading, and how expensive that software is, its no wonder consumers are tempted to illegally download, or borrow a copy off one of their friends. Students can’t afford those gastly high prices for software they need for school, so where else can they turn? personally I think they should give away MCSE licenses to enrolled students, or at least a fee they can afford, or is part of their tuition cost so that their financial aid can cover the cost, so students can still obtain the software they need for class. I’ve lost count of the number of times someone from school has asked me if I had an illegal copy of this or that, just because there was no way they could afford it themselves but needed it for class. I hear the same story every time “well if it wasn’t $200 maybe, but as much as they want is just craziness” and although I always have to say no to them, I don’t blame them for asking in the slightest, because nobody wants to steal, but to compromise, there has to be a better way so unemployed students and families who need it, can get the funding for it in some way.