The was mostly a discussion of purchasing music online, but we also talked about applications and programs.  Most of the people I talked to felt it was fine to download music illegally.  Most said you should purchase applications, with a few saying alternative methods should be used.

I personally believe you should buy the music, movies, or applications.  I know that some of the stuff is expensive (and I’ll agree that some applications are over priced), but most of the time, the pricing is reasonable.

The main argument about music was a bit odd.  You can have 7,000 to 40,000 songs depending on your iPod (not including the suffle).  Songs normally cost anywhere from $0.69 to $1.29.  So assuming you’re luck enough to buy all of you music at $0.69, then you spend at least $4,000 (all prices in USD).  Larger iPods could go up to ~$30,000 to fill.  If you’re caught downloading music illegally, apparently most of the time, it’s a $3,000 – $10,000 fine.  So they were arguing that if you do get caught, it can be cheaper than filling up your iPod (but some get charged millions).

Some other arguments were that there are other crimes that are much worse that have a lower fine (don’t know how that’s an argument).  Apparently if you’re caught shoplifting a CD, it’s a lot cheaper.  I argued you don’t get as good quality when you rip the CD…  That was a joke… Anyways, I found this blog post analyzing some different crimes in Illinois that are cheaper than illegal downloading.  Instead of struggling to make ends meet though, you’ll be given a free room and meals in prison.  I’m not sure about you, but free food has me sold.

Some of the more sound arguments were that if it’s not made available to a person, then illegal downloading could be fine.  I still disagreed, but I do understand.  If a dead band you liked isn’t signed anymore and published an album on a vinyl record independently (and the songs weren’t sold on CD or anything else), there’s no way you’d find that in a store or an online store (you might, but chances are slim).  I wouldn’t say “Go and download it.”  I’d first say check eBay or check some pawn shops or something.  I’d advise not to download it illegally, but I wouldn’t be calling the music police if they did.

Anyways, in looking at some previous cases, it’s really odd.  One woman downloads 24 songs and pays $1.9 million (although she was just being tried for 24 songs when there were over 1,000?).  Another guy downloads 30 songs and pays $640,000.  I’m guessing it varies by song?  I’m wondering if the RIAA would take it easy on you if you logged all the people you shared music with or downloaded music from and gave that to them (not that people should try to find out).

So yeah, I do know this post is late on the whole “OMG RIAA is suing people!”  But the conversation just came up recently.  So what are your thoughts or feelings on the debate?  Apparently a lot of my friends disapprove of Obama now because he supports the whole RIAA fining up to $150,000 per song.  I didn’t vote (so I don’t think I can argue so-and-so would have been better because I didn’t voice my opinion at the election), but I do think the punishment is a bit high.  A song is usually at most $1.29, so I think the fine shouldn’t be 116279 times that.  $150 for downloading a song is punishment enough (I think), but then I agree that people distributing the music should pay more (but it should be proven that they distributed to # number of people, so they pay $150 * # of people or something like that up to a certain amount).