Originally posted by a whoabot (706122) on Slashdot, regarding the high prices of music and movies that result in people not buying them.

Okay, so they wouldn’t get to finance the sequel. So? So they would be out of jobs. So? They would work somewhere else. Who cares? They do, but that’s their problem. Everyone doesn’t have to worry because they’ll be out of jobs. You do what you want: don’t buy their products out of charity if you don’t want to. And the masses have made it quite clear that they do not want to.

Do you think that people have some default position of caring for others? The vast, vast, vast majority do not. Scarcely a soul lifts a single finger to help, in any way, the hordes of children rotting on shitty cots in Africa. And you expect these same people to worry about Hollywood movie makers and other “content producers” getting paid? Ha!

Or, are people to worry, for their own good? To worry that they won’t have these wonderful movies and music to watch and to listen to no longer if they keep these terribly self-destructive actions up? Equally preposterous. Every modern consumer knows that with the production of a product comes, as well, the production of its desire. No movie is without its trailer, no album is without its hype, no hip new clothing brand is without its magazine spreads. People go to watch the Lord of the Rings because they’re told to go watch Lord of the Rings. (Except for a few because they’re fans or whatever, something not contained in the structure on production-consumption. And you’ll notice that those are the people that pay for the DVD, that pay for the show. Just like the fans of bands who buy the albums, because you’re a fan and that’s what you do, you’re not just buying a product.)

This is the advice of everyone in the business of selling shit: you have to tell people they want it. You have to persuade them. Who in their right mind is going to pay fifty dollars for a pair of jeans that are pre-worn and pre-ripped which say “I live so little, I have to pay for clothes that make it looked like I’ve lived instead?” Everyone! You just have to tell them that it’s cool.

And, say all the makers of these clothes that everyone wants go out of business. Oh no, you say! A great tragedy for sure, right? I mean, it’s obviously a good thing that must be saved because everyone pays their hard earned cash for these clothes! Not the case, however. As I said, every consumer knows, the production of any consumer product comes with it the production of its desire. When the product disappears, so will any desire for it. So, if all the super-cool jeans disappeared, no one would care. People would just buy some other jeans. And it is the same with movies, music, etc. Britney Spears no longer around to soothe me with her melodie dolce? I guess I’ll, *gasp*, listen to something else? But from where, if the RIAA is fully out of business? And so we’re brought to a question that if said, with seriousness, in front of any musician who knows the business would, no doubt, burst out laughing. Musicians make music, have for ten thousand years, won’t stop because they’re not making a living for it, like any artist. “Starving artist,” ever heard the term? There’s truth behind that. Would Van Gogh have stopped painting if he didn’t make enough to live off of it? Oh wait, he didn’t.

Indie artists with a small group of actual fans(like any artists, whereas big famous musicians have that along with a large group of people that purchase them for consumptive reasons that I mentioned) but with little production costs don’t give a damn about copyright infringment of their work. Go ahead and download them as much as you want: they know that without the internet you would have never heard about them in the first place. Only the people they have immeadiate contact with at shows, around their town, in their musical community would: and those are where the actual fans are, and they buy the music anyway.

So, musics with million dollar productions won’t exist any longer. And Hollywood movies with 500 million dollar productions won’t either. Like the jeans, is this not a tragedy? Like the jeans, no. People lived before Warner Brothers and Fox and Universal and people lived before Elektra and Columbia and Universal. They will live after them as well. Just as happy as before. No movie to watch? No, Britney to listen to in the car? Maybe they’ll put in that CD their friend’s brother made, or turn on the radio, or nothing at all. No summer blockbuster to go see!? Maybe they’ll go to some local film fest, see some indie movie, or maybe go outside instead, talk with friends, do something else, anything else, it’s fucking summer. And it’s fucking life in general, you don’t need movies to be happy. People know this, so they’ll gladly continue these “self-destructive” and “morally reprehensible” acts of IP “theft” when given the chance.