Downloaders are making a moral calculation and...

"Downloaders are making a moral calculation and coming to the conclusion that the content industry immorally perpetuates an artificial scarcity to maximize their profits at the expense of users and artists. They understand that content is a non-rival good, that unlike an apple, they can consume it without diminishing anyone else’s ability to consume the same thing. They know that the content owner paid nothing to reproduce or distribute the content on the Internet. They also know that the artists who created the original content get a tiny fraction of the revenue. So they are making a moral judgement that the content owners are pricing their product to extract unjustifiable profits and they feel morally justified taking the content they find out there on the web."

Brad Burnham’s astute take on digital media was originally intended as an entry in the SOPA debate but is now even more relevant in the wake of the Megaupload shutdown.

I’ve never been shy about extolling the widespread benefits [to everyone but a narrow group of rights holders] arising from the internet-era erosion of artificially high monetary value assigned to recorded media during the stereo age. Not only does this process naturally encourage greater focus on live performance – something all musicians and performing artists should actively seek – but the easier access it provides to recordings is also a boon for artists and audiences in general, who benefit from freer contact and conversation with art of our time.

The saddest part of this mess is how deaf the major media companies remain to the prevalent new moral, financial and aesthetic calculus surrounding the value of recorded media – all out of a desperate, doomed attempt to perpetuate a previous century’s exploitative business model.

(via jasonweinberger)