Look... This is not some anti-downloading screed from me. I download music myself.

What I am raging against here is not the fact that people are downloading music for free (an inescapable reality borne by natural economic impulse and technological expediency) but the sense of ENTITLEMENT that makes people think free music is their RIGHT. And makes them go so far (as araQual does here) to disparage artists for the fact that they kinda would like to get paid for their hard work and investment.

THAT'S ALL.

For me, it's like if somebody forgot to lock the door at Circuit City and everybody's strolling in there and grabbing stereos and computers.

You see this and you think, "shit, who couldn't use a free television? It sucks for Circuit City but nobody's stopping anybody and if I don't go and take something out the store, somebody else will." So you go in there and grab you a TV.

I have NO problem with that. It's an incredible fluke of the system and a person would be almost foolish not to take advantage of it.

My problem is when people stop looking at it as a fluke and start viewing it as a RIGHT. Like if just because of the Circuit City affair, they started staging protests at Best Buy and demonizing them as some evil empire for not leaving their door open... because a free iPad is everybody's natural right.

THAT for me, is a problem.

Downloading is reality and it's unlikely anybody can put that genie back in the bottle, but I think any right-thinking person knows that it's "wrong."

Even araQual knows that... otherwise he would not keep making reference to how artists are making him feel like a criminal for doing it. People KNOW it's not "right" but they want to be made to feel good about what they're doing.

That really bothers me. It's not even about me caring about the music industry per se... I'm just really distressed by that kind of moral bankruptcy and narcissism that I see afflicted my generation on such a large scale.

Just shut the fuck up, get your free TV and deal with whatever feelings that arouses within you on your own.