Posted by Mark F. on June 18, 2002 at 20:37:04:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Blue Shades posted by js on June 17, 2002 at 20:44:05:
Dear Joe,
there was a time in my life when I would have thought of your statements as being foolish and crazy. As I grow old(er), and raise try to raise my son right, I now can say "RIGHT ON BROTHER!" Minor copyright violations never bothered me until the last few years, but the more I see 17 year olds that see nothing wrong with stealing by means of Napster and CD burners, the more it bothers me. I also find myself getting madder and madder at morons who drive 95 on I-30 in Dallas, but that's another matter entirely. I recently made an ebay purchase where I bought what I thought was a parts and repair manual for a pickup. What the guy send me was bad scans form the manual. I called him on it and he said it was popular item, so he uses copies so more people can have them. I told him that was against the law and he pretended to know the law backward and forward, and said as long as he was fine with what he was doing, it was his business. When I left a negative for him, he gave me one right back (my first). I didn't want my money back, I just wanted him to clarify his future listings so people knew that would be getting copies. What is more perplexing is, this has dozens of positives, which means the public at large doesn't seem to mind what he is doing either.
Getting back to music, I try to keep the photocopies to a minimum, and usually only copy enough of a book to get a kid started until he can go get his own copy. The last I checked, that is legal. I also have stopped making copies of CD's for my students, unless it is something they just CAN'T get at all. I'd like to thank the existence of napster
for my awakening to my own abuses. When I saw millions of people all around the world doing what they wanted to just because they could, it opened my eyes to my own faults.