Quote:
Originally Posted by murraypaul
Hard to really understand the concept of pirating something that is free.
|
Not really.
Radiohead didn't release it as public domain or give up the copyrights, they basically posted it on a site and said "pay whatever you think the album is worth." They were also selling CD's and I believe that particular program only ran for a few weeks (but the piracy started instantly).
So from a purely technical perspective, their website should have been the only legit distributor for a week or two, and putting the album on Bittorrent etc qualifies as copyright infringement.
I don't think the band cares at all about illegal distribution, by the way. It's more just pointing out that the rationales that allegedly drive people to infringe copyright most likely apply to a very small and select group.
E.g. plenty of people on MR believe that high prices, restricted availability, windowing and other impediments to legal acquisition drive up piracy rates. Most people though, I suspect, just want Free Stuff and are already acclimated to getting it via infringement.