Piracy revisited

Posted by Daniel J. Mount on March 27, 2007 in Commentary | 0 comments

I was delighted to see that my post on piracy in Southern Gospel a few days ago has prompted some serious discussion. First off is a thread I started in the Singing News forums, currently with 34 comments. (Feel free to join that discussion!)

Adam Edwards made the first industry-analysis post in his new blog a discussion of this topic. One particularly cogent thought was his response to the most common argument used by Christians to justify piracy:

They usually feel that they are doing some good deed by giving a copy of a recording to someone, but basically they are doing nothing more than telling people that they have no regard for the law and that Christians can break that law by stealing from SG artists so that someone doesn’t have to shell out fifteen bucks for a CD…….not a good witness, IMO.

There’s also a comment from Robbie Maxwell that is more than worth the thirty seconds it would take you to click here and read it. Once in a while an artist’s frustration shows. But after all, people are breaking the law and taking advantage of someone who is typically just making ends meet, so far be it from me to blame them.

Yesterday evening, David Bruce Murray also posted his thoughts on the topic. He goes into copyright laws more fully than I did–a flaw of my original article, I must admit, since I am familiar with much of what he posted. But he did such a good job filling that gap in the discussion that I don’t really need to feel bad about it; I can just refer you to his post, where it is done better than I would have done it.

This is the sort of discussion we need more often in Southern Gospel–a rational, levelheaded discussion of a serious problem.

About Daniel J. Mount

Daniel Mount has written 2514 post in this blog.

Daniel J. Mount is the founder and editor of SouthernGospelBlog.com.

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