[jarek]

Just wondering, do you have any guidelines as to what it takes to become a cool guy? Does buying a $20 tshirt justify my previous pirating of a band's three albums? How about paying $25 for tshirt+CD after pirating two albums? Is there an equation for this? I'd like to make sure I'm a cool guy here.

[cobrausn]

Pretty simple actually. Two albums cost, what, around 20 ~ 40 depending upon the band? Buy enough swag to make up the cost. More of the profits will go to the band than would have before.

[jiggy2011]

Problem is I don't necessarily want a T shirt (if the band even sell them in the first place) not to mention that buying the T shirt might bring up other moral issues (overseas child labour etc).

It would make more sense for the artist to sell me the tracks I want in a convenient way (direct download, no DRM, standard format, easy payment) rather than for them to distribute their music in a DRM format that I don't want and to have it pirated and then buying T shirts to somehow make up for it.

[cobrausn]

It would - I agree completely. But are you better served by pirating their music, which only gives the RIAA more ammo regarding piracy stats to get their asinine laws passed, or just finding music from people that satisfies your requirements and paying for that? I'm obviously a fan of the second - I consider it a form of boycott.

[jarek]

What if I had bought the CDs used for $8 or $5 each? Do I have to go by the full retail price, and if so, is this price at introduction, or is retail price a couple of years later okay?

Oh yeah, I forgot - how much is buying a ticket to seeing them live worth? Full ticket retail price, or less?

[cobrausn]

Compensate the band for their efforts - it's really not hard, your attempts to muddy the water with asinine value qualifications notwithstanding. You don't owe them anything more than what you would owe them by acquiring music through legal means - but you do owe them something. At least as long as the means of profit is tied to distribution. I have nothing more to say about it - you obviously can't see the forest for the trees.

EDIT: I'm going to add in that I'm also not going to bother replying anymore because you obviously think the downvote button is the 'nuh-uh!' button. How productive.

[jarek]

> You don't owe them anything more than what you would owe them by acquiring music through legal means - but you do owe them something.

What does the band get from me buying a CD of theirs used? Is it substantially more quantifiable than talking about the band?

> I have nothing more to say about it - you obviously can't see the forest for the trees.

I'll admit I'm trolling with the questions, but it's hard not to when you're attempting to divide pirates into "cool people" and the other kind based on categories you yourself seem to not have thought out very well.

> EDIT: I'm going to add in that I'm also not going to bother replying anymore because you obviously think the downvote button is the 'nuh-uh!' button. How productive.

Hacker News doesn't let users downvote posts in immediate response to their posts (replies one deep). I upvoted your responses to me as a matter of personal policy. The only other post of yours in this entire thread I've voted on is http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3590726; I recall downvoting due to general flimsiness of your argument, particularly the irony of dismissing word-of-mouth arguments as hand-waving when yours were no stronger, and the ill thought out attempt to distinguish cool pirates from uncool pirates. Thanks for asking.

[cobrausn]

> What does the band get from me buying a CD of theirs used? Is it substantially more quantifiable than talking about the band?

I would argue that the profit from first sale has already been made, and the terms of that distribution include the ability to resell. They've already made money off that CD, and you are paying the person who owned it originally for it now, not the band. Since they produced the CD, they agreed to these terms when they sold the physical media.

> I'll admit I'm trolling with the questions, but it's hard not to when you're attempting to divide pirates into "cool people" and the other kind based on categories you yourself seem to not have thought out very well.

I wasn't actually trying to imply group A is cool and group B is not, 'cool' was just the verbage I was using to indicate that I didn't really have a problem with what group A was doing, as they were following the spirit (if not the letter) of the law and were attempting to compensate the band for their efforts. I apologize if my poor choice of wording called you 'uncool' by accident. :-)

I will return the upvote for the civil reply.