[briandear]

Is it reasonable that she has actually listened to all of those songs? That's about 733 hours of music. Assuming she listened 2 hours a day and never repeated a song, she'd be listening for over a year before she heard all of those songs. And you know she has Modest Mouse and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs on repeat.

This girl is a thief, plain and simple. It's like walking into a Starbucks and just stealing coffee. The marginal cost of a cup of coffee is just pennies, however there are fixed costs involved. If you don't like Starbucks or think they're corrupt or whatever, no one is forcing you to consume their product. If you don't like Universal Records, then don't support their product.

Musicians must buy equipment and play, usually for years making next to nothing, playing in ratty bars for shitty owners and when they finally do get an album released, they certainly deserve to get paid -- the record companies deserve to get paid as well. For every hit song, they've blown countless dollars supporting musicians that never accomplish anything.

This anti-corporate argument is the argument of a cheapskate thief. There are plenty of Indie labels on iTunes that operate on shoestrings, yet people steal their music too.

[ctrlfrk]

Whoa calm your jimmies, I'm not saying she's not a thief. I'm just saying that in order to get that many songs you'd have to pay a shitload of money.

And it's very likely that she doesn't listen to all those songs. She does want to work in the music industry though, so I can kinda see how she might want to sample a wide variety of songs. She should probably have used streaming services instead I guess.

[pdeuchler]

By your analogy, then, if I bought a cup of Starbucks coffee and proceeded to give it to someone else that person is a thief?