LimeWire's Parenting Tips: They Still Just Don't Get It.

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Moses Avalon

LimeWire wants parents to know that stealing Is right as long as it’s music.

So, in one of my many news feeds I came across this open letter by a webmaster of LimeWire. In it she still maintains that what LimeWire did was not wrong and implies that her children will continue to use illegal P2P to get their music.

Her children?!?! WTF?

I don’t usually post responses on pages like this but as a parent this time, I could not resist. The bloger wrote that her teenage daughter basically gave her the justification for LimeWire saying, “I think music, like love should be free.” And based on this LimeWire decides to rape an industry for a decade.

Setting aside the reality that love is not truly free, what blows my mind, is that even now that public policy is changing and with the massive defeat in court, this poster, who hasn’t the guts to put his name on the page, still seems to think that there is some way to twist LimeWire’s disgraceful behavior into a moral imperative. Like they are a Robin Hood of sorts, robbing from the rich labels and giving to the, err– well to themselves, in the form of selling millions in advertising.

Whatever. If you want to convince yourself that you’re some kind of folk hero, that’s your prerogative, but to impress upon your children that this is okay, is beyond me. Someday her kids will be grown and the world they grow up in will not think it’s cool to steal music, or anything else for your own personal gain.

The world they will be adults in, in the not too distant future will probably see P2P as a sophomoric and impetuous reaction to the high cost of CDs coupled with the availability of new technology. But, like the anti-war movement of the sixties, history puts extreme radical actions into context. When we look back at P2P, will we think it was cool to delude ourselves that since artists didn’t get the royalties they deserve, we should steal from their record companies and deprive them of what little money they do get, or will we think it was an appropriate reaction to major label incompetence? Will we feel manipulated by ISP propaganda and Electronic Frontier Foundation bullshit into believing that we were not committing a crime when we hit download, despite judgment after judgment, after judgment, and ruling after ruling, after ruling that states to the contrary?

Ask those average joes and janes who have written settlement checks to the RIAA who they are really mad at in ten years. I think you’ll see it won’t be record companies. It will be ISPs, who, just like cigarette companies, led their users to believe that everything is fine, and to feel free to light up, metaphorically.

The ISP/Music biz war is drawing to a close. Now it will be time that puts everyone’s actions into context. I for one believe that history will vindicate much of the RIAA’s nastiness. It will, in context seem like a necessary push pack to an erosion of vital property laws that are the foundation of our capitalist system. This system, for better or worse, is what puts food on our table.

Check out this silly person’s delusional rant, and if LimeWire hasn’t removed it, my comments about her parenting skills.

Your thoughts please.

Oh, and please note LimeWire’s responce to this near the bottom.

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