Originally Posted by
urbanknight
Like I said, I'd wait until the end of the model year, so it was one nobody wanted anyway. Plus, the manufacturer will just make another. But just for another angle, if enough people stole that song, the artist would stop producing songs because they aren't getting paid enough, so you don't really know which songs would have existed if it were not for pirated music.
I've seen articles citing studies that indicate that there aren't lost earnings for artists from pirated music. I haven't read these studies, and I'm not sure how valid they are, but they exist. If the artist doesn't lose money (or earns more money from increased exposure, as I've also seen claimed) then it's an entirely different paradigm than a stolen car. I think we can agree stealing cars will never result in equal/increased profits.
For the sake of argument, what about things like Mickey Mouse, where the copyright would have expired a long time ago, but every time it gets close to expiring new laws are made that extend the protection. Copyright law exists to allow artists to profit from their intellectual property, but does that extend to their great...(insert number of greats here) grandchildren? In other words should one successful work of art insure comfortable living for generations?