Written by Jason Lusk

I’d just like to throw something out there. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very against SOPA and I think you should voice your opposition to it (I have). That said, if you download pirated products from the Net, if you pirate a video game, movie, music album, computer program or anything else, then you helped to cause this. You’re consciously stealing content from people who put a lot of time, effort and money into creating a product for you to use. I’m not saying I’m completely free of blame here, I’m saying that if you brag about not having bought a CD in years (I’ve heard this happen frequently), if you ridicule people who pay to rent or buy movies (I’ve been ridiculed quite a few times for this), then you’re part of the problem. Be part of the solution. The solution isn’t free (that’s the point), but it can be done at a fair price, without completely ripping off content providers. If you really want to fight the problem, here are a few links for you. These services are relatively extremely cheap, provide you with great content, and are completely legal.

http://movies.netflix.com/
http://mog.com/
http://www.gamestop.com/

If you’re going to continue to download music, movies, games and programs from torrent/pirate sites for free, then you have no right to complain about SOPA. You helped create SOPA and you are responsible for the consequences.

Looking at it from a purely musical standpoint (since I’m a musician, and not an actor or game producer), people who pirate music make it very discouraging to become a professional musician. It’s already an extremely hard market to crack, and the more prominent internet piracy becomes, the more musicians begin to feel that there’s really no market left to crack, and there’s no point in trying to break into a market that doesn’t exist. Keep that in mind next time you download a pirated album; you’re helping to cause this creative void we see in music today, because the poppy corporate bands/singers will get paid no matter what you do (they’re paid to look pretty, not to make music), while the true musical artists are going to find livings that will earn them money.

It’s not about calling people out. Well, it kind of is, but it’s really also calling myself out in a big way. I admit that I’ve used torrent sites a lot in the past, and quite a bit of the music on my computer was ripped from the Linn-Benton County Library. So I’m not trying to lay any blanket condemnation. Rather, it’s a self-realization more than anything, that my actions had a direct influence on this tyrannical piece of legislation and that I really have no right to complain about SOPA because the government is trying to stop actions that I’ve committed. But I haven’t used a torrent site in over a year (more because my apartment really cracks down on them than for any moral reason), and I’ve come to realize that it’s actually pretty cheap and easy to obtain electronic goods. MOG is a great service for music, Netflix is a great service for movies, GameStop is a great service for games, and a lot of really expensive software is available at drastically reduced student discounts designed for people who need these programs but don’t have the means to buy them at full price.

–Jason Lusk