Two points against Intellectual property laws

[ShakeZula06]

Most pro-IP arguments come from a consequential stand point that without IP, artists don't have an incentive to create whatever type of art they are in the business of creating. We have seen that in the case of music, this is complete BS.

In the last decade or so we have seen the proliferation of peer2peer sharing programs for music. Anybody with a computer and an internet connection can get pretty much any song from any artist he wants from many different sources.

Yet some how, the music industry hasn't collapsed. Artists are still making music, fans are still buying music, and artists and labels are still making amazing amounts of money (albeit smaller then before, which isn't inherently a problem). The music industry hasn't been destroyed by free music for a few reasons, including-

1) Artists enjoy what they do despite the fact that some may end up enjoying their music for free.
2) Fans have been loyal to their artists and buy copies even when faced with the chance to get a free copy from a friend or the internet.
3) Artists know #2
4) Relative to the average salary, artists (and labels) are still making boatloads of money.

The same could be said about movies and television shows, although I know less about that subject. There's many Torrent sites you can find to watch movies and TV online, yet movies are still being made and new shows keep making it to TV.

The second point deals mostly with hip hop, and I'm not sure how many fans of hip hop we have in this forum. It concerns mixtapes. Basically, a (usually young artist that isn't known well) rapper will collaborate with a DJ who provides the instrumentals to different rap songs. The rapper then does new lyrics over the beats. The DJ will play the songs at the places he DJ, and he'll usually sell the album to the local record stores. This is crucial for young artists in gaining name recognition towards putting out a major album. There are many now famous rappers out there who owe their success to mixtapes. If it were possible to flip a switch and end this illegal process, it would actually hurt the music business. Less people would be able to get their name out as new artists. People would sell less albums when they do put out their albums because they have less name recognition.

With regards to mixtapes the labels attempt to have their cake and eat it too. Many will pay a DJ to assemble a mixtape for a young rapper, and say that they are under the assumption that the mixtape is for promotional use only (wink wink) then through government funding and the RIAA they end up raiding businesses that stock the mixtapes.

Both peer2peer sharing and most mixtape practices are illegal, yet even when externalized on taxpayers it can't be stopped. We also see that while this hasn't been stopped, the music industry is still alive and doing quite well for itself, despite the claims of pro-IPers.