Is free music download sinful?

[kentuckyliz]

Free downloads of music that get around the artist’s (and other’s) intellectual property rights are illegal (as evidenced by court judgments against private citizens in the amount of hundreds of thousands of dollars)–and immoral, because it is theft. Remember, morality is always higher than the law.

There are sites where you can get free music legally.

SpiralFrog.com

Music and Podcasts, Free and On-Demand | Pandora

Play the songs, albums, playlists and podcasts you love on the all-new Pandora. Sign up for a subscription plan to stream ad-free and on-demand. Listen on your mobile phone, desktop, TV, smart speakers or in the car.

www.pandora.com

If you buy a CD or tunes on iTunes (for example), you can make yourself another hard copy for personal use, as a backup, and I think iTunes DRM allows installation on more than one physical unit. (Not relevant for me because I have one computer and one iPod…so I can’t remember the exact details.) You can read up about it more on the iTunes site, if that’s the service you use.

Remember, thinking something isn’t wrong because lots of people are doing it and it seems to be OK, is very poor moral reasoning. You have an obligation to form your conscience.

Depriving the worker of a just wage is an abomination, a sin that cries out to heaven for vengeance.

You might want to discuss this with your confessor on a regular basis to continue forming your conscience and reforming your behavior.

Good luck to you and God bless you!

 

[unikvic]

To tell you the truth, this is kind of hard to accept but if I want to live right, which is the reason why I’m here in the first place, I think I have no choice now. Thanks for the advice, hope I turn a new leaf though.
And the most interesting is the lead to free music which you gave me, appreciate that and God bless you too.

 

[DiZent]

Find out if the artist has a podcast. These are legal and usually free. Or listen to them on internet radio.

 

[gtdannemiller]

Actually, no they weren’t and hence my response. Nowhere in my post did I say that I downloaded entire albums or ‘took from everyone’ on the words of the few. Indeed, as you so rightly pointed out, that would be like walking into a store and taking a copy of the shelf, something which I would never do. But I feel your selective quoting failed to take into account the rest of my post.

You didn’t seem to notice that I stated that I more often than not (and I would estimate this is 98% of the time) pick up the CD later when I have money. This is usually only a week or two later. I really don’t see how anyone loses out here.

As for the songs which I don’t end up buying, those would be rare recordings and B sides which actually can’t be bought online and for most fans this is the typical and accepted way of finding such tracks. If I could find these in a store near me, I would be both surprised and overjoyed. What an asset to my collection! Unfortunately, this is rarely if not never possible for me.

Finally, common sense comes into play here. Bands themselves are beginning to exploit this medium of file sharing. Certain songs or indeed entire albums are ‘leaked’ onto the internet as a surefire way to drum up sales. The ‘try before you buy’ method I mentioned. True fans will always want to hold the physical CD in their hands along with the artwork that goes with it. Myself included.

Ahhh, but the ends never justifies the means. You cannot do evil even if it will result in good. You cannot download illegally even if you might buy the CD later.

 

[He_Man]

If it is illegal, then yes. Let’s not be coy about which bands care or not.

If I don’t care whether or not you shoot my the tires out on my car with an AK-47 while driving 87 mph, that doesn’t make it any less illegal.

It gets justified because

A) “everyone” does it

B) it seems minor compared to other sins

Just because we don’t care does not make the things we do any less sinful.

Call a spade a spade, and admit it is wrong. I am willing to admit I have a lot of sinful behaviors, but it is intellectually dishonest of me to, because of this, pretend they aren’t sins.

 

[JoshR]

if it is copyrighted it a sin because u are stealing i asked priest today