Is music-file sharing a sin?

[edwest2]

“file sharing” is the new word for stealing. Period.

As someone who works in the media and who understands copyright law, it is wrong. The current list of excuses:

They are so rich they aren’t going to be hurt by my taking one song/movie/image illegally.

Hollywood is evil anyway, so I’ll just take something from them.

I’m poor. I can’t afford it. We’re not talking about bread or clean water here.

It is hard to tell if a site is really offering something legally free. Take youtube. Instead of educating yourselves, do you just assume? Be honest.

Actors, for example, sign a contract for image rights. So, if a company wants to put out a bubblegum card with that actor’s image, they get paid. The same with a company who wants to make a poster of that actor. It’s called licensing.

The internet is making it easier to steal. Be careful.

Peace,
Ed

 

[Steven_John]

As someone who works in the media and who understands copyright law, it is wrong

I think we are all very aware of copyright laws including consumers.

 

[singer878]

If someone could pelase respond to this with your opinion I am in desperate need of someone’s opinion.

I have a ton of music in my itunes library I have not paid for(I usually copied my parents’ and my uncle’s cds into my library) this has been going on for a few years. But I never thought about the sinfulness of it so I’m going to decide that it wasn’t mortal since I did not have deliberate consent and full knowledge.

Here is my basic question:

Today I was copying a CD my friend gave to me onto my itunes and I started to think about this more and more and even after it was copied and on my iphone I started to feel guilty about it.

So was this mortal or venial?

I’m right now thinking of going through my itunes and deleting all those albums I downloaded from CDs a few years ago, but I am very scrupulous and what is agonizing me right now is if I am I in a state or mortal sin RIGHT NOW? Cause if I am I guess I can’t go to mass tomorrow morning or saturday morning…and the worst part is I am flying saturday afternoon and I have a fear of flying so boarding a plane while in a state of mortal sin is really scary to me right now.

The other huge problem is I am traveling for the whole summer(about 8 weeks) and won’t be home for good until August, I am not taking my computer with me and I don’t see myself having the several hours necessary to go through all my music and figure out what I did and did not pay for before I fly out on saturday(as I need to pack, do other work, etc.) so if all this music is sitting on my computer and on my ipod and iphone will I still be in mortal sin?

Any advice and prayers would be greatly appreciated as this is really bothering me right now.