Senor Barborito wrote:

If I weren't running the caltrops server right now, and thus weren't afraid of having my property searched, etc. I can guarantee I would never pay for a drop of information that wasn't produced by people I have a personal attachment to.

"But but but starving artists!" my ass - artists do it for the love or they do it on commision by wealthy people or they don't do it. No, it's not that I'm a thief, and it's certainly not that I've never produced anything artistic anybody would pay for (seeing as I've been offered), it's that I don't believe that thoughts and ideas should ever be used to extort money. Goods and services, yes, but that's it. That's something tangible you can hold onto. Our current system of 'intellectual property' already has destroyed art by reducing it to a commodity. That kind of spiritual death is far worse than any kind of economic benefit our current system provides. Music? Live performance. In real life that's where many artists make the bulk of their income, even blippier ones - by entertaining the patrons of whatever establishment your music fits the mood of, you've economically adopted a service model, and you're in much better shape.

Since I know most of you would rather hear 'crickets' than any more out of me, and God knows I'd certainly rather hear them than any response you're going to splutter out I'll now put the 'crickets' soundtrack back over the loudspeakers.

--SB
Be sure to tip the crickets on the way out, lads - they're really something worth listening to, eh?