Disagree on the stance of digital files. What you call "sharing" I call "theft".
This is a very simple concept, even a child could understand it. Let me help you deprogram your brainwashing:
Copying is not theft.
I'm so sorry. I realize this must be painful for you (unlearning lies always is), but there is really zero room for debate here. You're wrong. Accept it and move on.
Because the world will, and if you won't, you will be mercilessly left behind in the information age. Just like theists were in the scientific age. Yes, theists are still around today. And capitalists will still be around tomorrow.
But you'll be a laughing stock. Mocked and derided at every turn by enlightened, free-thinking people who will know that
intellectual slavery is as much an ethical abomination as the physical sort.
Have you prepared your mind for this outcome ?
This kind of begs a question. Do we own what we make? If you wrote a song would you have the right to ask for payment for someone else to downlad it? Or is intellectual property owned by society? To assume it is owned by society kind of makes the original author an intellectual slave does it not?
The idea of doing something once and then being paid multiple time over for decades after - and with no further effort on the part of the originator - is immoral in my opinion.
Why is that immoral? You believe people must necessarily trade their time for money?
If that were true, no one would move up in the world, we would all be "wage slaves"
If you create something that stands the test of time, and are able to successfully
market it on an ongoing basis, why shouldn't you be allowed to keep doing so?
Well where does all this stop?
If I give you the recipe for a meal which you find enjoyable, will you pay me a royalty every time you make it?
Do these artists pay a royalty for the very use of words and language - of which they are not the originators - but is the tool they use as the basis of their work?
I'm afraid those days have now gone for the average artist, that where a short period of effort guaranteed a lifetimes comfort with optional idleness.
This is why so many musicians have had to go back to live performance to bolster their lifestyle.
I won't be a wage slave so these people can live charmed lives and nor should you.
It's an important debate: where do ideas come from? Can they really be owned? Or are we all just building upon the work of the minds that came before us. Seeing further by standing on the shoulders of giants.