File-Sharing, The Artist's Role in Society, Good Books

I saw a really interesting and amazingly civil discussion online about the question: "Is illegally sharing music immoral?"

The link is here:
<a href="http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/todays-question/archive/2009/07/is-downloading-music-illegally-the-same-as-stealing.shtml" target="_blank">http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/todays-question/archive/2009/07/is-downloading-music-illegally-the-same-as-stealing.shtml</a>

After reading the thread I got excited about posting a comment, but my comment got super-long, so I made a shorter comment and put the longer one on my blog. Here is the shorter comment, and then a link to the longer comment on my blog:

This discussion is really interesting and amazingly civil. I started a comment but it got way too long. So I put my comment on my blog rather than putting a huge long space-hogger here. It's on danwilsonblog.blogspot.com instead.

"Arts, Inc" by Bill Ivey, is a book which argues that the copyright policy has been hijacked by large corporations who don't give a rip about artists or the public's access to great art. Dry, but super-interesting.

Also just finished "The Gift" by Lewis Hyde, which addresses a lot of these issues, in a peaceful and optimistic meander that eventually takes on the artist's role in society and how to feel good about it. It's a really inspiring book for the artists out there who wonder just how much our culture really values them, if it does at all.

Bought both books, by the way, didn't borrow them! :)

For my too-long comment, go to either my myspace blog (myspace.com/danwilsonmusic) or my blogspot blog:

The link is here:
<a href="http://danwilsonblog.blogspot.com" target="_blank">http://danwilsonblog.blogspot.com</a>