Casually browsing DU, I found the reason they're demonizing people who download music:

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=927120

Just imagine -- EVERYBODY who's not part of the ruling elite can be put in prison any time they like. All they have to do is accuse them of "piracy," search their computer -- and they'll find something. Even if it's some attachment of an unread email. Even if it's a rip of a CD they once owned and then lost.

And for those who can't afford a computer -- well, those tend to be so poor the good old-fashioned methods described in the link above work well enough on them.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Private prisons demand "customers".

With the advent of privatizing American justice, you have investors constructing and maintaining prisons around the country. To make a profit, they must have residents, and they won't come of their own volition and free will. Therefore you have the legal system and the criminal justice system working in tandem to allow for more liberal arrests, have the cost of criminal defense so cost prohibitive that the defendants don't have a chance of exoneration, legislators making new laws allowing such arrests, and voila! You have instant prisons up and running. And the "prisoners" take the place of employees who had to be paid at least minimum wage. Have you seen on the news how when you call the tollfree numbers for airline reservations and prisoners are on the other end.

So it might be a stretch to see yourself inevitably in prison asking how many adults and how many children because of a download, I can nonetheless see that there is terrific overreach going on right now on behalf of the corporatists.

[dave_p]

2. It's just corporate theft

It's about forcing people to pay for crap that isn't worth paying for.

Most of the pirating tends to be crap anyway. People who care about music tend to buy to support the acts who need the money to keep going.

And the music worth paying for tends not to come from the corporations doing the whining. That doesn't stop them claiming the money even when it's not their acts.

Pirating corporate music is a moral and cultural obligation to penalize crap and create space for music that enriches the listener.

[zbdent]

3. The recording industry would collapse

if they had to pay back all the money they ripped off from the artists that they're so "concerned" about now ...