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<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Brian Austin Whitney:
Hey Gus,

I am curious about your discussion with your kids and their friends. When they told you point blank that they are going to continue stealing music, what was your response? If they had told you they intended to continue shoplifting candy from the local Wal-Mart, would you have given them the same response (or non response) you gave them about file stealing? I don't mean to single you out because you are but one of zillions of parents who happily allow their kids to openly continue these actions. I am just wondering if you, as someone who also creates music, fail to see the irony? I am guessing if they acknowledged stealing candy you'd have a big problem with it.
Brian </font>


Brian,
Let me start by clearing something you obviously missed on my post and your assuming. (1) I DO NOT allow my kids to download music from those sites. Even though they don't live with me, they understand perfectly well how it effects songwriters like their father. As I mentioned on my post the question was asked to friends of theirs at 2 different schools. And yes, I did try to explain to them it's effect, although my intensions were not to change the world single-handedly at that time..lol. Sadly they just didn't get it.

(2) If there is any "irony" is this: My step daughter use to download from Kazaa, and thought nothing about it, until I sat there with her one day and showed her how one of my songs I wrote years ago had been downloaded over 9,000 times without my permission, and without me seeing a penny from it. I'm happy to say she no longer has the software on her pc. But unfortunately I can't sit down at every kids pc.

As for the "zillions" of parents out there that let their kids download from these illegal sites, they don't see it as stealing because what they're taking is not a physical item (CD, cassette etc.) They're stealing intellectual properties and those parents haven't grasped the meaning of that yet.

There are thousands of debate on the net about intellectual properties, and if they're being stolen or not. The mainstream public just doesn't get it, and it's going to be an endless battle until they do.