I believe music is more than "information", when I buy an album, I'm not buying the sheet music but the recorded of someone more talented than myself performing that music.
How do you apply "information wants to be free" to music like this?
I'm saying that a recording of a band performing a song IS more than information, there's the added value of someone performing that deserves compensation.
Nothing and I never claimed that it does? I disagree with the whole "information wants to be free" rhetoric in regards to music in this specific context.
Yes an MP3 is literally and pedantically information, however it also has an additional worth to me that I find rewarding to pay for. I believe people who enjoy music but use this argument to acquire it for free are deluding themselves.
I'm asking what makes sheet music any more information than recorded music. Are you trying to say that I'm somehow calling an airport restroom, a freshly cut flower, and a brand new car information? Or are you just disqualifying me from the conversation as a rhetorical trick to avoid answering a simple, straightforward question?
I thought I detected you heading in that direction. Yes, people do try to make that argument.
Sheet music is like an instruction manual. Follow the instructions, you can make something. I consider instructions to be information. Recorded music, on the other hand, is a performance. A performance is art, while sheet music describes art?
I don't have technical definitions, this is just how I see it.
How do you apply "information wants to be free" to music like this?
How do you differentiate? An .MP3 is just another data file, trivially copied, with the added downside that government has decreed that under certain common circumstances anyone can play it while paying him less than a pittance for it. I'm not advocating this view, just noting the painful reality thereof.
I meant it more as a personal question to people who say this. If an artist's music has value to someone, I'm curious what sort of mental gymnastics they perform to believe "All information wants to be free; therefore I will acquire this music for free."
It's always struck me as just a way to absolve yourself of guilt for pirating music.
I think the real phrase should be "Information is just information, people want it to be free."
How do you apply "information wants to be free" to music like this?