To download or not to download.

That is the question.

Weather tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous CD prices, or to take arms against a sea of Britney Spears wannabes, and, by downloading emo songs, make fun of them?

We’ve all heard the debate over the ethics and morality of downloading music.

Music Industry Side: We like money, and if you don’t pay for the album, we get less money. Therefore, we are going to put you little hippy bastards in jail.

Artist Side: Look, after my producers, lawyers, accountants, agents, personal trainers, and astrologers get done stealing whatever money I make from this new album, there is barely any money left over for me as it is. I need the cash- drugs don’t grow on trees, man. Don’t download music.

Consumer Side: Downloading music is not just morally and ethically correct, but we are all obligated to download music in order to teach the recording industry a lesson- that lesson being, stop with all your capitalist money trip, man.

Me personally, I was the king of Limewire, but I recently decided that it just wasn’t right. I deleted Limewire and about eleven gigs of downloaded music off my laptop. You really cannot make the argument that downloading music isn’t stealing.

Mordechai Ben David, Hasidic recording artist and the genius behind “Let my People Go”, “Jerusalem is Not for Sale”, and “Just One Shabbos”, has a different approach- he asks people, nicely, not to download music.

Here’s the video.



H/T Yeshivaworld.