This house would abrogate the HADOPI law - First Opposing Speech

First Opposing speech
Like my dear rival in this debate has said a few lines below, “Now that tune-downloading has outshined CD-buying, the time has come for us to think about our rights”. And isn’t the right of propriety one of this rights? The right of being remunerated for offering a product or a service which one has created? Should we let some people keep stealing in that way? Should we let some people be stolen? I think there is no need to answer these questions. [...]

by XS 

And that’s why we are strongly against this motion. In our opinion, the Hadopi law must not be abrogated, and here there are some arguments explaining that point of view.

First of all, I would like to talk of the, in my opinion, the most important and careful point of that law: the copyright. The artist who creates a song a sings it, the producer who records it and release it into the market… don’t they deserve a remuneration for that? They are selling a product and what we are doing in downloading their songs is to steal that product, to take it without paying, to take advantage of them and their work. Of course, we all love music and we all have fun in listening to music but we can also have fun in respecting the rights of those who make us have fun.

I would also like to talk about another of the arguments the first proposing debater has given: “music and films are way too expensive”. Really? I don’t think that 0,99€ (what a song costs if we download it legally, for example in the iTunes Store) is a great amount of money… Moreover, in these places they let you listen to the songs for at least 20 seconds before you buy it. And what about the films? To rent a movie for a night does not cost too much, neither. Of course, all of this is more expensive that having it free, but in these cases we are not committing a crime, we are not stealing anything.

Another important point for the defense of the law is the economical one. In downloading things illegally, we are destroying jobs and stagnating some sectors of our economy. If the producing companies don’t earn money with their activity, they will not offer their products anymore, they will stop their activity and, finally, they will disappear. Is that what we want? To kill or, at least, reduce the artistic world?

Finally, I will talk of the aspect of creation. I think it’s clear that by downloading artworks we are stopping the aim of creation. If one cannot live by creating songs or films or computer games or whatever, he probably will try another way of life. And, maybe, he would have been a good artist, maybe he would have taught us a lot of things, maybe he would have change a lot of minds… But if we don’t let him do it, we will never know.

Anyway, either you are for or against the motion, thank you for reading these words and I hope you vote for us!

XS