Letter to Emily White ⇒

This weekend Emily White, a twenty year-old intern at NPR’s All Songs Considered, wrote a blog post defending her music library, which contains over 11,000 songs she mostly hasn’t paid for.

On Tuesday, David Lowery published a devastating, 4000 word response to her post over at The Trichordist.

I also find this all this sort of sad. Many in your generation are willing to pay a little extra to buy “fair trade” coffee that insures the workers that harvested the coffee were paid fairly. Many in your generation will pay a little more to buy clothing and shoes from manufacturers that certify they don’t use sweatshops. Many in your generation pressured Apple to examine working conditions at Foxconn in China. Your generation is largely responsible for the recent cultural changes that has given more equality to same sex couples. On nearly every count your generation is much more ethical and fair than my generation. Except for one thing. Artist rights.

Piracy is the third rail on blogs, but Lowery injects the conversation with a healthy dose of humanity, an element usually lacking from these sorts of diatribes.

Read the whole thing. It’ll make you want to buy an album or five.