The sharing aspects of the open-source platform of the internet allows ideas of pragmatist democracy to be truly experienced. John Dewey on technological developments in a democracy stated "Persons do not become a society by living in physical proximity any more than a man ceases to be socially influenced by being so many feet or miles removed from others" -John Dewey (Feenberg). The ability of music listeners to share music has created an alternative economic model for the music industry. When the music is free how do artist make their money? Well it occurs with touring and selling special products like limited edition albums, books, shirts, products etc. Open-source philosophy has destroyed the panoptic power system of ownership and production. When items can be shared and distributed at next to no cost then the power of production no longer exists on the ability to get that product into the hands of consumers. It rely much greater on the ability of users to find the product, in this case music, valuable. Open-source utilizes in its philosophy a Good Reasons approach which is a meta-ethical theory that states simply that ethical conduct is justified if the actor has good reasons for that conduct. (Toulmin) Simply stated, music is good and should be shared free of cost.
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