MOAS

If you had a chance to come to one of the world's great cities, what would you do?

If you were a member of MOAS, you'd set your alarm clock for four in the morning, grab some spray paint, and spend hours blasting a wall, bus or train with the graffiti you call your TAG.

A week later, at the cost of thousands of dollars, the paint is removed. That doesn't stop the graffiti artist.

MOAS means "Monsters of Art, Scandanavia," a collection of fools who try to outdo each other in vandalism. They call what they do "art" the same way file download thieves call what they do "sharing."

Graffiti isn't art. Especially when it's done against somebody's will and using somebody else's property.

You ask: "Why be so stupid? Why waste your time? You could be earning money with a job, having a love life, or donating your time for any of 100 charities that need volunteers."

The same can be asked of the ferociously compulsive bloggers who think there is something heroic about taking hundreds of albums they don't own and distributing the music for their own glory.

There is no excuse to paint graffiti on somebody else's property. None.

There is no excuse for stealing somebody's music and sharing it against their wishes. None.

Graffiti artists and hardcore bloggers hate it when somebody "spoils the fun."

"Fun" is covering an entire train with paint? "Fun" is putting every album an artist did on a blog so that the artist loses royalties and a record store owner can't make a legal sale?

The world can use enthusiastic people to volunteer their time for a positive cause.

Instead it's spraying paint and stealing music.

"I painted a hundred walls and trains in the past year."

"I put hundreds of albums on my blog and each got downloaded a hundred times."