Arrr mateys! Button down yer FTP port hatches!

[Jason Dunn]

<a href="http://www.msnbc.com/news/775684.asp">http://www.msnbc.com/news/775684.asp</a><br /><br />Oh boy - this whole thing is about to get even uglier. I suppose it was a natural progression though. Let me tell you a quick story about music downloading:<br /><br />A few months ago, I was at a birthday party for my mother-in-law (her big five-oh). I took a whole whack of digital photos, and later that week I wanted to <a href="http://www.ulead.com/dps/runme.htm">burn them to a VCD</a> so she could look at them on her DVD player. I wanted to put some music in the background, but I wanted it to be something special. So I hopped on to the 'Net, found a list of the top 10 songs of the year that she was born, and one of them happened to be "Unforgettable" by Nat King Cole. It was late at night, I needed to finish the project, and I didn't have that song in my 400+ CD collection. I jumped onto Morpheus, found the song, and burned the CD. <br /><br />Now if I had a simple, legal way to pay $1-2 for that song, would I have purchased it? Absolutely! But was I going to abandon my idea because I couldn't get it legally? No way. Am I a criminal? In the eyes of some, yes.<br /><br />Sooner or later the music labels will figure this out: if they make buying music online easy and cheap, people will buy the music. Most people aren't adverse to paying for something if it's reasonably priced and is almost as good as the "real thing". And most people, if given the choice, will do the legal thing. I know I would have. There are some major initiatives going on by the music labels, but the problem is they're putting their own music online and making it a "our label only" store. Once that isn't as successful as they want it to be, they'll clue in and create a unified online store that offers everything, just like the brick and mortar versions do. But onto the article...<br /><br />"Major music companies are preparing to mount a broad new attack on unauthorized online song-swapping. The campaign would include suits against individuals who are offering the largest troves of songs on peer-to-peer services. The big recording companies, working through their trade association, the Recording Industry Association of America, are moving toward filing copyright lawsuits that would target the highest volume song providers within the services, which allow people to grab songs without paying artists or labels, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The suits would be part of a broader effort, including a public campaign that may feature prominent artists urging music fans to respect copyright rules."

[Will T Smith]

songs will slip from their grasp.

The genie is out of the bottle. The public has numerous ways to circumvent the draconian policies of the record recording industry.

Ultimately, democratization is the only true solution for the issue. Artists must abandon the Recording industry and market their wares DIRECTLY to consumers at reasonable prices. Cutting out the odious and stifling record moguls will make this possible.

Suits add nothing to the creative process. They do not promote quality art, they attempt to herd us all and shove formulaic crap down are throats and inflated prices. It behoovs everyone who respects and appriciates art to resist the RIAA until it dies dead and buried.

[mstie423]

Well said Will T. Smith! As an independent musician myself, my band (www.jackson170.com) has released a self-sufficient CD, but our goal has always been to "get signed". And that's where the money is! As I see it, it's extremely hard for an unknown band to gain momentum to sell enough discs independently.

As for downloading music, I subscribe to Emusic (www.emusic.com). They have tons of artists for the kind of music I'm into, is honest and only costs $10/month.

[danmanmayer]

You could have purchases Nat King Coles unforgettable from pressplay.com it is a monthly fee not a single song fee. But only 9.99 a month. E-music sells single songs but they didn't have the song you were looking for. I still think there needs to be a much better system and I would agree that there really isn't a better method to get music for now. Oh well thought you might want to know.

[RobertCF]

I rarely look for current music. Current music I can get at any cookie-cutter music outlet since they ALL sell the same 50 artists. Which makes me sick. If I want to find a recording that wasn't necessarily mainstream, or at least a no longer frequently requested artist/title, my ONLY hope is to find SOMEONE who happened to have a personal copy and has made it available online. Many MANY have been the times I went search for legitimate copies of songs only to be disappointed at every time, by every online vendor or brick and morter location. "Out of print". "No longer available". No, I don't really expect the RIAA or the label companies to maintain available copies of every artist, every recording they ever owned. But they damned well better NOT expect me to let them force me into buying a lot of the crap they DO have simply because that's what they're supporting. Plus the fact that there is NO excuse for the inflated prices they charge for CDs now. A CD from any artist shouldn't cost more than $7. Period. I nearly choke every time I plunk down $19 for a CD, of which I rarely like more than five songs on in the first place, and often only purchased for ONE song.

If there were truly a place where I could go online, pay a reasonable fee, and download ANY song that's every been recorded, then I'd say you have a winner. But try looking at 30 different "Hits of the 80's" CDs and you'll pretty much see the same 12-20 songs on all of them. Stupid. I have sympathy for the artist, but NONE for the record labels or the RIAA. Come to think of it, there should be a regulation that sets a predefined limit to how much a label can make in producing and promoting an artist. After they reach that limit, ALL money made from continued sales should go directly to the artist.

[Jonathan1]

We really do need a way to spoof IP address's across P2P systems. Once a faking system is in place good luck finding the originators. I have as much sympathy for the RIAA as the talliban for getting trounced by the military. AFAIC both are terrorists in their own way. :x

[Kre]

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