Hey Eric, I am really curious what you think about this issue as a whole. I mean I have gotten bits and pieces from your various posts, but what is your opinion if you had to summarize the RIAA and downloading in one paragraph. I get the feeling you are saying there is nothing wrong with downloading.

I personally am kind of straddling the line on this one. I realize that downloading is wrong and had stopped doing it before the RIAA started suing people. I still download to preview, which is technically illegal, but I justify it with the number of CD's I buy.

Anyway if I had to summarize my own position, I would say, I like downloading, I realize it is wrong, but I can't figure out why it is good to sue your customer base. Finally I think the music industry has a responsibility to offer an alternative to downloading illegally which will reflect a lower price to the consumer because of decreased production costs on tangible discs.

I would be on the side of the music industry if I believed for a second the RIAA were carrying out these lawsuits in the interests of the artists rather than the record companies. I don't want the artists to suffer, but if the record companies insist on acts of hostility (lawsuits, copy-controlled CDs, etc) towards consumers, I don't feel any obligation to be good to them.

I think where I have a problem with filesharing is the aspect that friends aren't really borrowing the material as if I had loaned you a book to read or CD to listen. This seems to be the distinction that the RIAA fundamentally is clinging to as well.

If there was a way (sure, technically there is) to share a file and have it be time sensitive for file access that might be a temporary fix.

Of course there would then be filesharing these time sensitive files, so once the time runs out someone just goes and downloads another replacement. I can see people doing that a few times as opposed to ponying up the coinage to buy the song. Not me, but I can see it for mostly younger music buyers.

Or some brainiac cracker would break the code for the time sensitive aspect and render the protection useless. It's too bad, but for every "protection" there will be assuredly come a crack.

The only solution is to fill the market with legal, quality download alternatives and appeal to people's sense of right and wrong.

I buy music and download through legal channels or rip music from CDs I've purchased. Would I go download a file that I couldn't buy that was technically superior to what was available? Yes, I probably would.

So for me it isn't a question of legality so much as it is accessibility and quality. I've still bought a few tunes from buymusic.com and their quality is marginal at best, thought their distribution and selection is getting better. I am very much looking forward to iTunes (and hoping the quality is better than 128/44)

I am not sure if file sharing is wrong, but in general I would say that file sharing copyrighted material without permission is currently illegal, which is not the same thing. Speeding is illegal, but I would say it is "driving unsafely" that is wrong. Private use of marijuana is illegal but for the life of me I can't see it as morally any different from alcohol.

As I always say: I want to see creators get paid, I want creators to feel there is a financial incentive for them to create, and I see true "pirating" - that is the unauthorized copying of copyrighted material FOR SALE - as an unambiguous wrong. Bit I also feel very strongly about privacy and free speech over the Internet (as elsewhere) and I see these and the advance of technology in as unfettered a form as is possible to be more important than defending an antiquated distribution system. I see some sort of licensing or taxing scheme as the only answer that meets all these needs. I haven't made up my mind about an opt-in or opt-out option yet. It isn't perfect - nothing human is. But it is certainly better than anything we have now. I also want to see copyright scaled back considerably in general - over the last century, the pendulum has swung far toward the side of excessive control for outrageous duration.

I am at the point now that I feel like if downloading is an alternative to buying cd's is there much difference than bootlegging? You are just making a single personal bootleg every time you download and burn. How is that so different than bootlegging and selling? It is on a smaller scale, but basically the same thing.

So, now I use it as a preview tool and to get rare bootlegs and stuff that is unavailable in the stores. For example, I got two Warren Zevon radio station bootlegs the other day. One with Jackson Browne. I can't buy those in the CD store, so I don't feel badly.

Anyway, the common ground for all of us I think, is that the RIAA is going about their business horribly.

Yeah, I'll agree with that. And that the RIAA folks are "outrageously arrogant pricks," even if they are correct about the fact that people (who apparently have moral compasses similar to "Slick" Willie Clinton) are stealing.

whether it's stealing or not isn't even relevant anymore. the genie is out of the bottle and no amount of technolgy-grease will stuff her back in.

the sooner these idiots at the riaa get a handle on that, the sooner they can start developing a solution that makes them money.

so far, they just keep digging the pit deeper & deeper while shoveling the money in.

While I am appalled by them suing their user community, I am not sure what options were left to them to trump services like Napster and Kazaa. In order to have a solution that people will choose, how could they compete with free, if it was determined they couldn't do anything about the enabler services? I don't blame the RIAA completely. I also blame the situation they were in. They tried suing the services that enabled people to steal, but that didn't work. They weren't left with many options. I can't think of one thing that they could add to their service which would make people choose it over Kazaa. I must again restate that I hate their tactics, but what would you have them do?

Craig wrote:

I am at the point now that I feel like if downloading is an alternative to buying cd's is there much difference than bootlegging? You are just making a single personal bootleg every time you download and burn. How is that so different than bootlegging and selling? It is on a smaller scale, but basically the same thing.

So, now I use it as a preview tool and to get rare bootlegs and stuff that is unavailable in the stores. For example, I got two Warren Zevon radio station bootlegs the other day. One with Jackson Browne. I can't buy those in the CD store, so I don't feel badly.

The Arista reps attitude mirrors the attitude I reported on last week as represented by the snotty new copyright warning in the A Perfect Circle liner notes. Read it here: http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/09/17/182536.php

I don't get it... why are the record co's spending SO much money on this? You can still get around this 'fool proof' system. Just play the CD on a normal CD player (non-computer), then run an rca cable or audio cable into your soundcard. Then on your pc use a proggy like Acid Music to record and divide the songs into tracks.

There are easy ways to get around these systems... maybe the record companies should educate respectfully and people would file-share in a honorable way.

Keying on the RIAA's arrogance, let's remember that they've chosen to focus on file sharing as the *sole* cause of the music industry's problems, when many others can be easily cited (e.g. high cd prices, lack of diversity in new product and the corporately-owned media, alienation of the non-primary buying market, etc). In short, the majors are trying to peddle products that I find to be both over-valued and uninteresting, and they refuse to accept any responsibility for my disinterest.

Sorry majors, but I feel no loyalty to a collective who's seeking someone else's business. And RIAA, what point is there in establishing, as many have before you, that fear does not breed loyalty?

I am hoping (glass half full) that this is just the first step in a plan that will first rid the world of the wrong kind of file sharing and then give us an alternative. Probably is wishful thinking, but I am not naive enough to think that Kazaa is perfectly acceptable either.

I'm very curious to see how this software the disc wants to install works. If you choose not to install it, can't you just rip the tracks to your harddrive as usual? The disc can't install the software without your permission, correct? Otherwise it's a virus. So who's to say people aren't going to just skip the install and rip a disc like this for friends?

Copy protection = stupidity and futility in action.

Also, there's no mention of compatibility in this article. Will this disc play everywhere? Because if they prevent me from listening to music in my car, a common problem for copy-protected discs, what good is this disc? And what about at work, where most computers are locked to prevent installation of software? At some point, the industry has to realize that if they don't address these two concerns, their copy-protection efforts are a failure before they've even shipped anything with it.