i remember that. i still have one of the tapes i made. you're right, there wasn't much good stuff to choose from.
A big part of the problem for RIAA is that much of the public does not consider file sharing to be theft. Frankly, I have a little trouble with that concept too. At most it seems like an abuse of the fair use exception. I think the labels have so abused their copyright protection through price gouging that they deserve to lose some protection. I know RIAA wanted to use this lawsuit binge to scare everybody, but the label exec's have to be having second thoughts about the publicity they're getting. Also, too much publicity like this and they risk their biggest asset, the slimy politicians in their hip pocket. Here's a concept. Why should the Republicans support a music industry that is almost universally hostile to them? Does the industry actually contribute that much to Republicans? Hard to believe. Why not turn on the industry and make file sharing legal? Talk about getting the youth vote.
...and who said downloads were bad??? and PS everyone hates the recording industry enough as it is, and people see them as being the ULTIMATE form of "corporate sleaze" -- as max401 pointed out, people would NOT be OK with that 12 year old girl shoplifting food, but nobody seems to have a problem with her stealing from the recording industry. this lawsuit against the 12yr old and others like it will only serve to solidify hatred against the RIAA, and cause a further evolution of networks and products away from their "current" bid-ness model.
Overpricing is not the problem. Any savvy consumer knows where to get CDs for around $13 on the internet. Album prices have remained relatively consistent throughout the past few decades (factoring inflation) but the industry began it's slump years before file-sharing. The real problem is the over-saturated market and lack of quality material. No one wants to spend $13 on one good song and twelve shitty ones. That's why most people just download individual songs off the internet. But I have no problem shelling out the cash for good music and quality packaging!
Are you kidding? One day I have no music, a few months later and spending zero dollars, I have 3,000 copyrighted tunes that originally came from those artist's CD's. And then I offer up access to my hard disk to any and all that want to make additional copies of these 3,000 songs for themselves. Simple abuse of Fair Use? Hardly. It's outright theft of copyrighted material.
a couple years ago, 2 of the largest music file sharing services were located....in the IT departments of major labels. no kidding. publicity people at some of the labels have also let 'slip out' some of the tunes accidentally - oops! - onto kazaa and morpheus (a while back) to generate advance buzz for an artist. the flipside is that on some artists, no advance CDs are distributed (ie. madonna) - reviewers have to go to the offices in nyc / la and listen via headphones in an office. and others have 1-2 second gaps periodically in the song to prevent advance distribution. also, for anyone who thinks the labels are doing this to protect the artist - WRONG. if that were true, the labels wouldn't have deals with the BMG/ColumbiaHouse disc clubs. when you get a disc from these clubs, unless it's one of the "buy 1 disc" option, the artist gets NO MONEY. that's right. zero. in the contracts, they are counted as promotional items. the labels do it because they get all the money at limited cost to them. i'm not going out of my way to defend the downloading of current songs...but the RIAA's approach and 'facts' have been, and continue to be, mainly lies and distorted truths. their actions are several years behind the times, and continue to be of the 'shoot myself in the foot' variety.
the NOW compilations are chock full of songs which are easily downloadable. all current hits... however, whether in the UK or the US (or elsewhere in the world) the NOW compilations are immediate best sellers. why? on most of those artists, people want the current hit single from the radio. 20 songs (half of which they like / will like), $10-15 is a comfort range for most people. the labels have known this for years and resisted mightily, because their major money comes in from album sales.
1) Suing Kaza, or whoever, is idiotic. Might as well sue GM for producing cars that alcoholics kill people with. 2) File sharing is NOT illegal 3) Stealing copyrighted material IS illegal. The artist/individual should be protected 4) The RIAA is digging it's own grave. Their business model is flawed. I haven't purchased a CD in YEARS because I refuse to pay for "filler". I usually want a CD for ONE song. 5) Apples i-tunes is the best model i've seen. I would happily pay $1 for every one hit wonder I want. The RIAA should embrace this before the file sharers wipe them out. 6) The RIAA will be in a world of hurt when they start losing some of these legal battles based on technicalities. For example.... if you get notified by your ISP that they are looking at you... just wipe out all traces of downloaded music. In court, claim that there are MULTIPLE users of your cable modem using a NAT router. Then make sure you have a wireless router as well and claim that someone may have hijacked your wireless connection to share files. Is that enough reasonable doubt for ya? peace axeman
as usual, axeman delivers PURE UNBIASED LOGIC AND DEALS WITH REALITY. i wish more of the world was like you, axeman!