Most home tapers asserted that they used their machines mostly to make copies of LPs for use in their cars, or to make compilation tapes. Again, impossible to quantify. The same thing is happening now... is it any wonder the computer industry raised an outcry, when a HUGE number of blank CD-Rs are used for non-musical purposes? (My wife, who is in the banking business, has probably burned 25 CDs in the past month but has not put a music file on any of them.)

When the original, non-recordable CD came along, and people started buying CDs to replace their scratchy records and fuzzy tapes, the debate cooled for awhile because sales were great. Then the CD-R and Napster came along and heated things up again. And whether you like it or not, the game HAS changed...in the olden days 10 or 15 years ago, a kid might allow two or three or six of his friends to make a cassette copy an album...now, with the internet, one copy uploaded could theoretically turn into millions of unpaid-for copies.

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All of the hysterical anti-Napster arguments are exactly the same hysterical anti-DAT arguments of 10 years ago.

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No they aren't. When DAT came out, yes you had digital recording, but you didn't have the worldwide web (at least not in widespread use like it is today) with the ability to fling a copyrighted file worldwide in seconds.

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As for that rotten little fellow who snuck in the back door of your theatre,...[snip]...the first thing that the police officer would ask you is what did he steal?

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Well there is a thing called "theft of service" which might hold up...same as if you hook up an illegal satellite dish or cable TV. I'm not a lawyer. But the bottom line is, if I catch somebody sneaking into the theatre, I kick'em out...the only time I would call the cops is if the little bastard refused to leave. Haven't had that problem yet.

Joe said:

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Are we the only ones who notice how bad MP3's sound?

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You're not the only ones, but you gotta admit that millions of the downloading masses, who listen to their tunes on cheap headphones or crappy boomboxes or super-bass-pounding car stereos, probably don't give two hoots about sound quality. The operative word is "free."

Also, Joe: You're right about the free movie viewing. SHeeesh, I must owe Spielberg alone at least a couple of hundred bucks!

John said:

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Since the evisceration of Napster, the recording industry is apparently in free-fall. Major label album sales are down 8%, and concert ticket sales are down 12%.

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Well now we've come full circle; this is the topic that started this whole thread. Allow me to quote myself from waaaaay up on page one:

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The reason CD sales are down is because there are no "blockbusters" yet this year. Last year there were new albums by Britney Spears and NSync, both of which mega-sold in their first week. This year, there is no comparable product bringing the kids into the stores.

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When the next big thing comes along, you'll see sales soaring again. The boy-band craze has cooled; the Spice Girls aren't so spicy any more. (A new NSync album was released yesterday; let's see how well that sells.) The problem lies more in artists being unable to make more than one or two decent albums, and kids' musical tastes being wildly fickle. Bring in some good music and sales will increase. Copying or no copying.

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Bring in some good music and sales will increase. Copying or no copying.

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The music industry likes to blame Napster. The real reasons are (not in any particular order):

• Racist sales practices
  
• Racist advertising practices
  
• Overreliance on superstar product
  
• Overreliance on record company promotions
  
• Industry support of censorship
  
• Industry support of blacklisting
  

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The CD format is fine the way it is and as someone who has "been a good boy" and purchased CDs of all the music I wanted, I resent the practice of messing with the CDs to make them not work in computer CD-ROM drives or make it harder to make MP3 files to play at work (to keep me from having to constantly transport CDs around).

Since I typically bought, on the average, one CD every other day for many years, Sony and Universal won't get that money from me any more unless they change back to standard CDs. Imagine what happe\ns when they piss off other frequent buyers. It's been good for me as far as saving money goes. That 200 to 300 dollars stays in my bank account rather than going to greedy record companies.

Why could I suddenly do this and quit "cold turkey"? The new music is very poor quality in comparison to Top 40 music from even 2 years ago. My favorite music category is 50s and 60s rock, and I never hear anything on the oldies stations that I like that I don't have. I've pretty well achieved closure on the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and the years 2000 and 2001, and I don't like the new music of late 2001 and now, so I quit. Either they're going to have to come out with new oldies compilations with stuff I want, or generate some new music that is good and not on copy-protected CDs if they want my business again.

Evans A Criswell
A collector and lover of music

Joe Public might believe the crap that the music companies put out about CDs being indestructable and be quite happy to play their original, copy-protected discs in a player like this. But we all know that even slight scratching can make a track unplayable, and I don't see that I should have to run this risk just because the big record companies say so.

Besides, the copy protection won't work. Ultimately a CD is just bits and bytes encoded on a carrier, and if they can be encoded by software written by a human, then they can be decoded the same way. There's probably already a download site somewhere offering a program to crack these discs, just like there are several which tell you how to defeat the region coding in DVD drives.

Unauthorised copying of copyrighted music recordings has been going on since the days of 78s: neither magnetic wire recording, open reel tapes, cassettes nor CD-Rs killed the industry. I take the point about the increased quality of digital copying and the industry's perception that this is 'cloning' the original, but people are still going to buy legit versions if only for the packaging, marketing or whatever. And besides, a lot of the music industry's revenue comes from sources other than retail CD sales, e.g. royalty payments by broadcasters.

Another example where the public is smarter than the rich and powerful.

Here's the total hypocrisy in the RIAA's stance. They do NOTHING at all to acknowledge the FACT that music CDs are way way overpriced. For example, I paid more money for my "original motion picture soundtrack" CD to "The Matrix" than I did for the DVD of "The Matrix".

It is a fact that 28 states have filed a class action lawsuit against all the major record labels for price fixing and price gouging. Do they really expect people to pay $20 for a plain, bare bones CD in this day and age!!!????

It is also a fact that many recording artists do not make one red cent off the albums they sell. The music industry is every bit as bad as the film distributors in "rolling-break-even" accounting practices. I seem to recall music artists like Don Henley and Alannis Morrisette testifying before a house sub-committee about how many artists do not get paid for album sales. Most music acts only make their money from touring and selling merchandise. The sharks at the record companies keep the proceeds from CD sales. Only when a group has gotten as big as U2 or Brittney Spears can they have the clout to demand their royalty checks and have those royalty checks exacted from a fair percentage of the album earnings.

So when that clown stood onstage talking about how "we must guarantee that artists get paid" I really have to belly-laugh over such hypocrisy. Give me a freaking break!

When music CDs are priced at a more fair level (like perhaps $7 to $10 per disc) and I know the record labels aren't bending over their artists without any benefit of lube or even a kiss before being sodomized, then I might feel a little less inclinded to download a lesser-than-CD-quality MP3 file off of Morpheus. But, gee, I'm hardly even doing that.

Much of my entertainment dollars are going to buying DVD Video and watching movies at well aligned movie theaters. At least that is one area of entertainment where I feel I am getting my money's worth.

Like Bobby says, CDs are overpriced, and I happen to think that much of the new music is crap. Granted there will always be something good out there to buy. But if the soundtrack costs more than the DVD of the same movie, then something is DEFINITELY wrong! Especially when the DVD is usually recorded in 5.1 channels. I'd rather "rip off" the recording industry them have them rip me off and save my moral conscience and hope that what comes around goes around (things don't work like that). I know some might say "two wrongs don't make a right" but look at it in this perspective: You want as little "evil" in the world as possible, correct? Which is the bigger evil.... A percentage of people downloading some MP3's now and then from the internet, or record companies overcharging EVERYONE with new releases and the such? I think the latter is far more "evil". And if they are going to dish it out on everyone, then I don't feel the least bit bad about downloading 20 or so songs every two years from the internet. Another way to look at it would be if your house was broken into and some things were stolen. You can't prove that you once owned those items and the law can't do anything to help. Do you attempt to steal some of your stuff back or just sit there and say "Oh well, I've been taken advantage of again and I refuse to do anything about it"?

Also many times songs are on soundtracks that are not really in the movie. ("Music From and Inspired By"). Those artists probably get a lot more than the ones that just appear in the movie for a second or two.