Onlline Music : the problem technology creates

[masterof_none]

Please read the background of online music battle
http://economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2552490

Recently, the music industry expands its law suits for illegal music sharing abroad.
Do you support RIAA's move. ?

This is particularly interesting piece of information:


However, this latest legal attack has already encountered a setback. On Wednesday, a Canadian judge ruled, in effect, that file-sharing was legal under Canadian copyright law. The ruling does not have force elsewhere, and the Canadian Recording Industry Association said it was likely to appeal. If that does not work, it may try to lobby the government in Ottawa to change the law. But politicians will be reluctant to do anything that appears to favour big business over consumers.

I support intellectual property rights. Can anyone argue that downloading/copying a song that one can buy for 99 cents (on an online music store) not consitute to blantant stealing? If you think stealing is right and ethical, then I cannot argue on that since it reduces to a philosophical stand.

[masterof_none]

I support intellectual property rights. Can anyone argue that downloading/copying a song that one can buy for 99 cents (on an online music store)

As far as the iTunes goes, it's got DRM (digital rights management) to protect the song from being copied freely.
However, Apple allows users to copy the songs to up to 3 macs.
plus, users get a chance to share their purchased songs (and other ripped and 'illegally' downloaded songs) within their networks. Those people can only 'share' the songs, not copy them to their own hard disk. So, practically, iTunes ensures all songs being protected from being swapped in the Net . (although numerous attempt has been made to crack the iTunes DRM . this is one of them (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2003/11/20031122001549.shtml)

I'm sure the other online music stores (including napster and 88-cents wal-mart store) have their own DRM.

But I think, the debate here is, whether illegal music downloads would make any difference to the artist who create the songs.

[wwhong]

i came across an article on wired news (www.wired.com) that some researcher think that the online music sharing is not the main reason that the recording company lose money but instead it's the lack of quality of the music being the main reason. yup, intellectual property should be respected but if they charge too much, then there's another problem.

[masterof_none]

Following a wildly popular iTunes/ iPod , there are mounting pressure on Apple to raise the price of it's $0.99 per song signature.

has been in the Google News for a while:
http://www.forbes.com/home/newswire/2004/05/07/rtr1364244.html

Now folks at riaa realize that there is money to be made off of the internet.

[el_empty]

in addition, i believe the controversy is stemmed from the riaa's coupling of the hit singles, the songs people want to hear, into a whole album. in other words, you pay full price of an album for one song that you want - chances are the other songs suck really bad.

that's why apple's itunes store was so successful. they sell singles. and not just any riaa singles that cost almost as much as a whole album (also coupled with some remixes or acoustic versions... bleah...).

and this is one of the arguments used by pro file-sharers in pressuring the riaa to reconsider their pricing scheme. also these are the same guys who support underground music.

[iQing]

yo pls check out this one...

http://www.zeropaid.com/news/articles/auto/05202004d.php