Continued stupidity for the masses...
Before you read this story, check out this onfo. It's about a 15-year-old criminal. She's stolen products and services valued at US$825,000, mostly over the internet. Her thefts have taken money out of pockets of hundreds of people. Do you think this is wrong? Hmmm...
Her crime? Downloading, and inadvertantly sharing, music files on the internet. One of over 250 people that the RIAA is suing for breaking DMCA and copyright laws. Valued at approximately $750/song, many people are being offered lower settlement amounts to not fight it in court. Megan's settlement is for $3500. Do you think she should pay this or fight it?
Personally, I have mixed feelings about this type of situation. I've often downloaded music frmo the internet. Generally speaking, if the song sucks, I delete it. If I like it, often I'll go buy the CD. Recently, I've begun buying songs from Apple's iTunes Song Library. I like the quality of the music, and they tend to have a good selection of songs.
Software, music, and electronically distributable goods are always going to suffer this issue. Software "piracy" has been going on since the dawn of the personal computer. Truly, this is a vicious cycle. As more software is pirated, software prices tend to climb. As software becomes too pricey, more people pirate those wares. I think pricing reform for dsitrubtable goods would be very healthy for the market. But most companies and organizations are unwilling or slow to move to such measures. Downloadable music for fees is starting to become more popular. hopefully that trend will climb. As it gets more possible, the liklihood of music being cheaper grows. Generally a dollar a song now, music could get much chearper still (though that is a good price) if demand increases greatly.
However, the RIAA is not approaching this situation correctly. Instead of suing individuals, perhaps companies should be held to more accountability. Peer-to-peer file sharing programs have a great many legitimate uses. Perhaps laws should be instituted that prevent the transfer of copyrighted materials, or files with certain extensions. Though this seems somewhat useless to the mainstream computer user, many people using PCs right now would have no clue how to change a file extension, or if the downloaded a song with a different extension, they'd have no idea how to change it back, or play the song.
Copy-protected CDs have proven to be a failure on many levels. because such protection generally goes against the grain of the standards for Audio CD creation, some players will not properly play those CDs. With the cost of CDs still being far too expensive for cost of production (including royalties paid to musicians and such), more care needs to be taken that these will be universally usable. Standards are called such for a reason, no? If I were to pay $15 for a CD that I could not play in my car, I would, needless to say, be quite upset. Furthermore, current federal laws would prevent me from returning that opened CD. This would further my irritation. Do record labels offer refunds for these types of discs? Are they accountable to any federal trade laws for such actions? If anyone knows, I'd love to hear about it.
Well, that was my rant for the afternoon. Yay!
Her crime? Downloading, and inadvertantly sharing, music files on the internet. One of over 250 people that the RIAA is suing for breaking DMCA and copyright laws. Valued at approximately $750/song, many people are being offered lower settlement amounts to not fight it in court. Megan's settlement is for $3500. Do you think she should pay this or fight it?
Personally, I have mixed feelings about this type of situation. I've often downloaded music frmo the internet. Generally speaking, if the song sucks, I delete it. If I like it, often I'll go buy the CD. Recently, I've begun buying songs from Apple's iTunes Song Library. I like the quality of the music, and they tend to have a good selection of songs.
Software, music, and electronically distributable goods are always going to suffer this issue. Software "piracy" has been going on since the dawn of the personal computer. Truly, this is a vicious cycle. As more software is pirated, software prices tend to climb. As software becomes too pricey, more people pirate those wares. I think pricing reform for dsitrubtable goods would be very healthy for the market. But most companies and organizations are unwilling or slow to move to such measures. Downloadable music for fees is starting to become more popular. hopefully that trend will climb. As it gets more possible, the liklihood of music being cheaper grows. Generally a dollar a song now, music could get much chearper still (though that is a good price) if demand increases greatly.
However, the RIAA is not approaching this situation correctly. Instead of suing individuals, perhaps companies should be held to more accountability. Peer-to-peer file sharing programs have a great many legitimate uses. Perhaps laws should be instituted that prevent the transfer of copyrighted materials, or files with certain extensions. Though this seems somewhat useless to the mainstream computer user, many people using PCs right now would have no clue how to change a file extension, or if the downloaded a song with a different extension, they'd have no idea how to change it back, or play the song.
Copy-protected CDs have proven to be a failure on many levels. because such protection generally goes against the grain of the standards for Audio CD creation, some players will not properly play those CDs. With the cost of CDs still being far too expensive for cost of production (including royalties paid to musicians and such), more care needs to be taken that these will be universally usable. Standards are called such for a reason, no? If I were to pay $15 for a CD that I could not play in my car, I would, needless to say, be quite upset. Furthermore, current federal laws would prevent me from returning that opened CD. This would further my irritation. Do record labels offer refunds for these types of discs? Are they accountable to any federal trade laws for such actions? If anyone knows, I'd love to hear about it.
Well, that was my rant for the afternoon. Yay!