mp3's, laws, and culture

[Tollef Fog Heen]

* volvoguy 

| I have some pretty strict standards for myself in regards to "trading"
| music. I have several friends that share my musical tastes and we
| frequently swap mp3's of music we think another person might like.
| Technically that's illegal.

That might be illegal in your country, but here it's still legal.

| If we like the music, we buy the cd.

It's getting really hard to find music on CDs nowadays, most is just
on those crap play-protected lookalike-discs which are horrible.
I refuse to buy those discs.

| As a semi-professional musician, I can totally understand why some
| artists are so anti-piracy.

It's not piracy, it's not theft.  It might be illegimate copying of
non-software bits which can be bad enough, but trying to solve a
social problem with technical measures has never worked.  Why does
people share divx-es en masse?  Because it's cheap, easy and less
cumbersome than getting the DVD from a shop.  If I could get a copy of
a film from somewhere online, easy, cheap and hassle-free (that means
no DRM and similar restrictions), I would certainly do that and be
happy to pay for it.

Also, at least here, we're paying for the right to copy, as blank
media have a small fee added to cover for sales lost due to copying.

Similarly -- make it possible for me to get music hassle-free, cheap
and lawfully, and I will.

| To put it in perspective, it would be like Wired magazine running an
| article detailing the steps to pirate commercial software.

Nope, that's actually illegal here.

-- 
Tollef Fog Heen                                                        ,''`.
UNIX is user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are      : :' :
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