fyi
50 years of telling us "the rules don't matter" and "stick it to the 'Man'", and now the record industry wants everybody to be good little boys and girls?
Sorry but I think they are getting what's coming to them.
Here's my take.
When I bought albums years ago, they finally got scratched. When I replaced them, say with cassette tapes, everybody got paid again for the same work. The production of the tape without all the artist and agent fees is very low, but I had to pay full price for a replacement. Then CD's came out. I had to pay full price again, even though the production cost of the CD was even less than the previous two media.
At least now with CD's, I can rip the songs to mp3 files that I can play from my hard disk, mp3 player, phone, or whatever. Make them copy-proof, and I have to pay full price for every different media I want to use, even though I've now I've already paid the artist, his agent, the label... everybody 3 times for the same songs.
Same with movies. I bought VHS tapes. Now when I try to copy them over to DVD, what happens? I find out they have copy protection. Audio is fine, but the picture is screwed up. How many times to I need to pay Hollywood for the same show?
sheez.
I downloaded songs from P2P networks before all the lawsuits began, but generally I was trying to find stuff that I had owned in the past, but no longer had for one reason or another - usually media failue. I don't mind people getting paid for their work...I sure like to get paid for mine... but if I wire up a light for somebody, I don't expect to get paid again everytime he changes the light bulb!
Mark Cuban makes sense here
"Apple makes DRM work." So will others, their survival requires it.
Perhaps because it allows people to burn unencumbered CDs of their music, and therefore--even though it's a nuisance for people to do so--people can still use their music all the ways they could without DRM.
Were it not for that ability, iTunes sales would have been a fraction of what they actually are.