“I have a problem with the concept that I can’t send a file to a friend and say to him “ dig this”, without it being a copyright violation that could land me in civil court...”
The RIAA has sought to control the transfer of all files, not just music files.
Stealing is stealing. The RIAA and music producers know theft quite well, that is how they make money. They steal from artists and from consumers.
Big thieves always get very indignant when little thieves dare cut in on their action.
People talk about file sharing as “stealing” but isn’t that purely a warped interpretation of what copyrighting was supposed to be about?? I think we need to question this whole issue again; copyrights involve protecting the integrity of a person’s work, don’t they? If I take someone’s music and say I wrote and recorded it, then I would be truly stealing their work. I don’t think it fundamentally has anything to do with keeping a person from sharing something with someone else. Sure, people are getting rich from music but that’s really more of the way the law is construed, and just because it is law doesn’t mean it is ethical or moral.
Maybe I just don’t get it, though...