[Thebaddog]

My opinion is that the music makers should extract a licensing fee from the makers of the software that power the file sharing networks and from the hardware makers who sell the equipment and just call it a day.

Internet radio is a great thing to get info from far away from the radio signal, and it's being destroyed. Some progress and innovation.

[Leto]

There is already a surcharge for blank cd's. The period for copyright of entertainment material should be the same as other intellectual property 17 years.

Why should the patent on a life saving drug be shorter than the ranting of a pop star?

[x]

My opinion is that the music makers should extract a licensing fee from the makers of the software that power the file sharing networks and from the hardware makers who sell the equipment and just call it a day.

Good idea, but they want more than they're likely to get, and they have Congress in their back pocket. Getting money from hardware makers is a clever idea, though. Kids who would never pay upfront for a a peer-to-peer program's access to copyrighted material would not even know they were paying such a hidden charge. And other people who don't hunt out copyrighted material may also contribute when they buy hardware, thus lowering the fee.

But the temptation of charging those who want the music heavily and up front is probably too great for the entertainment industry to resist. It will take a mental revolution to get them to look at things differently.

Internet radio is a great thing to get info from far away from the radio signal, and it's being destroyed. Some progress and innovation.

That's true and it's a pity. So far, though, our American quarrels aren't affecting the development of Internet radio overseas, though that may change if the destructive effort works here.