As a former pro musician, I go to music boards as well as Free Republic, music was a much larger part of my life than politics. 85% to 90% of the kids who are actually playing music as well as listening to it simply take KaZaA for granted. An article like this one would shock them - they've never considered the legality - it's on the Internet and it's free so it must be okay. I can talk with them all day about Mike Portnoy or Johnny Rabb, but if I were to post this article it would be ignored. It's "too hard" to read and understand all these concepts. One or two might ask why the ISP did this, or why there's a hassle in the first place - but, they are not politically savy - and would not follow the conversation we are having now.
Our kids are busy being kids - and Internet downloading has become a part of their lives and the reason is not criminal intent - it's part of being a kid. It got that way because parents either approve or don't care or don't know.
The music business has been selling drugs-as-recreation for as long as I've been around. If the culture of doing illegal drugs paved the way for doing illegal music copying, then Karma Man is laughing his head off.
Some of the musicians have been selling drugs forever - and the business is guilty by association. The record companies are as oblivious to the content on artist's CD's as parents are of the content of their kids hard drive.
No matter what it is, you can't treat as the customers as The Enemy and expect to survive in business. They need to lose the lawyers, and find another way.
The fact is, when you are downloading it from the Internet, you are not a customer, you are an intruder, or at least and accomplice. If this individual in the article with hundreds of songs posted on the Internet is underage, Mom and Dad are in for an education. Much more likely, this individual is operating for profit to pay the storage and bandwidth bills - he's making a profit on the copyrighted intellectual property of others: a crime. For the past year, I keep seeing people at FreeRepublic defending that as a legit operation to "put-it-to" the big companies and I just wonder where it comes from.
The Lawyers are the last resort. It took years, but, Napster is history. The stealing can stop voluntarily, or the lawyers can eventually make them stop - what other recourse is there? Sell CD's for $5 each? The market sets the price - and as long as someone pays the $20, there will never be a $5.00 CD. If you run a gas station and folks think you overcharge (along with every other station in town), do they have the right to steal from you? Or maybe you should sell product at 50% under cost so people will like you - and stop stealing - how long will that last?
If you speed, you may get caught. For the past five or more years - up until now, if you downloaded music it was simply free music. There appears to be a new sheriff in town Nick.
It's the same people, though. Those kids who "take KaZaA for granted" are the same ones who plunk down the money. If it were a store, you would not want each paying customer to walk out the door with a second item stuffed in their pants; but if in your zeal to stop that you think you can strip-search your customers, follow them home, and go through their closets, you won't have a store for very long.
If kids would be baffled by Free Republic threads, just wait 'til they get a taste of lawyering.
I don't believe they can. This stuff crosses international borders at the speed of light. It can be disguised, encrypted, hidden in pictures -- the Gnutella Boys are just get started messing with RIAA's head. Police states around the world cannot stop the Internet. Lawyers are not going to do it either. Lawyering is simply the wrong approach to this problem. If you can find large-scale operators making a buck, sure -- sue them. But when they get to suing the parents of 12-year-olds on a daily basis, the Hammer Of Thor will come down on them. Laws are ultimately written by politicians.