[Comrade Ogilvy]

Actually, surveys have constantly shown, people who download buy more music

If this were only true.....
Lets look at the obvious here, millions have logged on to download music lately, records sales have dropped by millions lately. You put 2 and 2 together. And people arent just downloading 'new' songs. Kazaa is not used a previewing booth. But either way, whether you download it to 'preview' or 'listen', its illegal.

[ZenWilsonian]

You can also put two and two together here:

Rebirth of Independent Music, Downfall of record labels.

RECESSION - Downfall of record labels.

[Comrade Ogilvy]

Rebirth of Independent Music, Downfall of record labels.

LOL, if you have to ask why thats funny, your too young to understand.

RECESSION - Downfall of record labels.

Wrong, even considering, the numbers are off. Since 1999, when napster made its grand entrance onto the scene, the numbers in every single category are down. This trend also includes the increase in blank CD sales, and portables. So make your own judgements.

[Al Khabir]

Does it really matter if somebody downloads a few songs?If they sell it for profit it is serious. It wont matter, because the law will only crack down on people who do this.

[ZenWilsonian]

Surely, the less blank CDs sold does just mean recession - after all, in theory and practice more would be used if people were pirating music and not buying. And same for portables etc.

[Comrade Ogilvy]

Zen, the trend shows an INCREASE in recordable media and portable sales. And the DECREASE in album/cd sales. What does that signal to you? Do we even have to mention the trend of dial-up to high speed internet. But you could be partially right on the recession part, those who are cash strapped are now stealing their music instead of buying it, and spending their money on rewriteables!

[Comrade Ogilvy]

The music industry likes to blame downloaders for all their problems, what about these additional possibilities for slagging CD sales:

There are hundreds of free legal radio stations on the Internet and with an already large and growing population of internet users maybe more people are listening to free or virtually free music. I myself use Musicmatch for about $7 a month (and free music sites) which gives me a huge variety of music to choose from, why buy a CD for $20 to hear two or three good songs (that I will soon tire of) and the rest so-so, when I can pay $7 a month and listen to just about any type of music I want from just about any artist (and a whole lot more I never heard of) or listen to radio stations free. In the case of musicmatch the industry is getting paid but it is not selling CDs, Live365 is pretty good too. I use my computer as a radio more than my regular stereo (good speakers help)

Another possibility might be that even though there are more artists out there some people realize that the music industry is a business and promotes only the bands they feel will make the most money.

Has the quality (by that, meaning does it hold your interest or is it just another song by so and so) of the music most promoted improved, gone down or stayed the same?

My opinion is, I think the music industry believes it can churn out anything as long as they promote it well. If they make it you will buy it, thats not how it works, what I think is that the music industry is not changing their business strategies and admitting some failings. once they change some things about the way they do business they might turn things around a bit, right now they are pointing fingers. Downloading is partially to blame but I believe there are more factors involved than that.

[Al Khabir]

Does it really matter if the music industry goes awry? What have they done in teh last ten years that could not have been does for a tenth of the cost? All they really seem to do is create "stars (normally people with little talent) through marketing. Perhaps with the ability to download or try music for little cost tastes will broaden.

[Comrade Ogilvy]

Look people, until america is a communist society, downloading MP3's is a crime. I dont care what excuses or reasons for your justification, there is none. It doesnt matter that they suck, its still their music. You would want people ripping off you art for free would you?

[Al Khabir]

Shame the music industry rarely deals in "art". Most of what they produce is drivel, although each to their own.

The law is an ass. why does it actually matter? They will thankfully do little or nothing about it.

[Al Khabir]

Companies like KaZaA have a legal loophole, in that if they provide a legal warning that file sharing is illegal with the download, they are not breaking the law. In fact, they are just providing the service that allows you to break teh law while remaining untouchable themselves. If you were running KaZaA, would you want to pay the music industry more of your money?

[smashthestate]

Kazaa is not illegal at all. You can own a bong, but you can't use it for smoking pot. You can own a cable descrambling box, but you can't use it for descrambling cable.

The illegality is the downloading of the music itself, and that is the responsibility of the user. Kazaa has broken NO laws.

[Todd D.]

The illegality of downloading music is shady at best. Morally it seems like it shouldn't be, since on the surface it seems to be outright stealing, but upon further inspection the line certainly blurs more than a little bit.

Look at it this way, it is currently perfectly legal for someone to take a cd that he has purchased, make a tape of it, and give it to a friend or relative. This has been decided in numerous court cases over the past 20 years and it always comes back the same. The idea is that so long as you do not receive compensation for somebody else's copyrighted work, it is legal. Now, what is file sharing but expanding the community from which you give away copied casette tapes? The scarcity is gone because instead of casette tapes you have bits of data on your computer that are easily duplicated, and somewhere back in the chain, someone purchased the cd to put in on their computer.

Bottom line is that the RIAA is kickin themselves that they didn't get in on this during the ground level, and technology has passed them by. Now they are trying to use the courts to cash in on missed opportunity, which I find to be more wrong than whatever profits they are supposedly losing.

[naked_turk]

I've only ever bought 3 audio CDs in my life. To me it is a waste of money, unless I really like the particular album, and the artist has satisfied me enough to do so. Now, I have downloaded songs, but rest assured, Kazaa or no Kazaa, I would only ever buy a CD if it is exactly to my tastes. And how do I know if it is to my liking? Kazaa!

Same with games - Kazaa and e-donkey definitley come in handy. I download, I test, and if I like, I buy the real thing, if not, it goes straight into recycle bin!

With people like me, filesharing helps the artists. Without filesharing, I wouldn't be able to get myself to buy something that I wasn't sure I liked!

Now we could all avoid this B$ if artists give out their music for free and ask for donations. If you like the music, and you aren't a soul-less asshole, you donate and help the guy make more music and have a better life.