I think in some ways, the music industry has shot itself in the foot. Radio stations are mostly corporately owned and usually play the same songs that are already popular or being made popular through marketing. I think this makes the radio a not very good place to discover new music. So, that leaves me with my main source of discovering new music as my friends. And it is much more convenient to me to burn a copy almost instantly after hearing it in a friend’s car or house. Likewise, people who like to download may be looking for something new to sample and I think the immediacy of being able to keep your downloading samples is also much more convenient and tempting than driving to a store and purchaising a copy….especially since many stores only carry a limited number of titles and I don’t think you see singles very often at all anymore on the shelves. I do believe alot of people are downloading music they would never buy anyway, often because they only value one song or so on a mediocre album. It’s much easier to download than to find a single anymore.

Which brings me to the larger problem of actually putting out and promoting quality content. I think when we really value the quality and when it is at a fair price, most of us are willing to pay for it or even pay more than the fair price because we really do want it.

An overview of the subject of Intellectual Property and Copyright, covering some general concepts and basic history as well as exploring DRM, the DMCA, and other related subjects….

I think downloading is wrong in most cases. I can think of a handful of times where it’d be ok. For instance, I had pre-ordered the new Tool album, but a few days before I was scheduled to get it, a friend sent me a copy over the internet. Does that count as stealing? I don’t think so - I had actually bought the album before I downloaded it. In some instances, I’d borrowed a CD and ripped it before buying it, but in general, I’ve bought stuff I’ve borrowed…

But I think the bigger issue here is the way that IP owners are responding. They’ve been so heavy handed in their response that I have little sympathy. It’s very complex issue, and you’d need to cover concepts like fair use (which the IP owners apparently would like to do away with), DRM (which IP owners are using under the pretense of preventing piracy, but are really using because they want us to purchase the same IP multiple times so you can use it on different devices), and the DMCA (a horrible law - it’s actually illegal for me to listen to my MP3s or DVDs (which I bought) on my linux machine because of this).

MS Vista seems to have a lot of DRM built in, and there are some indications that it will force hardware makers to change their processes, increasing the cost of computer components across the board (even if I’m not using MS). Bah. I should write my own post:P