Posted by David McCall on 11/04/05 20:37

Actually, it seems to me that the music industry has been
screaming foul every step of the way. That included reel-to-reel,
cassettes, CD burners, MP3s, etc. Even back in the 60s.
Perhaps they even fought the proliferation of consumer
phonograph recorders. They were very difficult to get a
decent recording out of, so they may not have cared as much.

Every time there is an improvement in our ability to duplicate
media with our consumer recording equipment, they go for
another round with the government to see if they can outlaw
it, or at least cripple it in some way.

I've always contended that it is the people that are most into
exchanging music with their friends that buy the most CDs.
How long would you keep making copies for your friends
if they didn't have anything to share with you? The problem
now is that we can make copies of CDs with equal quality
to the original with any off the shelf computer. Now copies
can keep spreading forever, and the quality never degrades.

Back when the best we had was Cassettes, and 8 tracks,
the quality of the copy was pretty inferior, as compared to
the original, and went downhill pretty dramatically after a
couple generations. Even the original phonograph records
and tapes could easily be worn out or destroyed by using
them on poor equipment or carelessness causing some
people to go out and buy new copies.

I've always felt that most piratecy of media is pretty benign.
Many of the copies that are made don't hurt sales, because,
while people are happy to get a copy for free, they may not
have been interested enough to spend money on the media
they represent. This includes optional software.

David

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