Posted by Chris on 01/30/08 09:17

On Tue, 29 Jan 2008 20:19:44 -0800 (PST) <faster1234@163.com> wrote:

> Throughout the past few years downloading music on the internethas
> increased in popularity. At the same time though, it hasbecome illegal
> through many companies to download music asmusicians and artists have
> been losing money on their CD sales.With many people being sued in the
> past couple years fordownloading music, is it really possible to
> download musiclegally anymore? If so, at what price will it cost you
> todownload music?
>
> As music sites such as Napster and Kazaa and many more haveattempted
> to create sites to download music for free, they havejust increased
> the problem that much more. Some of the users ofthese programs have
> learned the hard way that music does notcome free, as they were sued
> for illegally downloading music.
>
> Today there are many sites in which you can download music atwhere
> they claim it is 100% legal. The latest music fileformats used are
> Windows? Media (WMA), Advanced Acoustic Coding(AAC) and Atrac 3, and
> are very popular as it increases thesound quality making it closer to
> an actual CD bought in stores.Another great advantage is that many
> sites such asSonicSelector Service on MSN allow you to preview the
> musicbefore buying it. Many sites today also offer a three-day trialof
> their music downloading site, and then after that you willhave to
> begin paying a monthly fee. So it is possible todownload music legally
> online, but at what cost?
>
> Pressplay.com offers unlimited music for a price of $9.95 permonth and
> then you also have to install the software from theirsite. The
> downloaded music is non-burnable and once yoursubscription runs out
> you no longer have access to any of yoursongs. Rhapsody at listen.com
> also charges $9.95 per month fornon-burnable music, but instead of
> downloading the music youdownload a music player that gives you access
> to the songs.
>
> Now you can download music and you know the basic price permonth for
> non-burnable songs. However, most people downloadmusic so that they
> can burn their favorite CD with a variety ofsongs. Transferring these
> songs onto a CD or a personal MP3player will cost you even
>
> http://www.dontplayplay.com/html/Entertainment/20060925/13994.html

Seems to me that what the record companies would really like to do is charge you
every time you merely LISTERN to a song.

I bought a song on a 45, so paid the "royalty" to play to it as many times as I
wanted to.

I then bought it again on a LP (the old 45 was worn out), so paid the "royalty"
again for the SAME song.

I then bought a tape to play in my car, so paid the "royalty" for the SAME song yet
again.

I then bought a CD (for the better quality), and of course, I once again paid the
"royalty" for the SAME song.

The CD got lost/damaged, but if I now download the SAME song from the internet, and
I am accused of being a pirate, of defrauding the artist of their royalties and
threatened with prosecution, even though I have paid the royalty for that song FOUR
times.

The song is 40 years old, and the artist dead, so just who am I meant to be paying
anyway? I wish I could still get paid for work that I, or my father, did 40+ years
ago.

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