[advocacy] Trading of 'pirated' music online is wider than ever (my quotes)

[Craig Dickson]

Daniel James wrote:

> http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/svtop/music090601.htm
> 
> "Exact numbers are elusive, but analysts estimate a record 15 million 
> people downloaded music online this summer -- illicitly trading 3 
> billion songs in August alone."
> 
> I think this makes my point about the need for a rational approach to 
> non-commercial music sharing. The RIAA can't sue every one of 15 
> million people.

I bet their Washington lobbyists will eventually propose legislation
enabling a new form of lawsuit, which one might call "reverse
class-action". In this type of suit, a well-defined entity sues an
entire class of people, each of whom must pay a fraction of any
penalties or settlements. :-)

The thing that the RIAA always wants you to ignore is that a lot of this
illicit downloading is just people wanting to hear music before they
decide whether or not to buy it. This week, I bought three CDs because
of this that I probably wouldn't have bought otherwise. And I have a
couple more that I plan to buy when I go to the music store next week.
So that's five CDs that will have been bought by one person within a
period of two weeks _because_of_ Internet file sharing.

I suppose the RIAA might reply that I should just listen to the radio,
but I have no interest in wading through hours of crap hoping they'll
play something I'm curious about. Also, a lot of the music I like isn't
very likely to get played on the radio.

Craig

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