I'd say it all depends on your daughter and her taste in music. $240 dollars a year would buy between 240-270 songs a year on the online services. I don't know if a year has gone by recently that there have been half that many songs that I have wanted to add to my collection. That's 1000 songs in her high school years alone. It seems a bit high.

And besides, you would never get the industry or record labels to write off their ability to sue you when their typical settlements are in the thousands of dollars and the threat of lawsuit is worth even more.

The $1/song online purchase is a significant improvement over the "buy a whole CD for three or four songs" model. A better one might be a micropayment of say 5-10 cents per "listening" if you have a wide range of interests.

And wouldn't it be amazing if most of this money actually went to the artists themselves instead of the industry (but don't get me started).

This sounds like a really weird front for the record companies. Advocacy of buying CDs you don't listen to and writing checks to big ol' corporations sounds a little suspect. But then again the Kantian bit is a bit creative, even for BMI, and in that case I think its just a little misguided. If something isn't being sold, its because the owner does not want to sell it. Anyway, I think the record megacorporations can pretty much take care of themselves without your help. And I don't think anyone's going to Hell over this issue anyway.

I don't think you'd convince people to stop illegally downloading music by telling them "paying for music is so good for the industry." Those who download music like dislike the recording industry, even if those opinions serve mainly as justification for their "theft."

Many people who download music see the possibility of lost profits for the recording industry as a bonus to getting free music. For way too long have the ears of the world belonged to a few super-rich companies. As the market changes with this new technology, the business involved will change as well, or they will sink. You cannot legislate against improving technology and changing mediums. The recording megaliths will either have to change their business strategy or sink, forcing artists to control their own distribution and keep their own money.

how about artists making their music avaibale online directly from them. you pay per download and all the money goes to the artist. or have a subscription based service with unlimited downloads available from a service similiar to kaaza. $1 a download is a ridiculous price, should be more like 10 cents. or maybe after a song has made a set amount of money it become free to everyone else, this could also be applied to software like Windows!

You know... The only way to prove piracy when it comes to music is for the Record Companies to *illegaly* hack computers. Nice, huh?

Check out Maganatune: http://www.magnatune.com/. It's a company that is applying the shareware concept to music. I have found the music here to be as good as anthing from BMI, Sony et al.

The worldwide market of the Internet has solved this problem for you already. Different countries' music conglomerates have struck different deals with internet resellers for how they can distribute their content (music). In my research, I found that the Russian music industry seems to have been the most forgiving. You can download music from www.allofmp3.com for about a penny a megabyte which means that mp3 versions of albums encoded at 192 kbps run about a dollar each. They don't have all the music in the world but they have a wide selection. They accept requests and have been very responsive to questions that I have had. I strongly suggest them as a viable alternative to buying CD's. This solves the problem of paying for music AND telling the RIAA that they are not providing what the consumers want.

You can start by teaching your daughter that stealing means taking somebody else's property in a way that leaves the poor victim without the property. If you adopt this definition, then downloading a copy of a song from the Internet is not stealing. Neither is video-taping your favourite TV series, and neither is photocopying your favorite Dilbert cartoon to hang on your office wall.

Otherwise, you adopt the stand that any action in which you enjoy a piece of copyrighted of material without paying for it is illegal. If that's the case, you should also prohibit your daughter from lending a copy of a "Harry Potter" book from her claassmate (the publishing company is losing money from a copy not bought), you should stop inviting other people to your house to watch a DVD (companies are losing money from a dvd not rented) and so forth.

Oh yeah, and please quit humming that new Brittany Spears song. It's copyrighted. Any illegal whistling of copyrighted songs will result in the immediate confiscation of your lips.

Bad idea. Here's where it leads.

Exhibit 1: US patent no 6,368,227 applied for on November 17, 2000 and to which attaches the following short description "A method of swing on a swing is disclosed, in which a user positioned on a standard swing suspended by two chains from a substantially horizontal tree branch induces side to side motion by pulling alternately on one chain and then the other.

In what appears to be open parody, the detailed description says this. "Lastly, it should be noted that . . . the swinging method of the present invention may be referred to by the present inventor and his sister as "Tarzan" swinging. The user may even choose to produce a Tarzan-type yell while swinging in the manner described, which more accurately replicates swinging on vines in a dense jungle forest. Actual jungle forestry is not required. Licenses are available from the inventor upon request." I am not making this up.

Even so after due analysis the patent was granted by the US Patent and Trademarks Office in April 9th 2002.

Exhibit 2: Toast appears to have been patented, or is it croutons from stale bread?

“Bread refreshing method: Abstract

A method of refreshening a bread product by heating the bread product to a temperature between 2500.degree. F. and 4500.degree. F. The bread products are maintained at this temperature range for a period of 3 to 90 seconds.”

I’ll quote you the patent number if you want!

Exhibit 3: Jamie Kellner, chairman and CEO of Turner Broadcasting (an AOL Time Warner company), was recently interviewed on the future of television. Here are two direct quotes from the transcript.

[Ad skips are] theft. Your contract with the network when you get the show is you're going to watch the spots. Otherwise you couldn't get the show on an ad-supported basis. Any time you skip a commercial or watch the button you're actually stealing the programming.

I guess there's a certain amount of tolerance for going to the bathroom. But if you formalize it and you create a device that skips certain second increments, you've got that only for one reason, unless you go to the bathroom for 30 seconds. They've done that just to make it easy for someone to skip a commercial.

Those who agitate for stronger intellectual property lack your own good will (though forgive me for entertaining the uncharitable thought that you may be funded by them).

Tell your daughter to relax. Have a bit of a lie down yourself. And go read Economist David Levine (who's also in favour of private property and against theft) at http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/against.htm

The first time I heard about Napster it was from the news. I listened as the drummer of the band Metallica, Lars Ulrich, spoke about how an evil corporation on the internet was taking money directly from the pockets of hard-working artists. This story caught my interest, and I wanted to see for myself how dark and twisted this was. With a friend, I signed on to Napster with a small list of bands I had heard of, but never heard music from. I downloaded two songs by Iced Earth, one by Nightwish, one by Blind Guardian, and one by Fear Factory. Most of these bands were then, or still are, no-name bands that most people have never heard of. I loved all of it, and within the next two years, I bought 2 CDs by Fear Factory, 2 by Blind Guardian, 3 by Nightwish, and 4 by Iced Earth. Each of these bands made at least thirty dollars as a direct result of Napster. Where the "danger" in Napster lies, is not for fledgling bands or "starving artists". You never hear about a small band complaining about Napster, of course not. It is bands such as Metallica, who have made millions of dollars and have millions of fans over the globe, that are complaining. And how can they prove that Napster was directly responsible for their losses? To quote Maddox, "So while I was watching a movie preview that was saturated with music propaganda the other day, I wondered why Metallica's slide in record sales and popularity coincided with their much publicized attack on Napster. Does it have anything to do with the fact that their albums just plain suck and it's a convenient excuse for them to blame this slump on internet file sharing? Is it a coincidence that the music industry's unrelenting streak of crappy music comes at a time of extremely poor record sales?" maddox.xmission.com Realistically, no artist should have a problem with Napster or any other file sharing program. It's a way to spread not only word about their art, but also a way for people to try before they buy. Instead, file sharing has become real piracy, with either Microsoft or Apple making money off an artists work. Or, in the other case, file sharing has been forced underground, and is now an easy way for predators and hackers to attack an innocent person's computer, trying to decide which CD to buy with their fifteen dollars. All monopolized file sharing is doing is making the richest bands richer, and forcing the smaller, less known bands back underground.

It's awful how pirate music companies rob children on the high seas just for listening to music. You can't let them go out to sea these days. So I suggest they stay home and listen to the radio and play video games, then they'll be safe. They can even get their own musical instruments, join or hang out with musicians and bands, learn a lot about how to make music. It's easier than it looks. They can sing too. Even in church, unless the music is copyrighted (Matt 21:12). That way the music company pirates won't get their lunch money OR the family treasures. Don't buy music CDs because the pirates take your money and come back for more. But it's ok if someone's playing music, and they have CD's, and no pirates are around.

"intellectual property" is theft. The companies that sell music are running illigitamate bussinesses. They can buy legislation that supports copyright extension which further leads this nation into becoming an aristocracy. They are terrorist in that they make you fear that they will take legal action against you. There is a way to stop there abuse of the government and their fans: vote with your money. Do not buy music! If you get into a law suit with these people challenge it and never give in. Refuse to pay and countersuit, they'll run out of money that way and will learn how to operate. Remember, ther customer is always right, this isn't just some kind expression that some bussinesses follow, it is what all of them must follow. If you are a customer and you are not right, then stop being a customer. No company can exist that dosen't please it's customers, they'll stop buying. Stop lying to your children, stop supporting criminal organizations, AND STOP TROLLING WHYNOT.