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Posted by on March 28, 2005, 10:00 am
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Monty Solomon wrote:
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blogs/cooper/archives/BENEFITSofPEERtoPEER.pdf
> TIME FOR THE RECORDING INDUSTRY TO FACE THE MUSIC: THE POLITICAL,
> SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF PEER-TO-PEER COMMUNICATIONS NETWORKS
The popular view of this issue seems to be "screw the recording
companies". I don't agree.
People have a Constitutional right (and a moral one too) to be
compensated for their creative efforts. Like it or not, the recording
industry provides a conduit for artists to distribute their works to a
widespread general public and be compensated accordingly. Any system
that would lead to so much free copying that would crimp that
compensation is wrong and some sort of control is needed.
So, the issue isn't whether there should be controls, but what kind of
controls are appropriate.
I, for example, copy music from a CD or phonograph record onto a tape
cassette that is easier for me to listen to. I wouldn't want to be
prohibited from making such copies since I properly paid for the music
in the first place.
The challenge of the Internet is that the technology makes it really
easy to make perfect copies and distribute them widely. Sure, in the
past one could borrow a record and tape it and plenty of people did
just that. But that still took some effort and quality suffered;
often it was easier just to buy your own record. Today it's no effort
at all and quality is perfect.
The recording industry isn't blameless either. In the past, one could
buy inexpensive 45s of a single song they liked, that's hard and more
expensive today. The cost of CDs seem to be much more than records
were even allowing for inflation. Given that it's easy and cheap to
make CDs today, they should sell singles just like 45s of the old
days.
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