Music Piracy

I don't think its right to steal.
I also don't think it was such a crime to copy a music tape for a friend or vice versa.
So where does that leave online sharing of music?
Tough question and for me, no clear answer.

Anyway, that's old news....what's new is the Sony BMG fiasco. If you haven't heard about it, read about it here. Basically they introduced a new file protection software on some new CDs. The CDs were for artists like Celine Dion and Neil Diamond, so one could say the people who bought those CDs deserve very little sympathy. But I digress....this software installed itself on a user's PC. If you tried to disable it, it would disable your CD-ROM. Apparently this software opened the door for virus writers on any PC that had it. When Sony introduced another piece of software to remove it, the problem got worse. In the end they are out the cost of the software, the cost of distributing a fix, the cost of recalling all those CDs and the public relations cost that this whole mess has caused. Between forcing this kind of software on people's machines to listen to music they paid for and suing hundreds of music downloaders the last several years, they've done little to change their public image. Its hard to find too many people who can feel sorry for an industry that has screwed over many artists and gouged consumers with price fixing on their products. Now they are punishing the people who legally obtain their product. Not good.