[Eomer]

Yes, if you are to record the music off the radio onto another medium, I am pretty sure that is covered under copyright laws. The radio stations have licenses or agreements (however it works) with the record companies to play that music, not distribute it.

I have been meaning to write a long post in response to this, and maybe I will get around to it sooner or later. But basically, my view on piracy (or at least why so many people do it) is that with P2P programs and high speed access, it's easy. That's the only real reason, IMO.

There are plenty of things that are overpriced, like clothes, cars, various entertainment (DVD's, music, books, live entertainment like sports and concerts), hell different types of food. Very little of that gets stolen. Why? Because you have to physically steal it from a store. So it adds both risk of being caught, as well as the guilt of personalizing the theft; you don't feel bad pirating music because it doesn't "feel" like theft because there is no apparent direct victim, whereas stealing a CD you are taking it from a physical store with people working in it.

Pirating MP3's is very easy to do, so people do it. There wasn't that horrific of a problem prior to Napster. But it blew up then because suddenly any jackass with a computer and a little knowledge suddenly had access to every piece of music they could dream of.

I honestly think it has nothing to do with CD's supposedly being over priced. If they were to lower CD prices by 4 bucks a CD, sales increases would not even come close to making up for the lost revenue, because the people not buying CD's and pirating instead will just continue on doing it.

And honestly, I think a good quality CD is well worth the 15 bucks or whatever it costs (also, keep in mind that I am Canadian and CD's are actually a fair amount cheaper here, about 14-15 for a new one in our currency, so boom, Americans pay 50% more essentially). Yes there is a ton of bad shit out there, but that's buyer beware. There are very few CD's in my collection of 250 that I honestly feel were not worth the price.

However, I do agree that record companies also do share part of the blame. BUT! I don' think it has anything to do with their prices. They were originally offered the chance to have some sort of fileprotection/copyright stuff embedded into the mp3 standard when it was first being proposed years ago. I think it was Diamond multimedia that approached them about it. The RIAA, instead of jumping on the digital revolution bandwagon, instantly pulled out the lawyers and threatened a law suit if they were to release the new file format. Sure enough they did, and the RIAA sued. Of course, they didn't have a damn leg to stand on, and the judge tossed it out quite fast. Now the cat is out of the bag and the record companies aren't sure WTF to do about it.

Oh yeah, one thing I forgot to mention: I like how some bands are now actively trying to encourage people to buy their CD's as opposed to downloading them. For example The Tragically Hip included a Hip Club Card with their last album release. Basically you go to their website and register the number on it in your name, and you become a member of their club. What it does for you is give you earlier notice of concerts (you can buy tickets a day or two before everyone else can, they have it set up with Ticketmaster), special merchandise, a newsletter from the band sent out pretty often, etc etc. It's actually a pretty good idea, and even though the album itself sucked ass, it was well worth it because I got front row tickets to one of their recent shows that sold out instantly (well actually they sold out three shows for Edmonton, so obviously it was handy to have).

Other bands bundle in DVD, like QOTSA, Eminem, System Of A Down, and others. Some just include bonus content on the CD itself. Overall it's good for the fans, obviously.