Now many of you may know that I'm not a huge fan of music. Long before current, I've scrutinized the business side of it, aside from that I just find most of it to be...bad. But I am fascinated by some of the ethical questions that arise from the current music industry: Piracy, Privacy, and everything in between. For most, music is a way of releasing emotions, feeling good, bad, or whatever. But as music prices rise, and the music it self becomes more "manufactured" it starts to have a huge impact on society as a whole.

1. Is pirating music ok? Everyone says, "I just download it to listen, if I like it, then I'll buy." Is that a valid argument? Does the rising prices for CDs make pirating music ok? How about the whole concept of there not being enough songs that are good on one album?

2. Do you believe it should be illegal to break copy righted material? Example of getting around DRM to burn a copy of a cd.

3. Online music. iTMS, MSN, Napster, etc etc. Do you support this new wave of music? It is limited by software, preventing you from burning a playlist so many times, etc. Would you ever buy from this kind of store? How do you feel about your credit card number online? Are the prices reasonable, average of $1 per song.

4. Do you own a MP3 player?

5. How do you see these things changing other forms of media, such as television, movies, books, etc.?

6. How do you feel about the RIAA suing people? Are they being too hard on people? Are they breaking privacy rights to find people in violation of these laws?

7. Have you ever pirated music? Movies? Games? Software? else?


Here are a few good articles, with lots of information:

The Pirate Act is a law that is close to being passed.
"Under provisions of the Pirate Act, those found to have distributed over 1,000 songs over P2P networks would face up to 3 years in prison."

3 years in prison? Is this too harsh? I think it might be...can you imagine having like a 18 year old kid go to prison for 3 years because he shared music?



Now it looks like a P2P company is suing the RIAA for, get this, copy right theft! That's gold...
"Altnet is suing the RIAA and several of its partners of pirating its patent covering technology for identifying requested files on a P2P network. According to IDG Altnet sent cease-and-desist letters to a number of companies, telling them to stop using its technology to bugger up P2P networks with bogus files."

This brings up another important question, is it OK to break the law to enforce it? The RIAA is MUCH bigger than Altnet, and Altnet probably won't win, but is it fair? The RIAA is big and rich, they have government ties...is it right for them to violate some peoples copyrights to protect others?


According to The Inquirer, under the Millennium Copyright Act, Sampling is now piracy. Now some of you more musically inclined, please correct me if I'm wrong, but this seems like a BIG deal!
"Until yesterday an artist only had to pay for samples that were fairly large.
However, thanks to the new ruling musicians will have to pay out for snippets — smaller notes, chords and beats that are not the artist's original composition, it seems.
[...]
At the center of the argument was the 1990 NWA song "100 Miles and Runnin' which sampled a three-note guitar riff from a 1975 Funkadelic track about the art of combining riding and making preservatives called "Get Off Your Ass and Jam." NWA lowered the pitch of the sample, which was only two seconds long but is looped to extend to 16 beats and appears five times throughout the track.
[...]
The court said that an artist who acknowledges that she or he made use of another artist's work may be liable."

Wow. The article goes on to say that this could cost rappers and techno artists lots of money.
How do you feel about this?


And I'm sure many of you know much more about it than myself so please feel free to add things I left out
Edit: And let me follow up with this...Is music too corporate? What is music about? Isn't it about sharing and community? What happens when the majority of music is controlled by a few corporations? How should the artist feel? For those of you who are musicians, I'm especially interested in what you'll have to say.