Thanks Avatar for the info.

Hi mid,
It ain’t that.
First off, I don’t consider what I do being a crook.
Second, as I’m not a crook, I don’t mind being called a crook—no more than someone calling me a serial axe-murderer—it doesn’t hurt if it ain’t true.
Third, I see that this is a contentious issue, but I also see a degree of ambiguity in it.

On one side, I think it’s good that creators should be rewarded for their creations. Yet, there are limits to what I, and perhaps many others, consider are valid, yet the intellectual propertarians would cross.

Again, if it were up to Hollywood, we wouldn’t have video tape; if it were up to the recording industry, we wouldn’t have records played on radio for the past several decades, and we’d still be buying crappy CD’s for $30.

If what I do is wrong, then in a way I deserve all the problems I’ve had—and more;
but what if I’m not a crook?
What if it’s the RIAA boys who are the crooks for making means by which I can get music more easily and cheaper, harder?

It is in this air of ambiguity—technical, legal, and especially moral that I ask these questions.

Nonetheless, your comments are noted and appreciated.


Sidmel,

Which if the record industry—or elements thereof--had its way would ban. "After all, how dare you buy a used, let’s say, Beatles’ record?!? Buy your own damn (new) record! We didn’t give the previous owner permission to re-sell it—indeed, we might have written on the record—as it is written on some books—that they are to be neither lent, nor sold."

(One could imagine what some in the recording industry would have as laws--CDs for $100, CDs not being useed for more than a year or few, with a few hundred listens--better still rent, not sell, records--as they did with phones back when Bell had a (near) monopoly.)

About 20 years ago, I remember a blues fan who wanted an obscure record. The company that owned the rights went out of business and was sold to a big company years earlier and wasn’t re-issuing. He knew someone who had a copy who wouldn’t sell it to him, but would lend it for home-taping.

When he asked the big-shot record exec on the radio show if he could home tape it, as amicable as the exec was, he couldn’t contenance it.

And why not after all? That exec’s company would profit more if that blues fan stopped spending his time listening to a home-tape, and more on buying/listening to Aerosmith or Britney’s latest--there's more money in that.

So when this exec’s less friendly biz partners point their fingers at people like me and make all sorts of accusations, I keep such in mind.

Nor do I mind you “preaching.” Indeed, again, I appreciate your thoughts.
8) 8)

By the way, what do you think of this site?

http://www.downhillbattle.org/