"Embarrass" makes an "Ass" out of "Em" and "Barr".
So, after months of my oft-mentioned boycott of CD's, about a month ago I broke down, and bought a CD. The actions of the RIAA still sicken, but, there's a bunch of kickass independent artists out there who deserve to be heard. Enter iTunes (or Napster or Musicmatch or any of those, I'm just going to refer to them as iTunes). Here's the model for business the music industry should have installed five years ago. While there's still holes in the selection, pretty much anything you'd want to listen to, especially of new stuff, is right there to be sampled, and purchased either by track or as an album. It solved all of the "pirates" complaints (you can just pay $0.99 to download that one song with Madonna, instead of embarrassing yourself into buying a whole Britney Spears song. Although, there should be at least a moderate amount of embarrassment in buying a Britney Spears/Madonna song in the first place, but that's neither here nor there.) It also satisfies the music industry, and theoretically even does them one better. They now have a revenue stream that more or less does away with "I Won't Buy Because I Only Like One Song-itis" and "I'm Not Buying a Collection For Only One New Song-itis," and adds ease of use and a much stricter control on their copyrights.

Yet, I still hear both sides bitching. At most, 1/8th of the people I've spoken to have switched over to buying their digital, and the record industry is still recklessly prosecuting people, instead of promoting legal alternatives, that provide better quality sound files, as well as additional content. The consumer says "It's mine I'm going to take it." Which is just not true. It's not "yours." It's the record company's and the artist's. Sampling is fine. Stealing, is well, stealing. Dubbing a CD from a friend? Sure, but when you consider Xian-Po in Polynesia who also has files like "Young Boy Suck Big Man.jpg," as a friend, even though I'm pretty sure he's got nothing to do with you, (and if he does, I'm calling the police. Right. Now.) that's when the problems begin.

Leg is lation.
In general, the internet, and the business of information, has always stayed ahead of legislation. Mostly, this is because congress is made up mostly of stodgy old white people who didn't have calculators when they were kids, yet alone MP3 players. That's not a jab at white people, as much as it is at old white people. So, therefore, the Internet has been for the most part a free-for-all. But, it's time that a few of the people on Capitol Hill who are "in the know" step in. There needs to be legislation. If "stealing music" in this way is illegal, lets have our terms defined. It's because of the gray area between "I can copy a CD from a friend." and "I can copy a CD from a child molesting South East Asian stranger."

As for the consumers? Use iTunes (or Napster or Musicmatch or you get the point). It's a great program, it's legal, and it's a great way to encourage the music industry into developing this as a market, versus suing little girls for downloading bad 90s TV show theme songs. Which, while might not be a bad business model (it's like selling 100 CD's at a time!) is really embarrassing to all involved (Ugh... Full House?).

Stop stealing music. They'll catch you. And your shameful music will be exposed to the world.