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To: Charles Tutt who wrote (54013)	5/5/2003 7:01:53 PM
From: QwikSand	Respond to of 64865

There was a good article in the Atlantic about a year or so ago about how the current RIAA b.s. is a historical repeat of what happened in the 19th century when nobody had record players but everybody had pianos. At that time, the big "intellectual property" scandal was, essentially, fake books: cheap copied sheet music made possible by technological advances in low-cost printing presses. Basically the same deal: the Bull Sheet Music Publishers of the World started bellyaching about how their artists were being denied the fruits of their labor, etc., and they had upstanding and intrepid politicians passing various anti-sheet-music-piracy laws to try to hold back the advance of time. The article also goes into considerable detail about how the record companies treat the artists, then and now, like veal bred for the table. Eventually technology and business model changes rendered the whole thing moot, as is already happening in this case too. (You don't see too many counterfeit copies of Stephen King and Mary Higgins Clark and similar hardworking literary titans being passed around these days.) Nonetheless, screw the RIAA and the repulsively evil thieves they work for who specialize in "giving the audience what it wants". Apple's service is a good first step in the right direction. I'm happy to pay a buck per song, which reduces the cost of a CD-equivalent to $2-$3 and makes the sale of music a fair exchange. Hopefully more of that money goes to the actual artist than to the coke-snorting "A&R" entrepreneurs. --QS