With the invention of the CD, more importantly the technology to burn music onto a CD - the issue of pirating music has gone from a novelty to a major epidemic. Well - at least according to the music labels.
I've sat on the sidelines and watched, with amusement, as this issue grew. Just when the labels thought they had won - take that Napster - makers of PCs and electronic gadgets are making it easier and easier for Joe Consumer to burn music.
According to a recent article in Time Magazine, only 11% of Napster users ever transferred their music tunes onto a CD. On the flip side, 54% of new computers come with a drive to burn CDs, and half of CD-burner oweners create at least one disc a month - take that music behemoths!
Having effectively defeated Napster and its bretheren, the Big Five music companies - AOL Time Warner, Bertelsmann, EMI, Sony and Vivendi Universal - are now targeting me and you. That's right, they are currently working to make it harder for music consumers to obtain "free" music. Among their initiatives - anticopying technology that would prevent a person from copying songs from a CD onto a PC or on to another disc more than once.
What galls me about this Big Brother approach are the imperfections in such technology. For example, current copy-protected CDs on the market - there aren't many yet..but watch out - may not work in all car stereos, portable CD players, older CD components or Mac computers.
If I purchase a CD and it won't play in my car or PC, you better believe its going back! I'm not blaming the music industry for protecting its investment, but why spit in the eye of the consumer while you're at it?
During the days of Napster, the Big Five used to play the artist card. They tried to appeal to consumers by reminding us that if we didn't purchase the CD, our favorite artists wouldn't get paid. Un-huh, whatever?
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