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There are people I read regularly who think that fair use means any kind of copying, as long as it's not for profit, or as long as you can make some tortured argument that it's analoguous to something that might possibly be fair use, kind of. ie the "How is me making a back-up of a CD and letting a friend borrow it any different to me putting it on Kazaa and allowing anyone who also happens to be on Kazaa download it?" argument.

I agree with you that most of the justifications are at best extremely shakey from a legal perspective.

However, a decade or two ago it wasn't really frowned upon to share mix tapes with friends, who would share them with friends, etc. I don't know if it was covered under Fair Use, but the music industry didn't care.

I think this was because generally this leads to wider exposure for that music, and therefore people going to record stores and buying it. When I was 18 or so, my girlfriend at the time gave me a mix tape that was a copy of one a friend had given her, which was a copy of her friend's friend's tape, etc. It convinced me to buy 5-10 albums.

I treat P2P as a modern extension of that concept. If someone tells me about a band, I'll download a track or an album by them, and if it's something I like I'll buy the CD.

I did this just two weeks ago with In Flames. I'd never heard of them before, but some friends of mine were discussing them at a party. I downloaded two of their albums, and liked the music so much I bought the CDs as soon as I could get to the record stores.

In Flames is a European metal band, so even if I did listen to the crappy pop radio stations around here I wouldn't have heard them.

I did pretty much the same thing with the new Psyclon Nine release, although I only downloaded one track first, since I'm a big fan of their first CD and just needed confirmation that the new album was good.

There are other ways I could have taken this music for a test drive, but P2P was easy, and resulted in me buying the CDs faster than any of the alternatives.

Music is too expensive for me to take chances any more. I've been burned too many times buying things that were supposed to be "awesome" only to find out that I didn't like any of the album, even when it was a band I'd loved the previous releases by. I'm looking at you Funker Vogt/Apoptygma Berzerk/Sunshine Blind/Black Atmosphere/:Wumpscut:/Front Line Assembly/Trent Reznor/Front 242/Switchblade Symphony/Clan of Xymox/X Marks the Pedwalk/Evils Toy/Ministry/Voice Industrie.

Do I *really* care if previewing music this way is legal or not? No. It's the most efficient way for me to find music that I like to listen to, and will therefore buy. If I couldn't do it, I probably wouldn't buy CDs at all. There is no legitimate, free, convenient way for me to hear new music that I would be interested in.

I own 700+ CDs. I *am* a musician. I am not an enemy of the music industry, but they seem unable to grasp that concept.

There's something for modders to work on -- they prefer their machines to sound like a VTOL aircraft landing on a swedish death metal band

That's one of the funniest things I've ever heard, mind if I make it my .sig? It's especially funny in the context of my swedish death metal kick of the past couple years (the result of a search for new metal bands after metallica not only put out shi**y music but got the RIAA on all our backs). Actually, that'd be pretty awesome to have a JSF F-35B on stage at an In Flames concert.

Mike

<"I just haven't heard anything new I'd like to buy"

The last few weeks I've ordered two copies of Machinae Supremacy - Deus Ex Machinae, and one each of Dark Tranquillity - Live Damage (DVD), Dia Psalma - Efter Allt, In Flames - Soundtrack to your escape (digi) -- and just now I'm thinking that maybe I should complete my collection with a few more old albums on CD, like In Flames' Colony and Lunar Strain.

Let's see..
Number of albums from hugh evil record labels: 0
Number of albums with copy-prevention mechanisms: 0.
Yes, all good.

They're not very similar, but do try MaSu. It's gratis, so what's not to like?

If you want something more like DT you could turn to In Flames. Like so many other metal acts, they're on Nuclear Blast. Anyone know if NB is completely RIAA-free? I'd really like to know.

Of their albums the latest ("Reroute to remain") is very good, but I guess "Clayman" is more similar in style to DT's "Projector".

I live in Sweden. We have several Public Service TV and Radio stations. The biggest radio station is Programme 3, P3.

P3 play a lot of top-20 stuff, but fortunately smaller interests are seen to. One favourite is P3 Live, which airs four days a week -- a new band/artist every day. Very good and broad selection of music, and excellent live quality

Look around the playlists. There's everthing from Slitknot, Bob Hund, In Flames and lot's of lot's of bands you've never heard of and would never ever hear on a commercial station.

Tonight is Kittie, and Entombed is coming up soon. Very nice.

I downloaded four 1m30s clips from their(?) site. Not my cup of tea exactly, but I'd really have to listen to a whole album (or at least complete songs) to be able to tell.

Tried In Flames (They've changed over time from death to more plain metal -- somewhat like Paradise Lost. I like the middle albums the most, like _Whoracle_ (try 'Gyroscope') and _Colony_ ('Ordinary story' is great IMHO). Their latest release is a live album from Japan, which really isn't all that good unfortunately. I've recorded a gig they did for our public radio, P3, which is way better) and/or Dark Tranquillity, whose album _Haven_ is very nice.

For some reason I'm fond of Darkseed which is a german hard rock/metal band, too. Try 'Self pity sick'

Ah, metal. The energy. Have a good one.

Ok, so XM Radio has one metal channel, playing wannabe metal such as Korn, Limb Bizkit, and Marilyn Manson. But, out of "100 channels", there's still not one that offers melodic death metal such as In Flames or power metal such as Helloween!? Bah. (And, FWIW, it doesn't look like Sirius fares any any better)

But, to their credit, XM Radio does offer BBC World Service, which is almost reason enough alone to sign up :).

Yeah, I listen to a bunch of European metal, and they still use the smaller size CDs for singles. Often, actually, what they do is take a normal-sized CD, only write on the area in the middle of it that is of the size for the smaller CDs, and then cut out bits of the larger CD to make a shaped CD to fit whatever picture is on the CD (like Here)