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magnatune.com is better than kazaa, at least for the limited number of artists they carry. Free decent quality streaming mp3s of entire albums, then if you pony up some cash ($5 - $18 per album, you decide, $8 recommended), you can download wav files to burn, or a variety of compressed formats including ogg and mp3.

If the big labels would do something along these lines they wouldn't have to be so concerned about what they call 'piracy'. It might also generate 'good will', something I think the RIAA seriously underestimates the value of.

Ok, so part of this new deal is buyers can't resell what they bought. I assume the original license would handle that.

I find restrictions on resale to be very obnoxious, and will avoid buying music that has such restrictions. By law (in the U.S.), if I buy a CD (or DVD, or book, etc.), I am allowed to resell it. Copyright law does not give the copyright holder the right to restrict or suppress the secondary market. This is known as the "first sale doctrine".

When I buy a CD or DVD, I am not signing a license agreement, or even agreeing to one via "shrink-wrap" or "click-wrap". I have purchased the physical medium, and a substantial set of legal rights to use, lend, or sell that medium.

Despite the supposed convenience of buying music online, I find it to have substantially less value than I get when buying a CD. I wind up being subject to a restrictive license, and the quality of the music sometimes suffers as a result of compression. Yet I am typically expected to pay as much or more money.

Vote with your wallet.

I should note that there are some musicians, bands, and even publishers that recognize that they can make money online without resulting to the typical draconian tactics of the RIAA cabal. It's my understanding that Magnatune "gets it". I haven't bought any music from them yet, but I think I'll give it a try.

...any semblance of freedom or sanity--yes. Big Brother just might.

But even if BB does manage to turn the world of entertainment into a fascist police state... it won't last. Therefore I've stopped fretting.

There's Magnatune but you'll have to look through a lot of crap to find music you like. Drop Trio are awesome. Also have a look at Kenji Williams' music if you like electronic

Music is downloadable in FLAC, WAV and MP3.

For good music by less famous artists, check out magnatune.com

Complete streaming albums at 128 bits free, with higher rate and even wav files available for purchase.

If the music just has to be good, not famous, it's a great site. I've bought/downloaded several of their albums with no problems.

That would be Magnatune at http://www.magnatune.com

Sounds from Saturn almost sound like sounds from Earth. LOL
How long till they make a techno song out of that Super Psycho Sexy Saturn Static for that ass?

A fair portion of the replies to this topic talk about public performance licensing. There is a record label Magnatune that offers an easy way to license any of its music for a variety of uses, on-hold music included.

From their site:

We call it "try before you buy." It's the shareware model applied to music.

Listen to hundreds of MP3'd albums from our artists. Or try our genre-based radio stations.

If you like what you hear, buy our music online for as little as $5 an album or license our music for commercial use.

Artists get a full 50% of the purchase price. And unlike most record labels, our artists keep the rights to their music.

Founded by musicians, for musicians.

No major label connections.

We are not evil.

A good example would be Magnatune.

Yes, but much like slaves throughout history, musicians need information to be truly-free.

If they/we think all that's out there is an evil RIAA quintopoly, that's all there will be. If, OTOH, we/they dare to dream of something with a halfway-decent contract where artists actually own their work, things might be different...We make our own reality sometimes.

The idea that a band can't control whether or not there's spyware on their CDs suggests that musicians (and music-buyers) need to think in new ways. I just wish Courtney Love had discovered Magnatune before she re-entered binge-mode, because her Salon rant about doing the music-math made sense. Magnatune's contract (artist keeps half and keeps title to the music, basically) is what she was asking for back when Courtney was still being coherent.
JMR

The SuperDrive on my PowerBook couldn't handle the copy protection on a CD I bought a while back, so I simply stopped buying CD's because I use my computer as my stereo, and some stores don't take returns. I have an iPod too. If it won't go on my iPod, I don't want it. I didn't have a problem with buying CD's before. I used to buy tons of them. I'd even buy a whole album just for one song, rather than just getting a single. I'm the kind of customer they are alienating. I've decided to just boycott buying music because of this. There's always radio anyway, internet or free-to-air.

What I'd like to see are stores that specifically sell CD's without this kind of crap. These "copy protection" labels are usually hidden very obscurely in the fine print. I'd like to see CD's with huge "NO COPY PROTECTION" labels on them that you could see from across the music store. And I'd like online MP3 download music services for independent music getting together. I can't access the iTunes Music Store. It is taking too slow to get to different countries, and they sell music from the record companies I want to boycott anyway.

Here are a list of the MP3 sites I've come up with. If other people know of other sites, please post them. And if I'm mistaken about any on this list, please say so.

• Magnatune
• MP3.com.au
• ALLOFMP3
• IUMA

What iTunes, et al, do with DRM is actually very lenient in light of what the 5 majors want (and are actively seeking). They have appeased the RIAA and brethren by perpetuating the illusion that digital material can be fully protected. In reality, all that these DRM schemes have done is place a bump in the road... and a pretty insignificant bump at that. However, that is the price that they (as retailer) must pay to allow major label content to you (the consumer).

There is a bit of a solution though. Companies like mine, AudioLunchbox, Magnatune, and a few others, are skirting the entire DRM issue by offering indie and quasi-major label material (eg, a compilation put out by an indie that contains tracks by major label artists).

As time goes on, I sincerely believe that DRM will become *less* of an issue, as the majors begin to realize that while they need to aggressively protect their copyrights, they also need to make sales to the consumer. In the interim, please support those of us who are working to bring you quality music unfettered by DRM.

Check out Magnatune.com - no DRM, just music and 50% goes to the musicians.

Web repository of songs you can download without any DRM crap, you pay the artist whatever you think it's worth... Yeps, it's there!
Not quite as "ideal" as div_2n described, but we're getting closer:

http://www.magnatune.com/

Cool stuff, those guys rock.

To complicated! Just use Magnatune.

A label that is similar to what you've proposed is Magnatune, which allows unlimited streaming (MP3) of their artists' music in the name of "trying before you buy." There aren't the incentives you propose (and it's a business), but the price is reasonable, their artists get half of the sale, and you can listen to the entire album and make a decision.

Another thought: I always thought it would be cool to have some sort of referal program for a site like this. For instance, if someone bought a song from one of my links, give me a credit. It shouldn't be money--no point. Instead, if I refer say, 10 sales, give me a credit for a song or something.

Cheers

Yet another reason why Magnatune might be worth looking at again. Magnatune has greatly increased its selection since it started up (e.g. it actually has some music I like now), so if you haven't taken a look in the last few months, you might want to look at it again.

To anyone who has not explored the CC licences, I highly encourage them to check it out and learn about this really cool license.

Also, I didn't notice any really significant changes in the 2.0 licenses. Did anyone catch something blaringly obvious that I missed?

"That's one of the really sad/frustrating/infuriating parts about this whole thing. The artists themselves actually don't have the rights to distribute their songs, either. About the only rights they're "allowed" to retain is the right to perform their works."

Another important right that the artist usually retains is publishing rights. There's a lot of money to be had there.

"But they can't legally distribute their own CDs, nor post their own music for download."

Yes, that is the tradeoff when you sign a contract that results in a record company spending hundreds of thousands of dollars or more of their own money to record, engineer, produce, distribute and market your music. The exclusive distribution rights to the recordings are the way in which they recoup their massive investment -- record companies, very much like the company that you probably work for, are for-profit businesses. If you were to approach a typical record company with the proposal that they front all the money recording, producing, marketing, etc. but allow you to give away unlimited copies for free, they would likely ask you if you were out of your fucking gourd.

There are a number of smaller record companies that share distribution rights. Magnatune is one of them. You may have your music distributed by them, and at the same time, you may put it in your Kazaa share directory if that's what you want to do. The trade-off is that Magnatunes will not front you the money to produce your music -- you're on your own. And, even they have restrictions, because (just like big record companies or the company that you work for) they are a for-profit business and must protect their investment.

"That's one of the really sad/frustrating/infuriating parts about this whole thing. The artists themselves actually don't have the rights to distribute their songs, either. About the only rights they're "allowed" to retain is the right to perform their works."

Another important right that the artist usually retains is publishing rights. There's a lot of money to be had there.

"But they can't legally distribute their own CDs, nor post their own music for download."

Yes, that is the tradeoff when you sign a contract that results in a record company spending hundreds of thousands of dollars or more of their own money to record, engineer, produce, distribute and market your music. The exclusive distribution rights to the recordings are the way in which they recoup their massive investment -- record companies, very much like the company that you probably work for, are for-profit businesses. If you were to approach a typical record company with the proposal that they front all the money recording, producing, marketing, etc. but allow you to give away unlimited copies for free, they would likely ask you if you were out of your fucking gourd.

There are a number of smaller record companies that share distribution rights. Magnatune is one of them. You may have your music distributed by them, and at the same time, you may put it in your Kazaa share directory if that's what you want to do. The trade-off is that Magnatunes will not front you the money to produce your music -- you're on your own. And, even they have restrictions, because (just like big record companies or the company that you work for) they are a for-profit business and must protect their investment.

"That's one of the really sad/frustrating/infuriating parts about this whole thing. The artists themselves actually don't have the rights to distribute their songs, either. About the only rights they're "allowed" to retain is the right to perform their works."

Another important right that the artist usually retains is publishing rights. There's a lot of money to be had there.

"But they can't legally distribute their own CDs, nor post their own music for download."

Yes, that is the tradeoff when you sign a contract that results in a record company spending hundreds of thousands of dollars or more of their own money to record, engineer, produce, distribute and market your music. The exclusive distribution rights to the recordings are the way in which they recoup their massive investment -- record companies, very much like the company that you probably work for, are for-profit businesses. If you were to approach a typical record company with the proposal that they front all the money recording, producing, marketing, etc. but allow you to give away unlimited copies for free, they would likely ask you if you were out of your fucking gourd.

There are a number of smaller record companies that share distribution rights. Magnatune is one of them. You may have your music distributed by them, and at the same time, you may put it in your Kazaa share directory if that's what you want to do. The trade-off is that Magnatunes will not front you the money to produce your music -- you're on your own. And, even they have restrictions, because (just like big record companies or the company that you work for) they are a for-profit business and must protect their investment.

There is already a compensation scheme in the United States as well. The Audio Home Recording Act provides that 3 percent of the price of "music CD-R" media goes to the SoundExchange royalty clearinghouse, which is obligated by law to distribute a share of the royalty fund to anyone, even smaller labels, that makes a legitimate claim. Makers of blank CD-R media have begun to sell only "music CD-R" media because the 3 percent levy is cheaper than the cost of maintaining another SKU.

Magnatune is great. I'm due to buy another CD or two from them, though I'm still not sure which ones I want yet. (For those who don't know, buying a CD means you can download raw audio to make your own masters, and the artist gets half of the money.)

Here are a few samples from artists that I consider to be pretty good, if anyone else wants to check them out:
Cargo Cult
Solace

Magnatune is great. I'm due to buy another CD or two from them, though I'm still not sure which ones I want yet. (For those who don't know, buying a CD means you can download raw audio to make your own masters, and the artist gets half of the money.)

Here are a few samples from artists that I consider to be pretty good, if anyone else wants to check them out:
Cargo Cult
Solace

I hope you're right, but so far the popularity of cool things like Magnatune hasn't grown as fast as I thought it would. The deal they offer (to artists AND consumers) is great, but they don't have the RIAA's hype-machine so even though they also happily-lack the lawsuit factory (their slogan is "we are not evil" -- only in the music business!) of the RIAA quintopoly.
JMR

Napster's pricing seems fair but they're treating everyone as a potential criminal, guilty until proven innocent

Only at the insistence of the major record labels. If you want something like Magnatune, you know where to find it.

No one has addressed your record label point: see Soulseek Records, 8bitpeoples, or a host of other net labels. These labels generally don't pay the artists, because the albums are free to download (DRM-less, of course). There's also Magnatune, which lets people "try before you buy" music, which pays all its artists 50% (of album sales, merchandise, everything) and keeps the rights to the music in the hands of the artists, where they belong.

If you're tired of searching for new music on the Intarweb, why not just run iRATE radio and let it download MP3s for you. iRATE will even learn to download the kind of music you like!

iRATE's server has a large database of MP3s that are kept on the musicians' own websites (or MP3 hosting services, like IUMA). There are over 50,000 tracks in its database, with 3,000 Creative Commons-licensed MP3s recently added from Magnatune.

iRATE downloads a few tracks, and then you rate the tracks according to your preferences. iRATE's server then compares your ratings to those of other users, and selects new tracks based on your rating patterns. That is, if you and I like the same kind of music, iRATE will download for you the same music that I like. If we disagree, your iRATE will avoid my favorites.

This process is known as "collaborative filtering".

iRATE's client and server are both licensed under the GNU GPL, and are written in Java. For Linux, there is a native binary compiled with GCJ, so there are no non-free dependencies.

There's going to be a native Windows client, but GCJ is not presently able to build a stable Windows binary - so you could help by helping the GCJ team fix that.

There is a Mac OS X ".dmg" disk image, that runs using the Java runtime that comes with OS X. It looks like any other OS X application. For those who install the Java Runtime Environment, you can use the Java webstart version. You just click a link on iRATE's download page and it installs and runs.

iRATE's team always welcomes people who want to help with development and testing.

Until there's another site like MP3.com, there's not really any suitable way to buy music.

Check out Magnatue.com.

1. You can preview (as many times as you want of the whole album) via streaming mp3.
2. When you find something you like, you choose the price that YOU want to pay for the album; pick between $4 and $16, $8 is recommended. Half goes to the artist, half to Magnatune.
3. The artist gets half of the purchase-price.
4. Upon payment you are given URLs to download MP3s, master-quality WAVs, and cover art for the album.
5. Their entire catalogue is licensed under Creative Commons licenses, so it is leagal to share them with your friends.

The system they have seems great for everyone involved. I recently asked some questions of one of the artists whose work I bought:


>>>Hi-
>>>
>>>I would be happy to hear Your feedback (good or bad)about my first album
>>>Alchemy. (Magnatune)
>>>Thanks.
>>>
>>>Allan.
>>>
>>He llo Allan,
>>
>>I have thoroughly enjoyed Alchemy, especially the title track and
>>Ambriel. Keep up the good work.
>>
>
> - thanks
>
>>My question to you: How have you found the experience of distributing
>>your work under the Creative Commons license?
>
>
> - it is all John Buckmans ( Magnatune) work. I just sent my music.
>
>> I have several musician
>>friends who found the idea interesting, but were wary of giving up any
>>control of their recordings. Do you feel that you have received more or
>>less financial/critical rewards by using the Creative Commons license?
>
>
> -I have starting to sell my music on Magnatune. I didnt make money from
>my music before, thats why I cannot see the difference.
>
>>Thanks, I'll be listening to Vibrant as soon as I get a chance.
>>
>>Adam
>>
>Thanks for Your response.
>Allan.
>

OK, not an earth-shattering reply, but the artists aren't being raped ala Sony, TimeWarner, BMG, et. al.

Meanwhile, many of us see movies weeks before they're even released to theatres and watch TV shows the day after they air via internet exchanges. Just the other day someone promised to post a TV program that had JUST aired "as soon as the encoding is done" which, in this case, was about four hours.

I buy and sell shit via the internet in the blink of an eye. Just the other day I bought another CD from magnatune and the only reason it took me a day to get it was because of my hideously slow dialup connection and my insistence on getting the highest practical quality (FLAC).

ALL these examples and the best you can come up with is to mention an "old guard" news source releasing months old photos only AFTER they had "cleared it with washington?" Yeesh.

Don't be conflicted. Software patents are bad.
Therefore this patent is bad.

The artists and producers who don't like you downloading their music are also bad. Don't support them, even if it's just by... downloading their music! (Metallica comes to mind). So don't use Kazaa or whatever, use the likes of Magnatune. By supporting independent freedom-loving musicians and producers, you register your anti-RIAA vote.

Finally, anything which attacks peer-to-peer networks will cause evolution of those networks, leading to faster, stronger, better peer-to-peer.

It's a win-win-win situation!

http://magnatune.com/

There's some good stuff in the Electronica section I've started listening to (for free). I'll probably buy a few CDs worth soon.

BTW, thanks Russ!

I have found Magnatune to be very good. Not a massive selection, but at least they are all of good quality. No "dork-in-the-basement-with-a-keyboard" like some other free music sites have. Some of these are really good. "Brad Sucks" is interesting, "Rocket City Riot" and "The Napolean Blown Aparts" are good ol' rock-n-roll. I am sure there is more there, I just haven't gotten through it all yet.

Check it out.

I don't really have issues with people posting older music, but if we would practice what we preach we could get a lot more attention for "good" artists rather than continuing to post and share mainstream pop releases. And look at the other discussion here recently on "gaming engines" - "machinima" is destined to become more realistic, the day when we have "klans" competing through releases of original movies on usenet and irc is coming... and their move into "popular culture" will surely not be far behind.

magnatune.com

Reasons to use FLAC:

• It's free and open; I'm not going to find my files are suddenly unplayable because developers are unable to support it properly. I think it's even part of fb2k's std_input array, meaning it's supported in a player who's installer is less than 800k (the bloated "special" one which will play just about anything and do just about anything to the resulting sound is a shade over 2MB).
• It's lossless; I can transcode to any lossy format I like for playback on a portable.. maybe I get a player that only does MP3, maybe I find one which can play back MusePack; either way I can choose to create a lossy file which is tuned to my portable usage (100kbps Vorbis might be a good one for portable use, but man that'll suck on my desktop). Additionally if FLAC were ever to become unusable (maybe someone finds a patent against it or so.. whatever), I can convert to any other lossless format and get the same benefits without worrying about losing anything. I like a futureproof music collection.
• It's lossless; even at high bitrates, lossy formats aren't perfect, especially MP3. I don't want to worry about compression artifacts or encoder bugs or what quality setting to use; lossless is an easy choice, with no quality tradeoffs. With 600GB+ of disk space I couldn't really care less about the 4x increase in size.
• It's robust; I've lost track of the number of MP3's I've seen with serious sync errors (bit errors, basically). Despite having more FLAC files, I'm yet to come across a corrupt one, even through the less official channels (in fact, I've yet to be able to buy a set of FLAC files complete with .PAR2's, .MD5's and .LOG files). Pirate FLAC files are usually of at least identical quality to a CD you've ripped yourself.. pirate MP3's are usually encoded using stupid settings using a badly configured burst ripper. No thanks.
• It's well supported; it even has hardware support, which bodes well for the next few generations of portable audio players (if you had a 100G+ player wouldn't you like to be able to play lossless files instead of faffing about with lossy stuff?)
• It's fast. I can encode and decode FLAC faster than most lossy formats, including low bitrate Vorbis files. Yes, this is a big deal when I'm waiting for an album to ReplayGain or transcoding to other formats; going from 1% CPU to 0.5% CPU during normal playback is the difference between decoding at 100x and decoding at 200x.
• It's well specified. I'll be impressed if you can point me at a document describing MP3, and even then you're not going to find any metadata standards with an official specification; ID3v[12] and co are unofficial addons, and they suck (ever seen the ID3v2 spec? A ID3v2 reader/writer can be easily twice the size of a complete decoder and metadata reader/writer for most sane formats).

On an unrelated note, I wonder if iTMS is going to start offering lossless files. That would be cool.

Magnatune has lossless files, including WAV and FLAC.

example1, example 2, and example 3 of why this is a supremely antiquated notion...

Yes, I replied to a troll... hype knows no boundaries.

example1, example 2, and example 3 of why this is a supremely antiquated notion...

Yes, I replied to a troll... hype knows no boundaries.

New format available: all albums are now available for download as highest-quality Apple Macintosh AAC files, compressed into a Mac-native Stuffit archive. All the meta-information (song name, artist, year, album) is stored in the AAC file so that you can just drop the files into iTunes and they're perfectly recognized. And unlike AAC files bought from the iTunes shop, these AAC files are as unemcumbered by DRM (digital rights management).

If anyone here hasn't yet checked out magnatune, you should. There are some great acts and you can get exactly what most of us have been screaming for: un-DRM files of the highest possible quality and YOU set the price.

Of course this just drives the networks to the binary.pgp groups, the zip groups, etc - but that sure cuts a hole in circulation. You go from "free for all" to "free for me and you" - essentially killing the entire concept of usenet.

Frankly, I don't think people who post top40 type stuff (the type of music most likely to be policed by this software) are helping "the cause." All they're doing is helping hype the people who have been running the show the last century - if those people want their stuff off the channels, I say more power to'em and I hope this lets them finally shoot off that last leg they have left standing. Let's see'em try to serve a takedown notice when I post Shiva in Exile or Brad Sucks... or even Linda.

That's MagnaTune.com. It is good.

Although most of the piracy apologists follow your reasoning, you fail to concede that there is a middle-ground. The internet has opened new ways to make business. However, for the last ten years, the music industry establishment has done nothing but try and keep the old business model. Why?

I'd wager that current publishers think they hold the middle-man spot because they have a strong grip on product exposition. The internet makes product exposition a lot easier, and has the potential to downgrade the middle-man value, therefore causing the whole industry to 'deflate'. This deflation is overall good, for public and artists, but is obviously bad for the editors.

In the end, give or take a couple of years, alternative music selling models will break through the barriers. Then, middle-men (editors) will have to excel in the role they are really needed for: weeding out bad artists, so people don't have to listen to every band out there. Then, only then, we'll again see great bands. Bands that really innovate the way music is created. The last ones, for me, were Nirvana, the pilar of the grunge movement. From then on, no really great global movement came out from the music scene. (The boy-band, girl-band movement fails on the grounds of musical quality).

I finish the comment with a glimmer of hope: Magnatune. Magnatune is clearly a small shop. However, it's a small shop, almost a one-man stunt, with a really innovative business model. And you know what? It's currently profitable.

Although most of the piracy apologists follow your reasoning, you fail to concede that there is a middle-ground. The internet has opened new ways to make business. However, for the last ten years, the music industry establishment has done nothing but try and keep the old business model. Why?

I'd wager that current publishers think they hold the middle-man spot because they have a strong grip on product exposition. The internet makes product exposition a lot easier, and has the potential to downgrade the middle-man value, therefore causing the whole industry to 'deflate'. This deflation is overall good, for public and artists, but is obviously bad for the editors.

In the end, give or take a couple of years, alternative music selling models will break through the barriers. Then, middle-men (editors) will have to excel in the role they are really needed for: weeding out bad artists, so people don't have to listen to every band out there. Then, only then, we'll again see great bands. Bands that really innovate the way music is created. The last ones, for me, were Nirvana, the pilar of the grunge movement. From then on, no really great global movement came out from the music scene. (The boy-band, girl-band movement fails on the grounds of musical quality).

I finish the comment with a glimmer of hope: Magnatune. Magnatune is clearly a small shop. However, it's a small shop, almost a one-man stunt, with a really innovative business model. And you know what? It's currently profitable.

...and thus all other worthwhile online music stores that follows - would [not] have *existed* in the first place if it wasn't for *some* DRM capability.

1. iTMS is not all that
2. magnatune is awesome
3. vote with your dollars
4. don't bitch about the behavior of major labels if that's all you want to listen to
5. don't be evil
6. support musicians, not the RIAA
7. Get over yourselves.

Where do you guys come from?

"They're either flat out thieves.."
"..or they're hair splitting posers who'll bitch about it on principle alone.."

For starters, burning every digital album I purchase just to be able to listen to it over the network from a Linux/Solaris/BSD/BeOS/DOS/Amiga/TRS-80/Etc computer is not something I'd realistically do. Its just not convenient and the sole advantage to purchasing these lower quality digital files is...c'mon you can get this! Convenience! So rather then being a 'flat out thief' I'm more of a honest consumer, the only posers I see here are all the Apple fan boi's out there who can't seem to fathom why on earth anyone would want to use anything but the iPod and their shiny Mac to eat, breath and shit.

But do me a favor, take it on faith. There are Mac users who use hardware and software in their day to day lives that is not blessed by Apple (don't tell anyone, but some of it is actually good too).

Next time you feel inclined to stand up on your little pulpit, think about it a little more. Somehow we've been brainwashed into thinking theirs only two kinds of people, happy proprietary DRM users and thieves. That's insulting and that's bullshit.

FTR, there are plenty of honest companies out there selling great music without DRM and often with higher quality codecs. I'm pretty fond of Magantune.com right now, but I'm sure other readers could point out a whole slew of others.

1. The iTunes Music Store - and thus all other worthwhile online music stores that follows...

So the several stores that were around before iTMS and that Apple ripped off the idea from don't fall under the same category? Hmm.

There are several stores with no DRM, starting with Magnatune.

If YOU steal, it's no big deal, but if a company steals, then fry em.

By not paying for the music, who do you think you are hurting? Companies are not machines. Surprise, you are hurting real live people who work for those evil companies.

So, now you ARE hurting innocent people.

Your attempts at justification are so sad.

Thought I would just clear up some of your incorrect assumptions in that I don't actually download music that I am not allowed to, the only free music I download is from Magnatunes in order to find stuff I like. Neither to I support those people who do download music they are not entitled to. The differences in the RIAA lawsuits vs. this GPL lawsuit are that for one this company knows precisely what they are doing, they have a legal department and were informed of the issue and have even been asked directly to stop, they have refused. People on kazaa don't necessarily have that knowledge and to the best of my knowledge the first time they are directly contacted is in the threat of an extremely costly lawsuit if they don't pay a lot of money (ie extortion). Also I'm not fully sure about my opinion on whether the RIAA should be suing, I can see the reasons why they are suing but I also have strong objections to how they are doing it (particularly the extortion aspect) I clearly did show my objections to their actions in my original post but my main purpose was to show that in fact these are very different issues and your(I assume you're the original AC) comparison was inaccurate.

Why can't an artist (who owns copyright to their work)

Because most artists sell the copyright to their record company. Not because they want to, but because the record companies have the power to demand this. The normal rule in the US market is that the copyright reverts to the artist after thirty-five years, and then into the public domain 50 years after the artist dies.

One presumes that record companies are afraid that they will lose this level of control, if artists realize that most of them can make more money selling their wares for $0.50 a song through some clearinghouse like Magnatune or Music Rebellion. Then the record companies will only get the top .01% of talent (at best), and their margins will go down due to having less lucrative contracts with already-proven artists. Plus their main value now is the monopoly they have on distribution channels; that will go away if MP3 becomes the default format for sale.