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Greene's Grammy Speech Debunked
jonerik writes: "Today's New York Times has this article which debunks at least part of NARAS president Michael Greene's much-publicized speech at last week's Grammy Awards ceremony in which Greene claimed that he had hired three students to download a whopping 6,000 songs "from easily accessible Web sites" over two days. Leaving aside for a moment Greene's bizarre admission on national TV that he'd hired three students (at least one of whom, Numair Faraz, is a minor) to break the law (the No Electronic Theft Act), Faraz has been interviewed by the Times, saying that they spent more like three days on the project and that the other two students (both unnamed, though both are apparently attending U.C.L.A.) barely used P2P file-sharing programs at all. Instead, they used AOL's popular Instant Messenger to receive song files from friends."
Thing is that most people e.g. the 'normal' people do not rip MP3s, and even if they do they do it for themselves. But assuming they don't - then having to do phone-jack to input type recordings really takes the fun out of it. I mean; no link to CDDB, no seperate tracks with hassle etc.
Normal people will give up, but nothing will stop the hardcore crews.
But that's what these stoneage businesses rely on. If it's easy then it's a no-no, but if it's hassle then very few will do it. Simple, yet effective.
It's also a good use of their time. If they make it tough for 90% then they have done a good job and they can go home.
First thing I do when I buy (yes buy) a CD is rip it so I can have it at home and work. If they ruin it for me I'll simply stop buying...and that's the potential flaw in their plan I guess.