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Napster Not To Blame
enjo13 writes "Slate is running an article on the music industries recent troubles. It articulates exactly what Slashdot has preached all along.. that the Music industry is suffering at its own hands and has no one to blame but itself. All I have to say is... finally." There's actually been a number of pieces like this, but I think this one says it best.
What more of a paper tiger than a spineless group of consumers who incessantly whine and moan about the RIAA, steal its music (justified, they say, by the RIAA's practices), and then (if you believe the surveys) go out and buy it anyway? (And what about those steal the content and DON'T buy the CDs? - according to the article, they could account for at least 19% of those surveyed).
Unlike some people I'm not going to make excuses about bands sucking or music companies being too greedy. It's stealing, that's all there is to it.
Sometimes morals do have a price, and sometimes that price is low.
4Literature - Read, write, and discuss your favor
You are but a minute minority in this music world and I applaud you for that. If most people were like you Napster wouldn't die as soon as they switched to a subscription-based service and the RIAA would have absolutely no problems with p2p file sharing. The fact is, most of the music downloaders out there (of which an overwhelming majority seems to like hanging out at /.) are nothing but common thieves. I remember back in the day when Napster was still popuplar and the RIAA was suing them... how the /. users were saying "if we could download songs at $0.01 per song I'd go for it". Guess what happened now that Naspter is obliging? They all left and found themselves another p2p place to share. These petty thieves like to justify the crimes they do with any excuse that comes to mind. To me they're just as evil as what they claim RIAA is.
eTrade SUCKS