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RIAA Moves Against College-Network Fileswapping

Posted by timothy on from the baby-with-the-bathwater dept.

pazu13 writes "The RIAA is taking action against college "Napster networks". It's suing four network operators, two at Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute, one at Princeton University, and one at Michigan Technological University. Don't know where this is going, but I'm afraid it might get significantly harder for humble college students such as myself to sample an artist's music before going out and buying a disc... my speed across the network is ridiculously faster than when I try to access outside sources."

1 of 688 comments (clear)

  1. Re:"Sampling an artists music" by ShadowcatBlue · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you want to sample an artist's music before buying a disc, why not listen to the radio, MTV, or the short samples available on Amazon.com (or wherever) to get an idea of what the artist is like?

    Personally, when it comes to the mainstream English music I only buy the CD under 2 conditions: 1) I actually like 80% of the songs on it and 2) after listening to those songs for about 2 weeks (not constantly, but often) I still like them. That's why I prefer to download an album (when I can't borrow it from a friend) before I buy it. Most music retail sites rarely have all the songs in an album up, and even when they do hearing only 30 seconds of a song is decieving because if there's an annoying interlude 2 minutes into it that makes me detest it then I'll hate the song (maybe I'm too picky). Also, from past experience, mainstream English music when I like it tends to wear itself out really fast about half the time. I'm hesitant to buy CDs I might be absolutely sick of even the sight of in a couple of weeks. With the price of American mainstream CDs these days, I don't want just "an idea" of what an artist is like, I want to be SURE I like the album I'm paying for. Every artist has good and bad albums.

    I blame American mainstream music industry for the high occurrence of crap among their products. I've noticed I'm drastically less cautious when shelling out the cash for foreign albums, part of that is because their albums even look a lot spiffier. I appreciate a product that looks, as well as sounds, thoughtfully produced.