Wirehead Studios

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2007/10/23/oink-shut-british-dutch-police
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1572554/20071023/id_0.jhtml

http://enjoys.it/2007/10/23/some-facts-and-some-rumors-about-the-oink-takedown/

Although annoying, I find this mildly entertaining: the amount and nature of the lies and false accusations in news posts regarding this is freaky. The kids behind OiNK are portrayed as having made a lot of money out of it (going so far as to call the site "lucrative"), forcing people to pay, hosting illegal content. OiNK has been portrayed as a site "specialized" in pre-release theft (60 albums have been detected as being pre-release rips, whereas the majority of the thousands of other albums was post-release ripped, and a huge amount of those cannot even be bought in stores at all). So it goes.

I don't want to spark the copyright debate again here: we all know how opinions differ on what is to be considered damaging theft and how huge corporations operate. I'm mostly interested in the way the media are used to play this. Hell, the copyright investigation bureaus even use the captured resources for marketing/advertisement purposes, even before any court rulings. Guilty until proven rich, I guess.

The mainstream media almost always gets it wrong on so many things, but especially when it comes to technical matters, and sometimes it's downright lying.  I remember seeing a video used to promote the 1994 "Assault" weapons ban in the US.  They had the Los Angeles Sheriff or someone like that demonstrating a semi-automatic AK-47 pattern rifle, shooting at concrete blocks.  He fires several times, and nothing happened.  Then he brings out the "assault" weapon - a fully automatic AK-47 (which is already illegal under the National Firearms Act unless you have a machinegun license) and proceed to pulverize the concrete block with the weapon set to full auto.  Nevermind the fact that both weapons fire the exact same ammunition and - had the cop actually hit the brick with the first rifle - would have done the same exact damage per shot.  The cop machinegunning the brick had dramatic effect.  "Oh, they're wanting to ban those evil machineguns, why not support it!" when it was a complete lie.  They're still pushing the same lies around, that after the ban sunsetted that these "assault weapons" are being sold all over the streets now.  Funny because you could buy a semi-automatic AK-pattern rifle, complete with detachable magazine, all during the time this bill was in effect.  It just couldn't have a pistol grip that was separated from the buttstock, a flash hider, a bayonet lug, or a collapsable stock.  The weapons functioned mechanically the same, fired the same ammunition, and were widely available.  Regardless of how one feels about firearms and firearm ownership, selling your case with a fabricated demonstration, outright lies, and fearmongering is dirty pool, yet this is exactly how the news media works.  They're entirely political and any claim to objectivity should be treated with a great deal of suspicion.

This line grabbed my attention most:


Technically speaking, a person in Amsterdam and a person in Japan would constitute a "world wide network".  They make it out like it was the Russian Mafia or something.  P2P is the convenient villain of the internet right now, and the media has good reason to oppose it.  They can't control content that way.  The RIAA and MPAA hate it not only because of piracy, but because indie artists can distribute stuff without needing the big record companies.  Sure you don't make money that way, but not everyone is in it for the money.  Prince managed to tick off the record companies when he gave away his latest release with copies of a London newspaper.  They didn't get their profit so they got mad - despite the fact that he was perfectly within his rights to do what he did.  Then there's the advertising houses, and data mining firms.  It's against the interests of the corporate machines (and the news media is a corporate machine of the worst kind) to allow P2P distribution of anything, legal or otherwise, because it means people are directly interacting without involving the filter of a corporate entity.  Corporations and governments by their very nature seek to control, and any time someone bucks the system they'll do everything they can do demonize and vilify them.  The last thing they want is an underground of smart people doing things behind their back, especially if it involves the exchange of information and even more so if it doesn't line their pockets in the way they think you should.  It's always been about control.

That being said, I had never even heard of OiNK until this article broke.  OiNK has not stopped me from buying any movies, or records, or games.  I think that's true for the majority of internet users.  I don't think OiNK being shut down is going to stop any of the hardcore pirates either - they'll just go underground again and find another way to do what they do, like they always do.  Shut down OiNK, watch a dozen more sites pop up in their place, and with greater security and anonymity.

There's a dirty rule when it comes to the corporate world - "it's only wrong if you get caught, and if you're caught we'll join in the feeding frenzy".  I still cackle when I think about the Dateline reporter getting chased out of DefCon.  She thought she could break the rules to get her scoop and she got scooped instead - by other reporters.  Reporters are all dirt balls, and watching them turn on each other like that only illustrated how shallow and callous they are, and how eager they are to advance their own careers, and how willingly they'll stab even their own colleagues in the back to do so.

OiNK was mostly a place where people could go if they wanted obscure music with adequate guarantee of rip-quality. It was hardly a "world-wide network" in any other than the trivial sense you indicated, but it had a fairly large amount of users.

Hardcore pirates will not be stopped by this. I have no worries about .. I mean, I am shocked to say.. that *cough*. The problem here is that obscure-specific networks don't get up and cracking as quickly as other piracy-sites. Ironically, the sites that help promote cultural development and might actually stimulate sales are the ones that get, and stay, crippled more than mainstream rippers. If KaraGarga (a site specializing in classics and obscure, hard-to-get cinematography) is shut down, it will take maybe over a year before anything as good as that gets up and running, whereas ThePirateBay or an equivalent thereof would be up the very next day.

OiNK was my .. ehr, my dead uncle's .. source for experimental music, Dark Ambient, Jazz oldies and the like. I'll just have to ask RIAA and IFBP how they intend for me to buy music like that -- since they're responsible for killing it, I guess it would also be nice if they'd provide an alternative source.

But that's just it - they won't.  I think we both know why.  If only diversity were truly valued in this world and not just given so much lip service. *sigh*  Oh for the days when mediocrity was not the rule...

I hate the way they twist it - that OiNK was some massive piracy ring. To be honest, I'd never heard of OiNK until this bust made the news.

If the music industry were to collapse, I'd be the first to celebrate. Music would live on and thrive. Capitalism stifles creativity, as fat-cat record execs always want the "next [insert established act here]".

I don't know if you had it in the States, but does anyone remember that old "cassette and crossbones" logo "Home Taping is Killing Music"? Well, guess what, it didn't. And neither will P2P, simply because there are still too many of us, myself included, that would rather have the CD, the artwork and all that comes with a legit *hard* copy.

Another thing that made me laugh was that statement made a while ago that something like 1 or 2 thirds of CD's in the world were CDR's. Fair enough. What they DIDN'T tell you was what those disks actually contained. Hell, I've got 2 dozen CDR's containing nothing but Q3 stuff. BIG DEAL!

P2P is here to stay. Sorry, but this raid is nothing more than a PR excercise, designed to scare everyone. In the immortal words of Weird Al:

"SUE! SUE! YEAH I'M GONNA SUE! I'M GONNA SUE! SUE! YEAH I MIGHT EVEN SUE YOU!!!"

Besides, since when is it WRONG to share? ;)

What's missing is mention the Fair Use doctrine.  In the States, there's what is called Fair Use, and it is actually a law that governs what is permissible for the end user to do with a copyrighted work.  In other words, once it's in your hot little hands, you're permitted to do certain things.  Taping of broadcast material is considered fair use because of the nature of broadcasting.  This was translated to govern cable and satellite as well.  In addition, you're permitted to make archival copies of any software you purchase, as well as make extra copies of music you purchase.  If you want to make a CD-R mixes of your favorite tunes, it's 100% legal if you already own a copy.  You want to rip an old vinyl record to a CD?  Same thing.  CD to cassette?  Same thing.  What's happened is the record labels and movie companies are so worried about piracy that they're trying to make it out that copying ANY disk for ANY reason constitutes piracy.  It's factually and legally incorrect.

What I don't like is the whole concept of "licensing" when it comes to music.  Music is not software.  Now if you're going to treat it that way, and I only own the "rights" to "listen" to the music, then by that logic the record companies should provide me, free of charge, the latest format of every song I own that's on an older media format, like a cassette.  After all, I still own the right to listen to the song, so why should I have to pay for it twice, hmm?  Otherwise I should be able to dub what I want when I want for my own personal use without having to worry about copy protection schemes that are contrary to Fair Use, or Sony trying to install rootkits on my computer.

I understand trading songs cuts into profits, and I understand the business argument of the issue.  I don't, however, buy the argument that piracy is killing music, or killing gaming (Sorry Id, but I disagree with you on that one and I have legit copies of your games).  The industries have done this to themselves.  Charging an arm a leg and then asking for your firstborn for an album that has, say, one decent song that's played over and over on the radio when the rest of the album is crap has a word for it - rip off.  Instead of trying to beat the pirates (which they'll never win that game) they need to stop cheating the public with substandard products.  Try the carrot first.  Bundle some cool stuff in your music CD, like discounts for concert passes, or other incentives that will encourage the listener to buy the CD.  Oh, and make sure the CD mix quality is good, and that the songs are all top notch.  Stop promoting crap artists who don't know music, and can't write songs, and stat finding some real creative talent and for goodness sake, STOP SUPPRESSING THE TALENT THAT'S ALREADY OUT THERE!!  Instead of wasting money trying to pull down the jolly roger with law suits and pissing everyone off they'd actually increase their revenues by diverting that money toward more constructive endeavors.  Let the hardcore pirates have their rips.  They're not ever going to pay you anyway, so why not just make a better product for the people who will?

Edit:  I should add that one area where the movie companies seem to be getting it right is the DVD market.  A lot of movies have two versions - the standard version, and a collector's version that has extra disks with all sorts of extra goodies about the production of the film.  I absolutely love that sort of thing, because for a couple of dollars more you get a lot of extra content.  That's the sort of thing I'm talking about.  99% of the time if I want a movie on DVD I will get the collector's version.  I will say that DVD picture quality is light years above what was available on VHS as well, which is something I have been quite pleased with.  Sure, you could get an illegal rip of a movie off the net, if you really want to fight the bandwidth and tolerate the poor picture quality, but given the choice I will go for the high quality DVD.  Maybe the record companies should take some notes there.

I think it's good that you mention DVD collector's editions because Radiohead have done something similar with their new album. It's available to download and - get this - YOU name your own price (so long as it's above 48p or something). However, for the REAL hardcore fans there's a hard copy available (albeit at a premium) which is apparently crammed with bonus stuff. Thay have been able to do this because they released the album themselves, rather than through normal channels.

In the UK, free gifts bundled with a single or album disqualifies it from the charts. The Chemical Brothers fell foul of thiis a few years ago. That said, the track in question wasn't exactly radio-friendly, weghing in at over 9 minutes. Still, I totally agree with the carrot idea. Hit us with that exclusive, homie ...

I can understand the idea of not wanting swag to influence someone's purchase decision for the chart stuff, but you do want people to buy the record, don't you?  This is why most of the bands I listen to don't get any radio time.  I can't think of any station that plays anything from Iron Maiden in the US.  Not one.  I've heard Black Sabbath, Ozzy, Judas Priest even from time to time, Metallica... but no Maiden.  Yet, despite the lack of air time and lack of record industry backing, they can hit #7 in the US singles chart, #1 in spain, #3 in the UK, #1 on the VH1 European chart for their latest album, and #4 on the UK chart.

Now I'm not saying this just to plug Iron Maiden.  They've been around a long time and have a large world wide fan base.  What I'm saying is that they can do this without the record companies because they have a large world wide fan base.  Most Maiden fans are going to buy their latest album because they liked the previous album, and they know they're not going to get screwed with an album full of lousy songs (taste being subjective of course, as always).  For A Matter of Life and Death, they even sent out nifty T-shirts for pre-ordering and a DVD documentary of the album's production was bundled with it.  You don't care about that stuff, you can get the regular copy.

Point is... bands that already have a following don't need promotion.  Where new creative talent suffers is they get drowned out by the radio stations because they only play the crap that the record companies promote.  The more indie stuff doesn't get the exposure they need.  It used to be a band would start out playing clubs, usually doing covers, and start writing their own stuff, find an agent and submit a demo tape, etc, and if they thought it was marketable they'd sign them for an album.  The catch there is if the record agent thinks it's marketable.  Now you don't have to do that.  The internet means you can self-publish, self-promote, and people can share stuff.  You like something you hear, you can find someone's website and order a disk directly, or download it purely digitally for a modest fee.  Now consider what that could do to the record companies in about 10 years?  That's the real reason they're afraid of P2P and music sharing.  It's not people pirating Brittney Spears cutting into their profits they worry about, it's their monopolistic business model collapsing that scares them.  I read the bit about Radiohead, and the headline wasn't about how innovative Radiohead was, but how it scared the sporking hell out of the record industry, and MTV is claiming their download quality is inferior and calling it all a promotional gimmick.  Consider these headlines:

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1571737/20071011/radiohead.jhtml
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/10/07/ccmusic107.xml

Not knowing much about the band myself, I couldn't tell you squat about the download quality, but it seems to me the people writing the news articles seem to care more about the impact on the record industry than the fact that the fans actually have some choice in the matter.  What really galls me is the hypocrisy in the MTV article about marketing.  WTF do they think the big record labels do when they play stuff on the radio?  Consider that it costs you either way - you have to pay (with time - the major currency of life) to listen through their garbage commercials to hear "less than CD quality" samples of music.  So what's all the problem with paying a small monetary fee for a 160 K sample of an album?  I actually had no idea that iTunes was sub 160 K quality myself (another reason I will continue to buy CD's).  If you think you've been ripped off, well, you'll probably not buy anything else from the band, right?  And if you like the band and want better quality you'll buy the CD anyway.  You can't say there wasn't some risk involved in that decision.  For the people who would pirate the stuff anyway, they're going to find higher quality rips later so I don't see how Radiohead really ripped anyone off - but then MTV is nothing but corporate spew anyway.  Self-promoting is the last thing the corporate machine wants.  I find it ironic that a capitalist entity attacks a band for engaging in an entrepreneurial practice.  Funny how capitalism is always so good until it means someone else makes money that you thought should be yours!

I think that's why all the mischaracterization goes on when a network like OiNK gets shut down.  The industry probably wanted it down for a long time, and casting it as a den of piracy was just a way to avoid the appearance of the Big Corporation beating up on the little guy once again.

Finally a good article, which is here:
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/news/2007/10/oink

That bit about pre-release music being from record industry insiders... that concerns me.  There's a legal prohibition in criminal matters in the US called Entrapment.  That is, a police officer or other official cannot encourage or otherwise coerce you into breaking the law in order to arrest you.  I have a feeling that this is exactly what is going on with the recording industry.  I think they're baiting P2P sites with illegal uploads themselves, then notifying authorities about copyrighted music being present, so they can swoop in and "save the day", putting those "evil pirates" out of business when they themselves are the ones pulling off a frame job.  Since it's not a police agency doing the baiting it's not technically entrapment, but it's the same modus operandi.  I know they want to hit the P2P host sites more than anything else.  If it can be proven that someone in the record industry was baiting then perhaps this fellow has some kind of defense.  I don't know about the law on this, but if it is baiting then it's exactly the kind of dirty pool that will make people hate the recording industry even more.

A friend of mine bought the Radiohead album online and threw it on when I was in his house last night. There is bugger all wrong with the sound quality. The MTV article makes me laugh, as this is a corporation whose own morals have been called into question on more than one occasion *cough* Herbie Hancock *cough* Eurythmics *cough*

I've always believed that pre-release material appearing on torrent sites can only be an inside job, and I remember saying such when San Andreas apparently got leaked. Games, movies, music, it's happening with them all. What other logical explanation is there? Think about it - that's one hell of a lot of burglaries ...

It's so easy to leak stuff nowadays. I remember watching an interview of a guy who'd steal character design sheets from anime studios. All he had to do was to go in there, and simply say "hi" to the receptionist. If anyone asked who he was, he'd simply say that he was a subcontracted employee. It's that easy! Plus beta-testers, marketing people and those kind of people also have access to pre-releases, so it's really easy to leak stuff from the companies. Or, sometimes, the companies themselves realease pre-releases, so as to have an excuse to sue somebody, or to delay the release date of something. *COUGH*Half-Life 2*COUGH*

I know this is a bump, but I didn't see the need to begin a new thread:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7240234.stm

Flaws? Ok, where do we start?

1. Privacy. Essentially, Gordon wants ISP's to monitor all traffic that passes through their servers. This includes personal details, voice conversations, video conversations, bank account information, credit card details, private data, oh, and maybe some pirated material. This in itself contravenes the Data Protection Act on numerous levels.

2. Practicality. How the hell are they planning to monitor EVERY packet, given the widespread use of the Internet and the speeds that home broadband setups can achieve these days? That is a lot of net traffic to wade through. Thay can't even get rid of the online child pornography rings that operate in this country, yet they are happy to introduce an unworkable scheme to discourage those people who just like to get something for free.

3. Cost. Why not just take all of the taxpayers' money they plan to plough into this and give it to the BPI to keep them happy? 'Cos it's gonna cost A LOT.

I read that record companies want to set up a dummy PC, connect it to a P2P network, watch all the little hard-bitten criminal scum leech off it, collect the IP's and then supoena the ISP's to cough up corresponding names and addresses. I haven't passed the bar, but I'd say that was "entrapment".

What is this? sporking CHINA?? How long will it be before we are faced with disconnection because, for instance,  we visited an anarchist site? Or downloaded Eric Harris' Doom levels (they were crap, btw, don't bother)? Or did ANYTHING online which could be considered disagreeable by the establishment?

One thing I noticed in the article is that the games industry is not mentioned once, just movies and music. Game piracy is just as big an issue, yet the government seems to care not a jot. I think programmers would care to differ ...

"Who cares about privacy? Who needs it? Do you use privacy for anything these days? I'm telling you, it's unecessary, just a big wheight on your shoulders! Here, let me help you with that trash!"

I beg to differ.
Western companies are overpowered. I've been following a blog of a portuguese businessman who is currently working abroad in Japan. Basically, what he says is that the customer there is treated like a God, and that only happens because the companies there depend on the customer, and not on the Goverment! Here in the West, companies suck away the tax money. They don't depend on the customer, they depend solely on the Goverment's income. Politicians can't do squat about it, because they're part of this mafia, and the customer can't do a thing to hurt them either, because they're just too insignificant. A Capitalism system without customers is ridiculous, and yet that's what's ruling our countries!

Seriously, stop trying to control our lives!

Trying to blame ISP's for illegal downloading is like blaming the highway maintenence department for speeders.  It's ridiculous.

They don't need to see every packet.  Here's some idea of how they're doing it already.  Take a list of known protocols and ports, a database of filename wildcards, including known and unknown pirate files and common film and popular music song and artist names, and you've drastically narrowed your target down.  Set up leech sites on all the popular P2P networks, and log all the activity.  Something looks suspicious, you subpoena the ISP, then it's off to court.  Bear in mind too that entrapment only counts in criminal proceedings.  The MPAA and RIAA have been launching civil lawsuits, which do not have the same burden of proof in criminal proceedings.  Civil suits typically boil down to who has the money for attorney fees, who has the "best presented" case, and the disposition of the judge.  The RIAA knows it couldn't prove squat in a criminal case.  They apparently have enough money (despite their cries of starving artists and near-bankrupt record companies from piracy) to sue people with only suspicion of wrongdoing.  At that, they don't even check the files to see if they're actually pirate, and they've been made a mockery of by suing people who don't even have computers.  What they rely on is the first part - that the average citizen does not have the time or money for a long, drawn-out court case.  They rely on extortion tactics - you can take this to court and fight an uphill battle you cannot win, or you can give us a few thousand dollars and settle out of court.  In the old days this would be considered racketeering and the RIAA would find itself under a federal criminal investigation.  How times have changed.

As for logistics... don't think it's too far off before they can monitor everything.  What's bad is with the increased sophistication of predictive algorithms and heuristics, and the increasing speed of processing power, it won't be too long before every packet can be scanned, or at least, every significant packet, at central routing points.  I guarantee you that governments want this capability.  So do corporations.  One for paranoia and power, the other for greed.  They already try to dump cookies all over the place for tracking (doubleclick ring a bell?) and the average schmo does not know how to handle cookies and other privacy invaders.  Anyone reading this not know at least one relative that gets their machine constantly infected by spyware and/or viruses?

What I find interesting is it is only the entertainment industry pushing these suits.  Software vendors are not doing this.  Even Microsoft at least tries to solve the problem on their own, even if the results are pretty bad.  The software industry has always tried to battle piracy with its own methods as opposed to launching litigation after litigation.  In the early days you'd have to type in some password to play, like "How many eyelets do BJ's boots have? (see page whatever)" or "What is the mass of a Ralari?", etc.  A photocopy of the user's manual usually got around that.  Now there's more Big Brother-ish approaches like Steam, which are a lot harder to crack, but also more intrusive.  Still, while you might hear them complain about piracy, you don't hear about Id Software, Electronic Arts, or Valve dragging people to court every day of the week.  As a result, they're not hated the way the RIAA and MPAA are.  There's a lesson to be learned there.

As for privacy, here's the two conflicting lines of thought:

Government:  If you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide, and thus nothing to fear.
Citizen:  Got a warrant?  No?  Then bugger off.  I don't trust you and why the hell should I?  YOU answer to ME, remember?

The problem is that the governments of free nations no longer remember who their masters are.  They cater instead to money, and (I hate to use the word) special interests who influence the politicians.  Corporate rights have supplanted personal freedoms because corporations ALWAYS have more money and can divert more time an effort into lobbying than the average Joe who just wants to feed his family and have a warm place to sleep.  Global economics trumps individual worth, and that's not going to change.  This is all completely backwards of how things should be, but it's how they've turned.  That's why nobody stops thugs like the RIAA or MPAA.  I find them to be nothing more than a kind of state-tolerated mafia.  There needs to be laws against the kinds of suits they're leveling at people, but good luck getting anyone in Washington or any other government to agree to it.

Canada have an interesting model, whereby downloading copyrighted material is not illegal, but there is a heavy tax on things like CDR's and DVDR's. Frankly, I'd be happy to pay the extra for backing up my stuff if it meant that I didn't have to put up with this blatant infringement of civil liberty. Storage media is ridiculously cheap these days, so why can't the rest of us come to an agreement? The fact is that by introducing this legislation (given that common sense never prevails) the government is going against everything it dictates to us. Let me give you an example.

A few years ago a man was imprisoned for shooting dead an intruder on his land. This is unheard of in the US, I know, but it sparked a debate as to when protecting what is yours becomes a criminal offence. UK legislation states that an individual is permitted to use "reasonable force" when dealing with a potential thief/attacker/rapist/whatever. While this is open to scrutiny, one thing that is clear-cut is that you are NOT allowed to lie in wait, even if you know that you, your family or your property may be under threat. What the BPI, the RIAA and the MPAA want to do is lie in wait for people to come and try to get that nice big piece of cheddar and then SNAP! because it's the only way they can win.

What I find interesting about the gaming aspect of piracy is that it's the software houses who are probably the biggest victims. Games sell by the bucketload for about 6 months, tops, than drop like a stone, yet they get on with development. I hate Steam and have avoided it up to now, but I understand the reason for its existence. DVD and album sales carry on for YEARS, so who's the biggest loser? It's sure as hell not the BPI.

Hey, it's all about the Benjamins.

Actually this is quite common in the US.  Very few states have what is called a "Castle Doctrine" law, that is, a law that asserts that you have the right to use lethal force anywhere on your property so long as you feel threatened and that you may come to harm by the actions of an intruder.  A great many cities, especially larger ones like New York or Chicago, tend to heavily prosecute people defending themselves against intruders even if they are faced with loss of life.  Criminals have even sued and won in court for damages against homeowners who have shot and only injured them, prompting calls for Castle Doctrine legislation that prevents such lawsuits, and also prompting homeowners to rely on high-caliber handguns with hollow point bullets and shotguns loaded with buckshot in the mean time, the idea being that the increased lethality will reduce the chances of litigation in addition to being an effective means of taking down the intruder.  The sad thing is that many burglaries occur in poorer neighborhoods by drug addicts looking for cash or jewelry to pawn for their addictions, and it's those very neighborhoods where restrictions on self-defense and firearms ownership are the harshest.  Washington DC, for example, has up until recently banned all handgun ownership without a special permit - very few of those if any are ever issued except to government officials - and all long guns must be locked and inoperable even within the home, which of course makes them useless for defense.  DC has also had one of the highest murder rates and burglary rates of all US cities as well.  This law was overturned by a federal appeals court last year, and is now facing the Supreme Court where it will either be upheld or dismissed as unconstitutional.  Compare the restrictions of Washington DC to that of Kennesaw, Georgia, which has a law mandating all residents be armed except for special exceptions, which has virtually no crime whatsoever.  Now I don't mean to make this sound like a plug for firearms ownership, but it does illustrate the disparity between various parts of the US and the spectrum of laws and options available to its citizenry.  I know the media in the rest of the world - and even some in the US - likes to portray Americans as a bunch of gunslinging cowboys out of Dodge City in some western (G.W. doesn't help that image very much), but it's a much more complex picture than that. 

Now to not get completely offtopic... I don't think a tax is the answer either, even if it seems preferable to the lawsuits.  I think the answer is for the industry to realize that treating people like criminals by default is wrong, it doesn't help solve their problem, and they're never, ever going to win against the hardcore pirates who are a hell of a lot smarter than these industry execs.  They need to rethink their business strategy.  Stop pushing crap on people for $20 a disk.  Get some real musical talent, drop the distribution price, and look to incentives for your fanbase, not kick them in the tailfeathers for liking music.  Example.  I've bought just about every Iron Maiden CD in one form or another.  Why?  I consider their music high quality, the CD production is high quality (I mean the mixing work is done well), and I like their songs.  I don't consider $15-$18 a ripoff if I like the entire disk.  If it were more like $10 (like for older stuff) I'd be snapping up more disks from other artists that I like.  Say it were $5.00 a disk.  Well, that would increase musical exposure would it not?  I'd be more likely to order a disk from a band I might have only heard one song for on the chance I might like their other material.  If, however, I spend $20.00 and the rest of the album sounds like crap, I will feel cheated and not like to buy anything for a while.  THAT is how music sales are lost, and why people have turned to downloading so much.  Give people a good reason to buy your disks and they will.  Rip them off, and expect them to revolt.  It's just plain sense.  They're just too greedy to get it.

So what you're saying in essence is that the 2nd Amendment has bitten the dust too? "More Equal Than Others", eh?

It's true that if music were cheaper (and more easily available) sales would increase. Even where legal downloads are concerned, the likes of iTunes and Napster2.0 simply can't compete with P2P and BitTorrent in terms of range, where pretty much every piece of music ever recorded is available if you look hard enough. Music fans are much more discerning these days, and record execs can't handle it. They have had a strnglehold on what we listen to and what we buy for almost 60 years and their business model has never changed in all that time, apart from becoming more ruthless in terms of who they hire and fire.

I find it intriguing that these proposals have been leaked to the press just weeks after a report was published in the UK which concluded that internet music downloads were too expensive compared to the rest of Europe. It seems that once again the toys have been thrown out of the pram and Joe Public's rights will take another sucker-punch as a result.

:offtopic:
The Second Amendment has not bitten the dust, it's just a very disputed and controversial topic and there's been a lot of legal fighting over it for the past few decades.  For differing opinions on the second amendment, visit http://www.gunowners.org/ (pro-gun) and http://www.vpc.org/ (anti-gun).
:offtopic: