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December 26th, 2006
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Today, trading of MP3 (or rather, music [see music] -- the format MP3 in itself is only a convenient and generally accepted form of storing music), "warez" (ie. software [see programming and computers] of some sort) or DivX (ie. movies, often Hollywood movies converted from DVDs) somehow seems to be generally accepted among most people (that is, consumers -- the people supposed to be making money off this usually disagree, for natural reasons) today. I'm a bit ambivalent at the whole story. I'll skip both the finger pointing and discussion (both sides have valid points) and skip right to utopia, at least for the MP3 part:
If the record companies would begin to utilize the Internet instead of fighting it, one might very quickly see results. Imagine that you're listening to the radio, and you figure out "hey, I want that album" -- you click a button, and (for a fair price!) the album is downloaded quickly and easily to your hard disk, fully legal. Now tell me, if this was possible, easy and inexpensive, would you really spend five minutes finding the same album "for free" (ie. illegally available) somewhere? (Yes, it's possible to buy music legally on the Internet, but it fails both the "easy" and "inexpensive" tests -- the heavily DRM-encumbered files you get from, say, iTunes at $0.99/song is nowhere near worth it compared to buying a full, physical CD, especially when you consider that the artist gets less... And even so, iTunes has huge sales! Imagine what sales a non-"rogue" AllOfMP3 could obtain, even at three times the price.)
It is my firm belief that once it is easier to get the music legally than illegally, a small extra fee does not matter to the end user, and the entire "MP3 problem" would quickly go away. It might sound like utopia, but to me, it really makes sense. Until then, I prefer to listen to the radio, or to buy the CDs I really want in a record shop. I don't really think any of Microsoft's products are worth becoming a criminal for either... ;-)