What I don't understand is that the music industry has made their money on research/development and promotion of continually better technologies that produce slightly better quality music. The public bought into this in a huge way. We started with primitive records, then LP's, then 8-tracks, cassettes, then CD's, as well as better amps, speakers, digital devices, etc.. Each time the consumer has willingly forked over a lot of money to repurchase their collections and buy the hardware to play the new format.

MP3s are a step in the opposite direction. Most MP3's are 1/8th the quality of CD's! The sound is noticeably worse than even cassette recordings.

The fuss the music industry is making about MP3 "piracy" is CURRENTLY rediculous. However, with ever-increasing internet connection speed and larger harddrive size, MP3 compression will probably not be necessary. When that happens, the music industry may well have something to worry about.


It is interesting to note that in the USA one may only be prosecuted for copyright infringement if one is:

1. downloading/uploading copyrighted material for any kind of profit (including barter agreements).

2. dowloading/uploading more than $1000 of copyrighted material in six months.

This is from the recent "No Electronic Theft" act.

This means that various anti-sharing people are trying to counteract (in some cases with an aggressivenesss boardering on harrassment or electronic vandalism) an activity which is, in many cases, NOT illegal.