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P.S. I used to live in Aspen,(for 20 years).... a non-stop flight to Aspen means flying there in a private Lear jet.$$$$

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If everyone that has ever downloaded an MP3 file and burned it to a CD were thrown in jail, you would have a major portion of the economy/tax base suddenly taken away. With far less funds going into the government, just how do they expect to pay for imprisoning all those downloaders? Huh? Huh? Duh.

The prison system is already maxed out as it is. You could hold up a liquor store, and if it turned out you had an expensive medical condition --you would likely not do a day's jail time at all for armed robbery. I had a district judge tell me that one. The talk is all big and bad about throwing the criminals in jail. However, if the system doesn't have the money to pay for all that medical care (much less all the other creature comforts from high end gyms, support for every conceivable religion, a full law library, cable TV piped in and even a steady supply of porn mags) they're going to find ways how to let many people out early.

Again, the RIAA is being waaay presumptuous about prosecuting all this downloading garbage. They come off like I have an unstoppable urge to buy music CDs all the time and that downloadable music is somehow interfering with that constant unstoppable need for music CDs.

The simple fact is I don't to have to buy shit from the music industry at all (much less even download any of the crap). Most current music today is purile, formulaic, derivative SHIT. To make matters worse, companies like ClearChannel have gobbled up hundreds upon hundreds of radio stations, got rid of originality only to trade it in for the same tired formulas. They just play the same 10 songs over and over and over and over and over and over again. I could keep from listening to most of those stations, tune in several months or even a couple years later and hear the same few songs in the playlist.

I hardly listen to the radio anymore much less walk into a music store wanting to buy new CDs. I have a copy of Morpheus installed on my computer, but I cannot think of a new song worth downloading to even download at all. Furthermore, if I actually come across something I like, I may go buy the CD rather than just download an MP3. Most MP3 files have audio quality on par with radio. Hell, I can record the digital feed off the music only channels from my satellite dish and get better results.

If the RIAA is really concerned at all about their bottom line and vanishing profits --why don't they get pissed off about the shitty quality in general of their product and go off on a tirade about all their corrupt music labels and payola-taking radio stations? It makes no sense at all for them to get threatening to CUSTOMERS. A good response from customers is to keep their money and give the one gun salute.

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As a result, touring is not happening as it used to. Revenues for the band never really came from record sales, but rather from touring. Touring supported record sales, and provided much more income to the band or musician than the album ever did.

Take into account the return of the band KISS. They recorded an album again that really was not all that good, it did not sell well, but in playing over 300 cities, they raked in nearly 86 million dollars in band income. You can't get that from record sales.

Most artists today could never fathom a 300 city tour. Just isn't going to happen. You think U2 got loaded from record sales? Garth Brooks? He has sold about 10 million records so far, but thats only worth about 15 million dollars. The money he has made has come from touring, making ten times that figure.

And to hear EMINEM complain in a recent article that people aren't buying his new cd, instead they are downloading it. Although I like his creativity, he has to take blame for targeting a large group of people that inherently don't buy stuff anyway.

The Internet revolution is allowing people to share music in ways that have never been done before. We must be careful, though, in our vigilance to end this. After all, are we trying to make millionares more rich? Is this the effort here? How bad is the problem?

Sources that track this kind of thing claim more than 100 million downloads occur every month, using various file sharing programs. That is probably very true. Unless they can come up with specific numbers of who is harmed the most, lets say Fiona Apple, her new album is downloaded 29 thousand times. Thats a harm, if she only sold 10 thousand copies. If lets say she sold one million copies, then there is little to no harm.

There must be a litmus test to find out if there is harm done a particular artist. the percentage of download must equal a percentage that exceeds a certain number before harm is equated, or the number of downloads must exceed a number depending on how many copies sold.

For instance..

ALBUM SALES... 20 thousand
DOWNLOADS..... 2 thousand

There is significant harm.

However the same percentage is less harm if the number sold is much much higher, say in the millions of copies range.

I doubt that certain acts are ever truly harmed. I hear nothing of really wanting to protect the small artist that has no financial backing to sue anyone for anything.

There must be a better solution to prosecution. This is not the answer. It will not work, but instead will breed even newer forms of piracy. Prohibition is the prime example of how to create a ban, and in adverse create a crime sydicate.

Instead, there must be a way to block the transfer of identifiable files at the ISP level. MP3 and other similar compression files do have unmistakable signatures that should be easy to identify and block from transmission, ending this whole thing. Why don't we get these brainy programmers to do that?

Instead of making laws to prosecute and follow up on that, and completely wear thin the justice department, lets take away the ability to do this in the first place. It can be done.

In the movie business, everybody knows that theatres are virtually a loss leader for the purpose of advertising the feature when it comes out on video. That's where the real money is made from making movies.

Why can't the music industry do a similar thing? Music CDs are a similar kind of loss leader when you think about it? They should stop trying to concentrate on the money lost when they KNOW it's a losing proposition to start with. The REAL money is made in the after market. Why don't they just forget about trying to make money on the first sale of the CDs?

Once they free themselves from that problem then they could move on to putting out "enhanced" versions of the product... DVD Audio, "CD+G", Several different cuts and mixes of the original song or even "Director's Cut" videos that can't be seen on M-TV.

Crikes! You can't swing a dead cat without hitting some kind of marketed movie merchandise! You walk into McDonald's and get slammed in the face with Happy Meal toys from the latest Disney movie that's out! You can't walk down the aisle of a Wal-Mart without tripping over 9,000,000 different Star Wars toys, CDs, books, DVDs and what-have-you!

The music business should take a cue from the movie business. Stop trying to beat a dead horse and find a way to make money without whining about people doing stupid things. What's next? Will people have to PAY just to LISTEN to others play music?

The new Eminem CD has sold 4 million and is still moving at least 100,000 copies a week. It's not doing as well as his previous steaming pile, but are downloads to blame? Probably partly.

Every generation thinks the next generation's music is crap. The Eminem fans of today will hate whatever comes out 20 years from now (God help us).

There is no doubt in my mind that the kids are downloading music at a frenzied pace. This is because they can have it without paying for it. No label subscription service will EVER work, because people are used to getting it for free now. Why should somebody pay for something "just to be legal" when they can get it free with virtually no risk? Never mind if it's wrong...if you don't get caught, it's okay! I saw a kid with a CD Wallet full of burned CDs once.....I asked him how many store-bought CDs he owned, and he said he does not own any. "I just copy everything from my friends," he said.

My point is that the little artist that sells little is the one getting hurt, not the big shots. But all we hear is from the big shots, so the point is lost on people who feel that the millionares of today are getting away with it at thier expense. If we heard from the people getting hosed that are just like you and me, then maybe, maybe it would be different. Maybe.

With the issue of blocking mp3 files, and the such, the reason it has not been done is becuase of the fear of blocking legitimate transfer. All that needs to be done is to apply for a transfer liscence, which would be encoded into the file. All you need is to prove that you own the material. the liscence can even be use coded to allow a single pass or a time limit, or even a destination limit as well, preventing a hijacking of the material and hacking of code. The liscenses could be kept on file with the FTC and updated to all ISP's on an instant basis. It would be technically feasable, and very easy to implement.

I really ought to write this shit down.