Here's an extract from a long piece that I submitted in response to an article: "Pirate Plunder Music Market Profits", in the UK press last week, which took the opposite bias to the level headed BBC article:
"We must remember that cassettes were going to kill the music industry, according to its executives, long before the inception of the music centre and the double cassette deck. In the late 60's , the Beatles Apple records adopted a coding system that made LP's not copy on to cassettes, it lasted 2 LP's. Those same Beatles have to take some of the blame for the popularity of pirated CD's by grossly overpricing the reissue of their material on CD. Not that they were alone, it's just that Paul McCartney prevaricated ad nausea about his fans paying through the nose for overpriced CD's and then became amongst the most guilty. Many "fans" will have paid for the copyright twice on their favourite albums, because they already owned the cassette, or LP of the albums that they replaced with CD's

MP3 users do use this technology considerably to make better use of the CD collections that they have legitimately paid for: At any one time, the MP3 player in my car, which is identical in size to a car radio, contains my entire collection of talking books and all my favourite music, amounting to a total of 300 hours. In my house my music collection of around 1200cd's, by use of this digital technology, can be heard in every designated room, without an extensive outlay. These technologies, and particularly responsibly managed internet sites, therefore encourage wider listening and publicity for music, both new and old, without expensive marketing.

I have no truck with CD copying, but MP3 use can be for the benefit of all, if only the music industry realised that; It's there, they can't stop it, so they might as well learn how to live with it, again for the benefit of all, instead of this lock them up and throw away the key approach!"

N.B. I have slanted it to suit the context of the article.