I have always paid my dues

As have I.

Up until about 18 months ago, I was adamantly against music piracy. There was *nothing* in my player that I didn't have a paid-for original source sitting on my shelf at home.

Then the RIAA came in with their heavy-handed, fascist enforcements and their preposterous claims showing that every year the recording industry lost more money through piracy than the gross domestic product of the entire planet.

Screw 'em. Thanks to the RIAA, as much as 2--3% of the music on my player is now pirated -- "borrowed" from friends (never downloaded from the internet, the quality is too indifferent) without my paying a dime for it. Of course, I also have perhaps a dozen CDs that I never would have purchased had not someone sent me a track from one or another of them that I liked enough so that I went out and bought the rest of them.

I think RIAA is their own worst enemy, and have probably contributed to more piracy than they have stopped. I know that to be true in my case.

Regardless, I think it is a moot point. I believe that the record industry as we know it today will be gone in five years as more and more artists sell their work directly on the internet, bypassing the record labels entirely. An artist who sold his songs for a dime apiece on the internet would probably put more money in his pocket than if the songs were being sold at $18 per CD by the record labels.

tanstaafl.