The Music Industry is Crying.

[Mad Slanted Powers]

Somewhat on that topic, I get to hear more cool new pop music (meaning "good non-classical music," not "dispensable Britney Spears garbage") by listening to NPR. About once a week, I hear a news article or review of an album by some artist I've never heard of that makes me go, "Damn! I must get that!!" in a way I hardly ever say while listening to the interchangeable tripe of Clearchannel and Jack FM.

I don't know if the local NPR station plays anything other than classical, except on Sunday night when they have Echoes and Hearts of Space. The college station plays some alternative stuff, but I think the only NPR stuff they have is news. I think I can get some Seattle NPR stations on my Comcast cable TV now, but I've not listened. CBC radio is like Canada's version of NPR and I think they still play some alt-rock/underground stuff sometime. Brave New Waves finally went off the air early in 2007 I think. I used to listen to that sometimes back in my college and early post-college days.

[El Chuxter]

MSP, it's mostly reviews and news features during All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and Weekend Edition. They don't play much, but they have streaming audio on the NPR site, so you can check out more from artists you hear about.

[Mr. JabbaJohnL]

What they need to do is drop the price of CDs, take a lower percentage of profits, ensure that kids wanting good classic music have more to choose from than just A Kind of Magic, and make their back-catalogs available for download.

Hear, hear!

I just listened to it for the first and likely last time. What a waste. It's not that it's terrible (it sure isn't great), but it's just kind of "there."

[Mad Slanted Powers]

Some CD's you can get for a good price. I just saw that Radiohead's new disc will be available this week and one place had is or $9.99 and Target had it for $7.98. I see a lot of older discs and greatest hits listed in the weekly ads for $10 or less.

[JediTricks]

However, ripping a song from a CD you legally purchased so that you can listen on your computer or iPod is no different than when we made tapes of our LPs so that we could listen in our car. That is not stealing. However, threatening to prosecute you if you don't buy both the LP and the tape, or both the CD and the mp3, that is like extortion.

That's what I don't get, how is this supposed to be a law? How is it a law of the people that applies to everyone equally with the best interests of justice? It seems more like this industry demanding government-enforced sales.

Some CD's you can get for a good price. I just saw that Radiohead's new disc will be available this week and one place had is or $9.99 and Target had it for $7.98. I see a lot of older discs and greatest hits listed in the weekly ads for $10 or less.

Except that music you bought can only be listened to directly, you can't put it on your PC or MP3 player or make a mix-CD for your car, apparently. Which makes it not so great a deal anymore because CDs are basically just storage medium for most of us now, not an active play medium. I can't wait till the music industry starts suing buyers of legal CDs for using shuffle mode on their CD players.

[Mad Slanted Powers]

Except that music you bought can only be listened to directly, you can't put it on your PC or MP3 player or make a mix-CD for your car, apparently. Which makes it not so great a deal anymore because CDs are basically just storage medium for most of us now, not an active play medium. I can't wait till the music industry starts suing buyers of legal CDs for using shuffle mode on their CD players.

If it is illegal to rip songs from your CD to your computer, then there are thousands of people they could prosecute on Live365.com. Most of the mp3's that people upload for use on their internet radio stations are probably ones they ripped from CDs. I guess they figure they can just jack up the royalty fees on them rather than bother with taking them all to court.

[JON9000]

If it is illegal to rip songs from your CD to your computer

We may be giving too much credit to the reporting of the Washington Post. If something seems completely nuts, it's a good idea to take a closer look:

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-983...tag=nefd.pulse

[Mad Slanted Powers]

I think I heard something about this briefly someplace, but didn't get around to looking into it or posting about it here. The article did say this though:

Here was an opportunity for Sherman to declare once and for all that copying CDs for personal use is lawful. He stopped short of that, saying that copyright law is too complex to make such sweeping statements. He did state that there is one foolproof way of discovering the RIAA's policy on personal use: check the record.

"Not a single (legal) case has ever been brought (by the RIAA against someone for copying music for personal use)," Sherman said. "Not a single claim has ever been made."

So he stopped short of saying copying CDs for personal use is lawful, but pointed out no one has ever been sued for it.

[JediTricks]

I think I heard something about this briefly someplace, but didn't get around to looking into it or posting about it here. The article did say this though:

So he stopped short of saying copying CDs for personal use is lawful, but pointed out no one has ever been sued for it.

And, error or not, there is legal testimony on his industry's part saying it's illegal. Until that is clarified in court, this is still too up in the air. That said, yeah, the article should have mentioned he was ripping them to his sharing folder.