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Re: CDs to die? (UNC in NYTimes)



Warning:  these are ramblings that might not make much sense to anyone but
me--

I haven't said much about what I think of this MP3, Napster thing and at
the risk of being the only one in the group who is against the  
"sharing" of copywrighted music, I really don't think it's right.  Just
because it's technologically possible to send these files over the
internet doesn't mean it's right.  
This is a very interesting article, and it points out the basic issue
here, which is kids' lack of morality in this computer age--indicated in
the NYTimes article:

>"Do they know it's illegal? Yes, maybe. But there's nothing inherent in
>the Net that transmits good values to kids. They're doing something that
>in their world is the norm." 

I don't know.  I just would like to know what makes people think they can
get for free something that everyone has had to pay for in the past 
just because the internet makes it possible.  Now, I'm really not that
into the whole issue personally--I have never listened to an MP3
or used Napster, etc. but what I find interesting is the way the Internet
has changed peoples' perception of what they can do and should do.  It
seems the internet has changed people's sense of what is right and wrong,
or at least it has blurred the lines.

My (perhaps naive) question is what will happen to the music industry if
musicians (or record companies) are no longer able to make (as 
muich) money?  Will there still be people who want to grow up to be in a
rock band?

************************************
Lisa Potter
School of Information and Library Science
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill


On Tue, 2 May 2000, Paul Jones wrote:

> http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/yr/mo/cyber/articles/02music.html
> 
> Students Have Few Qualms About Online Music Piracy
> By PAUL HELTZEL
> 
> Carl Bauer recently made a CD for his sister with 150 songs on it, chosen
> from the extensive collection of '80s classics stored in MP3 files on his
> hard drive. For Bauer, a sophomore at the University of North Carolina at
> Chapel Hill, CD buying is strictly for people with little computer savvy
> or slow modems.
> 
>               "With my roommate's CD burner I can make a compilation of
> whatever I want to play in my car," Bauer said. "My brother still buys
> CDs, but he lives at home with a slow connection."
> 
>               Despite record industry efforts to curb the spread of
> copyrighted music on the Internet, college students are trading so many
> songs encoded in the popular MP3 audio format that university networks are
> straining under the traffic. By embracing digital music, the generation
> that grew up with the Internet is helping to define the way music and
> other content will be distributed online. And free distribution of
> copyrighted music, especially over broadband, will likely become more
> widespread as it becomes more convenient.
> 
>               Ethical barriers are falling along with the technical ones.
> Some students argue that commercial CDs are little more than an outdated
> delivery system that does not fit into their needs or budgets. Others see
> copying music as an ethical breach they can live with.
> 
> 
> [more at
> http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/yr/mo/cyber/articles/02music.html ]
> 
>