I recently come across blog on ZDNET (http://blogs.zdnet.com/igeneration/?p=1018&tag=nl.e550) which has been very controversial subject. I thought to put forward my comments (as listed below) and it is worthwhile understanding others as well. Let me know what you think?

1. sharing music is appropriate?

I give you one example; I heard Enigma band first time in 1999 while working in our office; my colleague copied from his CD to his PC and we used to enjoy that music. Now I regularly buy its CDs online. I dont download pirated MP3 songs because they do not offer me same quality and it is too much work. If I did not hear that song in 99, I would have never purchased their CDs. Unless my colleague shared that song, Enigma could not get that business from me.

In India you will see same songs of latest film album playing whereever you go. It will be in barbers shop, in taxi, playing in convenience store and so on. There is at-least 50% piracy. Music industry may claim that they are losing 50% business; but if that piracy did not exist, they could not get same level exposure as they got. So they could have had 100% share of business in their pocket but instead of 10 million copies they would have sold only 1 million. Is that acceptable approach?

RIAA thinks that all the files shared between students is loss of their business; in reality once they impose restrictions they will see that not only students will stop buying music albums they will also stop recommending other friends. RIAA will see significant reduction in their existing sale after strictly enforcing restrictions.

2. DRM and its curse

If I buy a song, I should be able to port it to my home PC and my mysic player and keep backup in case my HDD gives way. DRM makes it extremely difficult to make that happen.

Lets get fact straight. Those who are professional (big time pirates) they will circumvent DRM without much trouble. But those who are straight guys will suffer from it.

3. Law

Law cannot be applied to everyone in same way. Killing passengers of other car in accident cannot be same as serial killer walking over and killing several innocent on daily basis. And same serial killer cannot be compared with Terrorist killing hundreds in one go. They all should be treated differently. If a countries law cannot distinguish between all 3 scenarios then there is seriously something wrong with that law system.

Students sharing music files between themselves cannot be compared with pirates making millions of copies and selling in grey market. Or worse still someone creating online store selling millions of music records at a small fee and then funding terrorist activity from that revenue. 

NOTE: RIAA is association of music companies in US.