The Truth About Internet Piracy

Years ago we shared our music via records with any one that had any music to trade, we listened to each others records, participated at sock-hops, had home parties and no-one came knocking on our collective doors. Then came the Asian pirates, we do not have to name names, but they have no respect for any sort of patent or copyright privileges, and laws were enacted to counter their impact upon the industry; the trickle down effect has been the lucrative collections of fines from private personages. These autocratic laws need repeal, and only as voters contacting our so-called representatives can effect a change. Costs be damned, the past retail for a single 45's was less than 50 cents. When LPs came along, the average price in the late 50s and early 60s was still less than $3.00; when CDs came about in the 70's, they were about the same or slightly lower than they are now, with promises of driving the prices down. We purchased CD players and laser-disk players and, as always, once the manufacturer's received our money, they kept the prices high to provide richer profits and the story has continued ever since. Share and share alike, we copied our records to recording tape, we copied our music to Hi-Fi VHS tapes and that was what the manufactures as well as the suppliers of the tape recorders and VHS machines expected us to do! Tape machines were targeted as Hi-Fi capable, as well as advances in tape machines - any remember the Nakamichi Dragon series, it even flipped the tape over so you were not bothered with flipping to continue your listening enjoyment. Just say no to commercial black-mail, you purchased the music for your enjoyment; if that means that your enjoyment includes sharing then share away, I will continue to share music, knowledge and any else that I can avail myself with. The commercial freaks need to go after the commercial pirates, but they can't, so they come after the least able to defend itself, the public consumer. On another point, every time that we conserve electric power, the utilities go before the local, state, regulatory boards and ask for increases in rates, why? Because their revenues are less than expected, but no public utility board was sanctioning them for paying excessive dividends to stockholders, let alone those utility companies that regularly paid an extra fifth yearly dividend. So, time we need to discuss just where we all fit into the larger picture.