Ashcroft asked to target Net song swappers

Reuters via USAToday.com ^ | 8/9/02

[GeneD]

WASHINGTON (Reuters)

[AdamSelene235]

Congress is working hard to keep us safe !

[SevenofNine]

That another troll senator from Cali we should give rid of

DI FI B****

What wrong Di FI can't handle GenerXer downloading Frank Sinatra, Dean Martins and other music legends

Good way not get MY VOTE IN CALI

I wouldn't vote for you anyway B****

[SamAdams76]

Kazaa, which in addition to music allows users to swap movies and other media files, said this week that its free software had been downloaded 100 million times.

Imagine throwing 100,000,000 people in jail? Perhaps it would be cheaper just to erect a barbed wire fence around the entire nation.

[goldstategop]

Uh huh. Hilary Rosen and her band of corporate thugs want the Feds to enforce their bottomless greed. In this day and age? That's a laugh folks.

[APBaer]

"the Justice Department probably had better things to do with its time."

Yeah, like raiding whorehouses, ( except not the Congress-Whorehouse)

[Arkinsaw]

No, I think making women drink their own breast milk to get on planes should be the priority or taking away dangerous pointy Medals of Honor.

[dts32041]

But Kazaa has such lousy selections.

I liked audiogaxlazy, I was rebuilding vinynl collection onto CD's without doing further damage to the vinyl.

Wonder what they would do with me.

99% of the stuff I down load I already own in one form or another.

Just cause I use my computer to store work in progress they think they own my computer.

They ought to pay me for preserving some of the stuff I have.

[BJClinton]

Ha! The P2Ps will just go further underground, this technology is hear to stay. They would be better served learning how to utilize it like they did with recordable cassettes.

[SamAdams76]

I'm in the same boat as you. I use WinMX to download clean versions of songs I already own on vinyl or cassette. I also use WinMX for "test driving" new music. I download lots of stuff and I either decide to buy the CD or I remove it from my hard drive. If it's music I like, I definitely want the CD for the cover art and lyrics. Also, I can burn cleaner and crisper MP3s off the original CD than I can download from the Internet. I like my MP3s at 160kps or higher and on the net, most of them are still 128kps.

I also use WinMX to download "live" versions of music I already own and also unreleased songs by favorite artists. For example, I recently downloaded a live Bruce Springsteen cover of Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here." Try getting that in a record store! (If I could, I would.)

Years ago, I used to tape hundreds of hours of FM music onto tape so that I could listen to new music at leisure. I would make a decision whether or not to buy the music and then I would record over the tapes another batch of songs. Online music swapping has made this process much more efficient for me. Now I can download only the music that I am interested in hearing and I don't have to shift through a lot of garbage like DJ chatter and commercials. The music industry has a very valuable resource here to promote their music. Pity that they cannot see the opportunities here to fatten their bottom lines.

[MoJo2001]

Head to the newsgroups!

[SamAdams76]

Which ones?

[Batrachian]

Hey man, what ever happened to "share the wealth"?

[The Duke]

...this technology is hear to stay.

Pun?

[BJClinton]

Pun?

Uh..yeah! That's the ticket.

[kylaka]

I'm surprised they are not focused on Usenet, and mp3 Newsgroups. Its like panning for gold. I don't feel the least bit guilty partaking, because I've worn out many vinyl albums. I've worn out many albums twice, and the Beatles white album three times.

[SamAdams76]

For me, Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon is my most worn-out album. I must have bought that album six times over the past 25 years in vinyl, 8-track, cassette tape and CD. I also own just about all of their other albums. I think that gives me carte blanche (at least morally) to download anything by Pink Floyd I want!

[AAABEST]

You know, I've been railing against the "buggy whip maker" RIAA and "Foghorn Leghorn" Hollings for some time now, but I never really thought of that aspect of the argument until you guys mentioned it.

Now I realize that most of the MP3s I have downloaded are songs that I have purchased in many cases more than once.

Interesting.

[RicocheT]

Hollywood mogols and record co.s want to make every H. S. or college kid a criminal if they download an mp3 or a movie. Their greed for more media sales and Congress's need for money contributions trumps your rights and puts your kids in jail.