An Open Letter to the RIAA
I support the idea of legal music downloads, and
I agree that copyright holders deserve to be compensated for their work. All the
music I've downloaded has been through Apple's iTunes music store, and
everything on my iPod comes from either that or CDs I purchased in the
past...
I'm having a great deal of difficulty finding a
couple tracks that I'd very much like on my iPod, however, and there's where
problems start. I've searched through your list of legal download services, and
I haven't been able to find these tracks in a suitable format (tracks like
"Walking on Sunshine" by Katrina and the
Waves, or 99
Luftballons by Nena [original version,
not the dreary remake], for
instance).
The problems generally fall into four categories:
- Tracks not available for downloading from the legal services.
- Tracks available, but protected with WMA (hence incompatible with both my iPod and Mac).
- Tracks only available while subscribed to a service --- and I'd like to keep these around without having to pay a monthly fee. (I'll quit purchasing music altogether before I ever support this model.)
- CDs still available in some instances, but buy a whole CD for one track? Sorry, those days are just gone.
On the other hand, I've seen these tracks easily available on the legally tenuous site AllOfMP3.com, and I have to admit it's very tempting to just pop up there and buy the few tracks I'm interested in... but that really doesn't do anything to solve the larger problem. To the contrary, I feel that supporting AllOfMP3.com will encourage the music industry to clamp down even more, until the music I want is essentially unusable.
So where's my solution? I want to "do the right thing" and support the people who produce the music, and I'm willing to pay a reasonable price for these tracks --- but the music industry is essentially leaving this money on the table. Mine, and everyone else in a similar situation. (Gee, how many iPods are out there, again?)
If the recording industry wants to curb piracy, perhaps it should work harder to make sure that attractive legal options are available. Meantime, if recording industry sales slump, maybe piracy isn't the only reason.
The problems generally fall into four categories:
- Tracks not available for downloading from the legal services.
- Tracks available, but protected with WMA (hence incompatible with both my iPod and Mac).
- Tracks only available while subscribed to a service --- and I'd like to keep these around without having to pay a monthly fee. (I'll quit purchasing music altogether before I ever support this model.)
- CDs still available in some instances, but buy a whole CD for one track? Sorry, those days are just gone.
On the other hand, I've seen these tracks easily available on the legally tenuous site AllOfMP3.com, and I have to admit it's very tempting to just pop up there and buy the few tracks I'm interested in... but that really doesn't do anything to solve the larger problem. To the contrary, I feel that supporting AllOfMP3.com will encourage the music industry to clamp down even more, until the music I want is essentially unusable.
So where's my solution? I want to "do the right thing" and support the people who produce the music, and I'm willing to pay a reasonable price for these tracks --- but the music industry is essentially leaving this money on the table. Mine, and everyone else in a similar situation. (Gee, how many iPods are out there, again?)
If the recording industry wants to curb piracy, perhaps it should work harder to make sure that attractive legal options are available. Meantime, if recording industry sales slump, maybe piracy isn't the only reason.
Posted: Thu - February 23, 2006 at 11:07 PM
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