Thought Repository

Extra, Extra, read all about me!


I recently spoke to a reporter doing a story about how the RIAA's attempts to monitor and prosecute file sharing has affected the attitudes and actions of college students regarding downloading music. A coworker of his at the Philidelphia Inquirer has his daughter post to a message board I read asking if anyone wanted to add their input, and I did. My position was essentially that I felt the RIAA was only after serious offenders which I didn't think I was, I was alway very cautious because of my school's rules rather than the RIAA, and I generally don't like downloading since I do believe there is something to be said for the fact that it is illegal, regardless of whether I believe that is right or not, so no, my attitudes haven't changed. I'm still as cautious as ever. However, I wanted to voice my opinion as one of very few (likely one of the only that he spoke to) kids who actually have ethics and respect the law. I wanted to explain my justifications for defying the law despite my morals. Mostly I wanted to provide a plug for Rhapsody (which I mentioned on 6/16) which is a service that I strongly support as an alternative to stealing music. I want it to succeed. Anyways, the article was published and fully a quarter of it was about me. There are a few mistakes. First of all, when I was talking about invitation only sharing with strong encrytion, I never mentioned IRC, I was refering to (though didn't actually tell him) WASTE. I just discovered, while trying to find a link to WASTE for this entry, that WASTE, written by Nullsoft, was removed by AOL. That is so sad. Not that it won't be used for bad things but the idea is just so brilliant it is ashame that AOL is stifling new idea out of such creative Nullsoft developers. The other mistake in the article was mentioning that I said I would be willing to try iMusic when it is available for Windows. What I actually told him is that prior to discovery of Rhapsody I thought I wanted the pay per song model, but afterwards I realized that Rhapsody is better because it encourages experimentation whereas iMusic discouranges experimentation and I don't like the idea of pay per song for a proprietary music format with protection, if I'm going to pay for the song I want it in mp3 format so I can do what I please with it. I actually said I wasn't able to try iMusic because they didn't have a Windows version but I wouldn't be interested in it. Oh well, not a big deal in terms of mistakes reporters could make.

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