My flippant response: "When you're in a boat."  ;-)

But having spent a lot of time thinking about this over the past few years 
(no, I really did), I feel it is wrong ("wrong" being subjective) only if it 
was available for a reasonable fee through legal distribution outlets.

Back in the Napster days, my colleagues and I downloaded over a thousand 
songs.  That was wrong, in most cases, because we would download entire 
albums.  However, there was no Internet alternative, so in the cases where 
we just wanted one song, we had to pay $15+ for the entire CD, assuming we 
could even find it.  In those cases, I really did not feel guilty.  Instead, 
I felt like we were forcing the music industry to step up to the plate, and 
in that regard, I actually felt somewhat justified in my actions.  There was 
no true legal Internet alternative, so Napster was similar to civil 
disobedience.  Naively, I actually felt that music would become "Free" (as 
in speech and beer).  Then the Metallica lawsuit came (I actually got a 
letter!), and the next thing we knew, Napster was actually getting shut 
down.  In a way, it reminded me of the Chinese demonstrations in Tiananmen 
Square.  How could this possibly end badly?  Communism was failing around 
the world.  But then the tanks rolled in, and the party was over.  Heck, 
they even started making CD's that wouldn't play on a computer.

Of course, later on we got iTunes, which I don't hate, but with which I'm 
certainly frustrated (see last week's post).  At that point, the music 
industry felt they had to do everything in their power to make sure you 
didn't copy and/or distribute your songs, so it's filled with nonsensical 
DRM restrictions (some of which are gone now, I believe).  Then, Amazon 
started allowing people to purchase and download actual MP3's.  All this, 
only 7 or 8 years after Napster, and about 10 years after we, the people, 
starting creating MP3's.  What took them so long to do it right?

The music industry's loss in revenue probably is somewhat related to the 
illegal distribution of MP3's, but by and large, it's probably because the 
avoided the issue for so long.  I remember downloading MP3's in 1997, and 
reading a PC Magazine (John Dvorak) article saying how he was certain the 
music industry would miss the boat on this one.  They not only missed the 
boat, they tried to blow it to pieces and then sue anyone that was on it!

So, I have no love of the recording industry, but I certainly have some 
artists that I enjoy.  Most people will do what's right, if given an 
alternative, but the music industry's own greed forced piracy to make even 
greater gains in the last decade.  They seem to have a complete distrust of 
human nature.  It's hard to support someone who calls you names 
(theif/pirate/etc.) that, historically, have never been assigned to 
copyright infringment.  Their main argument, "Sharing is wrong."  Yeah, 
that's something to teach kids.

At this point, I would do everything possible to avoid directly supporting 
the RIAA, and in fact, I would pay to see their demise.  But I still believe 
in doing the right thing for the sake of the musicians and song-writers 
themselves.

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