I think that most people will agree that pirating software for profit is wrong.  Ditto on pirating music.  If you're downloading whole albums, burning them to CD, printing scans of the original CD artwork, shrink-wrapping a facsimile of the original album and selling it on the street for 5 bucks... then you suck.  That's stealing and you should go to jail.

Since the invention of the audio cassette recorder, average people have been sharing music.  And the practice has been incouraged by the industry in general until now.  Now they want to fine you thousands of dollars.  Soon they'll want to throw you in jail and chuck away the key.

This isn't about some lame-ass songwriter who can't make a buck trying to ruin it for those who can.  This is about suddenly criminalizing behavior that wasn't criminal until the Internet came along.

So, what is the difference?  I've heard the difference is that the music people are downloading is digital; somehow superior to the analog cassette copies people were making in the 1980s.  These people apparently don't understand that MP3 audio is a "lossy" compression format.  It doesn't come close to the original CD version.  The fidelity is inferior.  The cassette "mix tapes" we made when we were kids had better audio quality than the 98 Kbps and 128 Kbps MP3 songs available on the net today.

The record company is loosing money not because of downloading... but, because of promoting a narrow product to a narrow audience - teenagers.  Most teenagers don't have jobs... most teenagers get money from their parents.  They tend to use it to go to rent movies and buy pizza.  Why would they spend $25 on an audio CD when they can buy 4 DVDs for the same price and download the music from the internet?

Hey, record companies!  Want to make money?  Spend some more money marketing grown-up music to the people who actually have jobs.

While you're at it, you might want to stop trying to throw music fans in jail for sharing the music they like.  Bands thrive on word of mouth... people buy a CD because they want the product... downloading some lesser-quality MP3 version of an album isn't going to stop a person with disposable income from buying the real deal.

Music downloaders aren't thieves... they're fans.  What is happening is no different from recording music from a radio broadcast.  Trying to sell it is wrong... but downloading to listen is not.  Change your marketing strategy to include downloading and stop portraying music fans as criminals.

For an opposing view, read Business Reform Magazine's Ian Hodge on the subject.  I think he has it all wrong.  But, God Bless him anyway.