Of course I have to comment on this, because you and I have diametrically opposing viewpoints vis-a-vis the whole file sharing topic.

You state that file sharing is "legally wrong and ethically dubious," but you don't explain why you believe this to be the case. To me, it is not self-evident. As I've stated numerous times before, how is file sharing any different than album-sharing between friends for the expressed aim of copying said album? How is it different than putting a cassette in your tape deck and pressing the record button when your favorite radio station plays a song that you like?

I've heard you (and others) state that the difference comes down to the quality issue, that you can copy digitally a song via file sharing and it looses no quality, whereas if you copy to an analogue tape you get quality degradation due the "second generation" phenomenon. This argument, to me, is dubious, for either copying songs is legally and ethically wrong or it is not. "Quality of recording" should not be a variable at all in the equation.

But even if it is, how far do you go down that slope? Do you say that copying your friend's vinyl album is more ethical than copying your friend's CD? Is using a chrome or high-biased tape somehow more immoral and illegal than using a normal bias tape? How about using VHS tape, which has an inheritantly even better dynamic range and thus better quality? What about DAT?

Clearly, if you lay the thrust of your argument at the feet of the "quality" issue you're in for some trouble from an intellectually consistent point of view.

It might be added, furthermore, that the advent of cassette tape recorders, FM album-oriented radio, the CD format (where fears that home made cassette copies of said CD would decrease sales of a particular title), and DAT tape did not cause record sales to plummet... quite the contrary, actually.

You hear a song by an artist on the radio, and you go buy one of their titles. You copy your college roommate's CD, you like what you hear, and you go to the record store and purchase other titles in that artist's catalog. You download a song via some file sharing program, like it, and then go out and buy the CD. Clearly, this is the model, as it's always been.

Finally, none of these strategies for acquiring music are a substitute for actually owning the legitimate piece of "software" released by the record company, complete with liner notes, CD artwork, etc, not to mention the infinitely better bitrate (and thus quality) that a commercially pressed CD offers.

Instead of wasting time, money, and effort in an attempt to chase down the horse that has long ago escaped the barn for good, artists and record companies should be expending their energy in an effort to make sure that a legitimate release offers more than a file-swapped song can give them, be it in more innovative packaging, better recording technology... whatever. They should also better use to their own marketing advantage file sharing. This is where the future lies, and whether or not an artist and/or record company learns to embrace this and exploit this will determine their success or failure in the future.

Or something like that.

I took the shortcut because the core file-sharing issue isn't what I wanted to talk about, so I just filled in where I stand, not why.

Quality isn't a very good argument. I may have mentioned it as a reason the majors have their panties in a bunch, but that's different. It's the expanding of "fair use" from making a couple of copies for friends to anonymously sharing with 60 million people that I take issue with. That's why it's different than loaning out your records. There's also the counterexample to the "downloads lead to purchases" story, and that's the "I've got 8,000 MP3 files and I'm never giving the record companies another cent" story that finds its way into most articles on the subject.

Ultimately, the real problem is that the current system of music sales distribution does not have the interest of the end user nor the artist in mind. Didn't the Janis Ian article state that she made most of her money on touring, and not record sales? So, if you subscribe to the "digital music is a wonderful promotional tool," are you saying that only artists who have good live shows or live followings deserve to make a living at it? There's a whole other side of this story that has to do with the indentured servitude of artists to labels and the fact that the revenue from record sales does not in all cases make it to the artists themselves, but that doesn't justify cutting out that revenue entirely. Courtney Love, of all people, had some interesting things to say on that topic, as did Prince when he "took back" his name.

I write this knowing full well the locations of the horse and the barn, but if the game were really over already, why aren't Napster and Audiogalaxy still around? Why are next-gen file-swapping applications taking such steps to decentralize and hide their accountability? There's your ethical dubiousity.