A story by Andrew Ross Sorkin in the New York Times, says the industry is researching ways to thwart online music trading that may include sabotaging personal computers, slowing Internet connections and releasing Trojan Horses masquerading as music files. Sorkin describes one program under consideration called "freeze". It would "lock up a computer system for a certain duration - minutes or possible even hours. . ." Another program would scan your computer's hard drive for pirated songs and "attempt to delete them." As Sorkin notes, the program can't yet tell the difference between an MP3 I may have downloaded legally, versus one I downloaded illegally or one that I copied on to my disk from a CD I own.

One of the technology firms in league with the industry is called "Overpeer". According to Wired News, they have been involved in "spoofing" - making intentionally bad copies of songs for distribution. They are researching other anti-piracy programs. but Overpeer's chief exec, Mark Morgenstern, avers that his company won't distribute any program that would break the law. That is little reassurance in a time when privacy rights increasingly lose the battle to corporate rights.

The winner in the battle will never be the consumer, nor the artists. CD prices, found to have been illegally inflated by the major producers, will not come down. Concert tickets, priced to the skies, will not be lessened. Radio, using the so-called public airways, is controlled by a very few national conglomerates who reward and punish musicians and fans according to the bottom line.

The recording industry claims to have lost $4.3 billion in sales to pirated music last year. However, you don't see many record company executives on the bread lines, nor are they trading in the family Porche for a Saturn. The losses, however, have enraged those non-artists and they are determined use their remaining billions to make sure they get their cut.
11:25:00 AM    Comments?()