In the news today

We certainly do not live in boring times :). Get on the internet, turn
on your tv, and news about music, the music industry, and technology
is often taking center stage these days.

From CNN.com:

"A federal jury found a Minnesota woman shared copyrighted music
online and levied $222,000 in damages against her.

The jury ordered Jammie Thomas, 30, to pay the six record companies
that sued her $9,250 for each of 24 songs they focused on in the case.
They had alleged she shared 1,702 songs online in violation of their
copyrights."

Here's the complete article

This is, obviously, a potentially loaded topic. But one I believe we
should discuss and wrestle with.

Personally, while I believe that copyright should be protected, I
think the RIAA, and this jury, have gone overboard here. $222,000?
That is insane. As an artist, in general, I want people to pay for my
music - it helps me pay the studio and production bills (I am not even
talking or thinking about mortgage and groceries :)). But I would not
want to be on the prosecuting side of the lawsuit against Jammie
Thomas. I believe that the RIAA lawsuits draw attention to the issue
of a technology that has raced ahead of the law and of convention -
like innovations often do. But I don't think the answer is lawsuits
against individuals. Instead, perhaps all this energy should go into
figuring out ways to work with these new technologies, to use them to
the consumer's advantage and the artist's advantage - and the two are
not mutually exclusive!

I am a huge fan of Andrew Dubber of Birmingham City University in the
UK. He has published the New Music Strategies Manifesto. I am not going to quote
it here because I think you read it in its entirety. He speaks to
virtually all aspects of this case (although the Manifesto is not
about this case per se), and he does it much better than I can.