On Thursday 04 July 2002 08:14 am, dattaway@attaway.net wrote:
> And more freely available gems are available today,
> thanks to communication technologies that the RIAA and MPAA hates so much.

I like what MP3.com has done, for the most part.  It has given the 
independent artist an opportunity to publish their material for free.  They 
make CD's on demand for three bucks, and split the rest of the price with the 
artist.  It's not great, but it not bad for small artists.  If you can get 
more than 4000 plays of your music in a month, you can make a little money 
just for the streaming.  You pay $20 a month, and they pay back a little over 
half a cent for each play each day.  This is not something that crappy 
artists can make any money at, but there are some very good artists making 
good money on the site.  And listening is free!

You can hear a local blues rock artist, Fast Johnny Ricker, by going to 
http://mp3.com/fastjohnny and streaming all his songs.  Listen often so that 
Johnny can hit that break even point each month.  :-)

When CDs are all copy protected, I will no longer buy any.  Even though I 
don't copy the ones I have now, I can't support the restriction that that 
mentality represents.

Thanks for your time and bandwidth,
Jim