To Fee or Not to Fee

A detailed Summary of To Fee or Not to Fee

Like the old saying goes, "The best things in life are free." digital media is no exception. Digital media has lately been getting attention due to the legal accusations on a certain type of digital media, MP3s. MP3 stands for Mpeg (a common file compression format) audio layer 3 (which means it compresses any audio into 3 layers for about 1/15th the size). The lawsuits that have been springing up lately contain two arguments. In one corner, we have the argument that an artist should be able to put their music on the internet for everyone to retrieve freely. In the other corner we have the argument that musical artists are having their music "stolen" by ruthless, internet thieves hence the artist gets no "pay" for his work.

Can you think of the last time you said to your friend, "you've got to read this book, it's so good!"? If your friend liked that book, he/she would probably go out and get the next book done by that author. This is the state that mp3s are in right now, except with mp3s, it's on a more convenient level. You download mp3s, through a program like napster, listen to them and if you like them, naturally, you'd keep them, if you don't, you simply press the delete key. The more songs you retrieve (downlo

Time magazine: "Reinventing Rock." October 9, 2000

A possible solution to this revolution would be to just let the music industry change. If the music industry drops the cases on programs like napster and mp3.com, the music industry revolution will happen at its own speed. If the music industry lets the change happen at its own speed, all the changes will be of the people, by the people and for the people. Therefore they could benefit from the fact that the music industry is getting more press and attention now that change has finally surfaced. Letting the change happen on its own will allow the people to decide everything they want in music. Music will become more personalized, more for the people and therefore, more perfect. The other solution would be to try to fight the change that the people have summoned until it has repressed any change that the people want. With this solution the people's interest in the music industry will die, the enthusiasm will never be able to be replaced and the changes that the people wanted will be replaced with the old way of music that the "middle man" wants. With the "let it be" solution, the people's interest will increase, the quality of music will increase and the people will be able to choose what they want when they want. Whereas, with the "enforce what the middle man wants" solution, the people's interest will die, the music companies will get what they want and bands will create lower quality music. Napster has b

Some common words found in the essay are:
MP3s MP3, AIM ICQ, , Napster October, music industry, Rock October, Bibliography Cited, word mouth, digital media, movie production, solution people's, happen own, movie production companies, music industry change, library mp3s, people people, middle solution people's, change people, quality music, change happen own, happen own speed,

Approximate Word count = 995
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Technology