How meta, isn't the music business a prison already?

Three months seems like an awful lot for a crime that doesn't hurt anyone and benefits the artists.

I was just thinking back to the early days of PC software publishing. Companies had serial numbers and copy protection so that the software could only be installed on one computer. However, users (and companies) found it cumbersome especially when new products came out, people wanted to move them around, or try before buying (this was all pre-wide spread use of Internet or even mass Internet connectivity and high bandwidth for file sharing).

Eventually companies like Microsoft, Lotus, dBase relented and removed copy protection. Part of the decision was based on getting people "hooked" on their software, figuring that if enough people learned Word because it was free (pirated) when the deadbeats finally got a paying job, they would ask their purchasing department to buy them a copy.

That's a tad naive, Chromatic. Absolutely no revenue or job losses as a result of file sharing? Sure. Keep telling yourself that.

Wasn't this back when CDs were $20+ a pop and packaged in longboxes ? I still remember using horrible software to "rip" my CDs into mp3s for my parallel port-attached Diamond Rio PMP300 (which was sued for "space shifting" the CDs digital bits into memory chip digigal bits).

I learned a valuable lesson about expecting established media companies to deliver products to new technology platforms: It is something that "pirates" will wind up carving the pathway for long before the media company adapts to the demand.

The music industry broke the music business. If it wasn't this guy, it would have been someone else. $18-25 for a single CD with three good songs on it, overproduction, "loudness wars", etc.

Capitalism sucks dicks for money; the better it gets at it...

@4) The only jobs lost were to the dope-addled, no-talent A&R middle-men who thrived in a corrupt business model that did not serve the interests of its talent. You are naive for thinking that unit sales was a real source of revenue for the artists involved.

So, music industry "insider" running a coordinated scheme to release music early (aka an actual pirate) is given three months in prison. Whereas fans who used peer-to-peer software to download tunes for personal enjoyment have been sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars, some of whom almost certainly were bankrupted by the actions of the RIAA. Got it.