doodledee

The record industry has decided to sue some students who were/are running music sharing software at their respective universities. The software the kids were running acts as a central 'server' of sorts, aggregating files people are sharing throughout, for example, the entire dorm, and making them available for everyone else to see/copy/whatever.

The suit seeks $98 billion (with a 'b') in damages. Ouch. That's some serious scratch.

None of this really surprises me. As I've gone on about before, all this P2P file sharing stuff is here to stay. There's a whole generation of kids who can't imagine living without it. There's also a whole generation of music executives and artists who are crapping their pants about how they're going to make money. (Hint: it's not by giving stuff away.)

But what's the big idea? Kids are buying more CDs then ever, right?

Not unless you count blank CDs, nope, they're not. At least I don't believe they are, and nobody seems to be able to show me otherwise. They're downloading everything. Movies, TV shows, music, and, like anything else associated with the internet, there's probably porn mixed in there, too. And the kids don't even seem to deny it anymore. The arguments have shifted from "I still buy tons of CDs" to "CDs are too expensive, make them cheaper and maybe I'll buy some." Nice.

But the kids still see it as wrong, right? Guess again.

Graham Spanier, president of Pennsylvania State University, says:"As we have tried to educate our students, half of them understand it's like going into a store and putting a CD in your pocket and the other half just can't see it that way."

Wow.

It's too bad, really. All this hubbub will take away from the good side of a pretty mint piece of technology. Think what P2P could do for a campus environment. Miss a day of class? Go out and find someone who is sharing his or her notes. Want to hear the latest concert by a band that says it's fine to share their music? Go get it.

Hmm. Ok, that's all I can think of. The rest of my examples are all shady, like copies of old tests and stuff like that. I hope it's just me who can't think of other good uses. But that shouldn't take away from the fact that it rules.

At least administration seems to agree with me:

"If this becomes more about a challenge to the technology than about downloading music for recreational purposes, that is a serious concern for us," said Peter McDonough, general counsel for Princeton. "Because we emphatically believe the technologies themselves are not illegal."

Good for you, Pete.