Let’s say that tomorrow I figure out how to manufacture cars for free. All I need is an original, and I send it through a machine I’ve invented and, presto, I have a duplicate. Of course the duplicate isn’t quite as good as the original, so when I send my Lamborghini through, its clone only has 400 torques and a top speed of 150 MPH.
Would my invention be illegal?
Obviously, I’m making an analogy to the recording industry and digital compression. The way I see it is that the recording industry is obsolete, because a technical innovation has superseded them. Who cares if they go out of business? I mean not many people are crying when Wal-Mart comes to town and stomps all the local competition out of business. It’s the nature of competition, right? And the consumer wins.
Yeah, a few top artists will also lose out, but so what? There’s always the local live music scene. Or, if you think you’re really that good, you could sell your first CD for $1 million, and I’m sure someone will buy it. If some people can pay millions for paintings why can’t a few rich pay similar prices for original tracks of music? The rest of us can live with prints.