P2P Music Downloading-my thoughts

I realize this hasn't been as big of an issue the last little while, but it's certainly an issue that hasn't gone away. In light of this, I thought I'd share my thoughts with the world!!!!

I do to an extent see where that the record companies are coming from. If the song can be downloaded for free on WinMX, Kaaza, etc., then that is money that they and the artist are losing. I also see how that could hurt the artist if enough of his/her songs were downloaded.

But there is a flipside to the coin that the RIAA and the record companies won't ever be heard telling. Many people (and I'm included) do not want to go pay $15-$20 for a CD that they may not like and may choose to download a song or two for a trial run. There are also situations in which you may be looking for only a certain song, find it by an artist who is unknown to you and like them well enough to go purchase their CD.

The biggest thing to me is what are you to do when the record company doesn't care enough about an artist to license their music for sale anymore? If you're an Elvis or Beatles fan, you'll probably not strike out too often in finding their music on CD, but what of lesser popular artists such as Porter Wagoner, The Wilburn Brothers, Floyd Cramer, etc.? What is the beef with downloading their music if it isn't even being made available for sale? A lot of times with the older artists, the songs are coming straight from someone's scratchy 45 rpm and that has been saved in an mp3 format making it all the rougher for the listen.

If losing money is the issue, then they need to also make it illegal to resell your used CD's, records, and 8-tracks! Frankly, I scour flea markets and thrift stores looking to buy records and 8-tracks. However when I do that, the artist isn't getting paid! So maybe that should be illegal? Maybe I shouldn't give the powers that be any ideas!!!!!!

The solution? Well, I don't know how workable this is, but there has to be a way to make P2P legal for a fee. For instance, if I would like to share my Don Bowman collection with other people, there should be a P2P network that will allow me to do it legal but for a fee. Part of that fee would of course go to the site with the rest going to the artist or publisher. Again, I don't know how this would work, but it's gotta be better than the RIAA suing the pants off of people!