Jim wrote:
Bruce wrote:
A recent survey showed that 19 out of 20 music tracks being listened to
on MP3 players were illegal copies or illegal downloads. That
represents a huge amount of revenue that is being denied to musicians
and composers.

If a high proportion of people respected copyright, prices could be
lower. The trouble is that prices stay high because only a small
proportion of music is being paid for.

You can't expect people to spend 10,000 quid to fill an iPod with music.
Compare this with a typical collection of 100 CDs which are worth
perhaps 1000 quid.


My iPod is almost entirely filled with MP3 files that I converted from
my existing CDs using iTunes, perfectly legally. The result is that
less than 5% of my MP3 files were bought as MP3 files.

You could perfectly legally have converted *all* your iPod MP3s from CDs
you already owned. So the problem you describe simply doesn't exist.

The real problem is that people want to be able to routinely steal music
without paying for it. The howls of protest that are heard anytime
someone suggests that music should be paid for demonstrate that.