iTunes, Music, iPods, Piracy, Media Idiots.

Continued from Page 1…

Worse, Apple’s iTunes is mentioned in the same line (as in “equivalent”) to the once-illegal pirate, Napster. iTMS is pushing 350-million “legal” downloads at 99-cents each. How many songs has Napster sold? They won’t tell you which tells me something.

Wait. There’s still more.

Kantor has a friend who has an opinion on all this.

““If there were any such service where you could download a song for a buck and do what you want with it, I’d pay for that in a second,” said a friend of mine. But the idea of paying for something and then having to keep track of how and where you use it is too annoying — especially when Grokster beckons from the sidelines.”

Is the implication there that one of Kantor’s friends is a pirate? A thief? On the radar of the Record Industry Association of America’s legel eagles? Could be.

By implication, Kantor is railing against the “restrictions” inherent in iTunes Music Store while ignoring the “restrictions” already in CDs from Tower Records or Wal-Mart.

Rightly (in a temporary fit of logical thinking), Kantor says, “It’s true that when you buy a CD you don’t own the music — you own the disk and the right to play that music. No argument.”

Hmmm. Sounds like the SAME rights you get with music from the iTunes Music Store. You can buy a song from iTMS. You can play it on your Mac or Windows PC. You can play it on your iPod. You can burn a CD and play it in your car, in a portable CD music player, take it to your grandma and let her play it on her Victrola (or, whatever those things with needles were).

Where’s the restrictions?

With his point NOT being made, Kantor switches gears in mid-stream (to mix a couple of metaphors) and rails against the RIAA’s “empty-headed, heavy-handed approach to business.” Then, he chomps on Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, head of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Intellectual Property.

Hatch is the clueless government official who said someone should remotely destroy computers of people “suspected” of pirating music.

Whoa. I promise not to touch that one. Talk about opening Pandora’s box of worms.

Our USA Today article goes on to sum up everything but the ridiculous “restrictions” which started the rant in the first place. Everything else? Yes.

He says you can expect more restrictions, not less. Such restrictions are a “continued erosion of copyright at the expense of listeners and viewers, thanks to Congress.”

What? There’s more?

“The result won’t be less piracy, it will be more.”

Oh, so this whole thing is about “restrictions” cause music piracy? OK. I get it now. Silly me. All this time I thought that piracy was caused by human nature.

Let’s see. Spend $15 for a CD at Wal-Mart, or, steal the music from a P2P network for free! Easy choice.

Why is that an easy choice for some, perhaps many? Why don’t we steal cars the way some steal music? If you’re caught stealing cars you could go to jail, get ostracized socially, and the economic penalty is stiff.

Music? Who’s the wiser? There’s no penalty (guilty conscience not withstanding) is there? Who got hurt? No one even has to know, right?

See? Human nature. It’s not the music industry. It’s not the technology. It’s not the Senator from Utah. It’s not the RIAA that’s causing the problem, though it’s being perpetuated by mass media writers who don’t want to wash their cars on Fridays.

Human nature allows people to steal music. iTunes Music Store allows the rest of us a way to purchase music legally, use it however we want (with acceptable restrictions), and continue to enjoy said music on our iPods, portable music players, CD players, or in the car.

If iTMS were around before Napster’s illegal ways showed millions how to steal music, would this be a problem? Probably not as much because there wouldn’t be so many addicted to stealing music via P2P networks.

I’m no longer addicted. I’m clean. I’m proud of it.

I’m no longer addicted to getting all my “news and commentary” from USA Today. In fact, a Mac360 weekly award for Jackasses in Media would be worthy.