Chapter 9: Sharing Music

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Overview

There is nothing stable in the world; uproar’s your only music.

—John Keats

Music files are very widely traded over the Internet, and it’s easy to see why. Everybody loves music, digital music files are usually small and easy to swap, and generations have grown up making copies of albums and tapes for friends. A quick glance at the FastTrack file sharing network lists nearly 3 million users swapping from a pool of over 501 million music files. And FastTrack is just one of many file sharing networks where you can swap music files. (Many of those 501 million files are probably duplicate files with different names—but still, that’s a lot of files.)

To stop this widespread thievery, the RIAA periodically issues well-publicized lawsuits against file sharers across the United States. While some people stop sharing music files at home for fear of lawsuits, many others have simply started downloading files at work, shifting the blame to their employer’s computer networks.

In short, trading music has become a way of life for many people, and it seems that the music industry can do little or nothing to stop it.

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