All weekend I've been hearing features on the radio discussing the current Supreme Court case concerting the sharing of music and movie files over the internet. This reminds me of similar brou haha about copy protection in the software industry as it came up in the 1980's. The one thing that I never heard anyone mention, back then and now, is that if companys want people to pay for their stuff, even though the digital files are easily shared, they ought to provide extra value for the paid service. I think Microsoft has somewhat figured this out - in competing with Google's practive of giving away software products, such as Picasa and this bLog program, Microsoft has been giving away lots of patches and even some worthwhile programs such as their new anti-spyware program. There is however, one proviso - and that is that they check to make sure that your operating system has been legitimatly registered and paid for, otherwise they refuse you the extra stuff. In other words, they are giving you a real REASON to pay, even though it may be possible to not pay.

Same thing should be with music and movies. Let the purchasers get access to extra goodies, like cd cases and liner notes and perhaps some extra online tracks that you can only get by registering the bought copy of the cd - and with movies, maybe let legitimate purchasers of movies get a free goodie - like maybe a movie star autograph, or maybe a lifetime upgrade certificate, meaning that as technology changes they will throw you a free version of the future media. In other words, you are buying a true license. Which would mean that all the people who bought the original Beatles albums would get an upgrade package through cassettes, cd's and mp3's....

You know, we all have to work for our money.....