Terry Byte

USA

Computer Programmer

At least they bought 1 copy of the CD "they plundered".

Who would you have turned them in to? You would have been laughed at. Fair Use laws allow you to share you CD to someone. Who knows if what they were doing was actually so bad. The record industry has tolerated such small-scale copying for a very long time. If their copying stopped at what you witnessed, it would be no different than making tape copies back in the 80's. Which by the way, is covered by blank media levies.

And what about you, Mr. Hypocrit? You were illegally copying hundreds (or more) mp3's from your friend's laptop to yours. What if I was sitting next to you obsverving your illegal actions? I suppose you'll swear that you deleted them when you were done. Who cares, the recording industry does not condone what you did. How can I tell? Because of DRM. If your friend had bought iTune files, you would not have been able to do the 'innocent' swapping for your friend at all! To me, that either means DRM punishes the innocent, or they really don't want you timeshifting your music.

DRM is a terrible solution, as your example shows. iTunes is not a great success for Apple, since they barely break even. It is only a marginal success for the Recording industry since it is still a negligible percentage of their annual sales.

I think the only thing you should be guilty of is being a shill for the recording industry. If you want to feel sorry for someone, feel sorry for the artists who have been ripped off for decades---> by the recording industry.