Just wanted to start up a debate on this...see the article too. :)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal court denied a request to shut down Internet song-swapping services Grokster and Morpheus on Friday, handing a stunning setback to the record labels and movie studios that have sought to curb unauthorized downloading of their works.

U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Wilson said the two services should not be shut down because they cannot control what is traded over their systems. Like a videocassette recorder, the software in question could be used for legitimate purposes as well as illicit ones, he said.

"It is undisputed that there are substantial noninfringing uses for (the) Defendants' software," wrote Wilson, who serves in Los Angeles.
http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=internetNews&storyID=2633661

You remove one, and another pops up. You can't destroy this, it's a plague that will never go away. I'm all for song-swapping, the artists don't get very much money off of the selling of albums, the majority goes to the recording companies. Aw, what the heck, I'm communist, down with exploition!

I am for it, I use it and love it, it saves me a lot of money

I'm not really sure where I stand on this issue.

On one hand I download a lot of music, since I like to try a lot of music I havent heard before and buying a cd isnt worth it.

But I also think that contributing to the artists I like is important. So I like to buy cd's of the best music (it's always good to have a high quality copy).

On the other hand , the record companies get most of the money and keep cd prices high when it costs them next to nothing to make them. I would guess it costs about 20 cents to make a cd on average (including advertising and whatnot). So I don't want to give too much to the record companies.

I think that if record companies weren't such bastards it wouldnt be such a big deal. If your band is good you are going to make money. Your going to tour, sell cd's, sell merchandice, and all kinds of other garbage. Why not use those other mediums to make your money. One of my favorite bands went back on tour this year and they took all the sound boards from their tour and are selling them up on the web in lossless audio and mp3. It costs them nothing to do it, and if some people pirate the music then oh well. They also released some of their older shows each comming with a piece of artwork that creates a larger image. These are all ways to make money. Of course they have the stuff they publish copyrighted, but they aren't knocking on anyones doors asking people to stop. They just make it up in other ways.

I guess where I stand is that I want file sharing to stay around. I want record companies to face reality. I want bands to stop whining. And I want to see some real entrapaneurship. Isn't that what this country was founded on?

Arguably P2P isn't that different than dubbing some songs for your friends onto a tape, which is completely legal. Of course the difference here is that you don't know the people you're trading with from Adam.

The reality is that I wouldn't buy most of the stuff I download. Most of the songs are from one-hit wonders, and I'm not buying an entire CD for one song.

Dubbing some songs onto a tape for your friends is illegal. Techincally.

I love to share music and I don't give a shit because the money doesn't go the band but normally to the label.

Basically, this allows for easier dissemination of information at the cost of a few millionaires who didn't deserve the amount they made anyways. Nope, doesn't bother me.

Doesn't bother me either. Every industry has break-throughs where people learn a way to do something cheaper. The fact is, it's a lot easier to share music via computer. And record making companies are jealous that their service isn't needed as much anymore, so they are taking whatever measures they can to keep a chunk of the cash to themselves.

I'm sure small acreage farms weren't real happy when the bigger farms learned to make more food cheaper, but no one gave them a break. Small farms simply had to go out of business and find another line of work to make a living. I feel sorry for the small farmers and record makers of the world to an extent, but this is the price of progress.