Local family sued by record companies and they don't even own a computer . . .

The story here. The RIAA are assholes, no doubt about it.

Record albums, cassettes, 8-track tapes (ugh), reel-to-reel tapes and other older media should be copied to mp3 formats. Then the media sold, traded or given away.

I am old enough to remember cassette tapes (and 8-track tapes to a limited extent) becoming the greatest recording media because we could record economically off the radio, copy from records and copy other cassettes. Quality in a car was plenty good enough for these cassettes. I didn't need high fidelity of 20 to 20,000Hz response, which you could not get from a cassette anyway. More like 100 to 10000Hz if you were lucky to have excellent equipment. In a car music loudness was more important than fidelity.

Cassettes were traded as desired. And albums. Why did we do it? Because we could not afford the music was the reason. We were kids and we were broke. It was 3 to 5 bucks for an album with perhaps 2 or 3 desired songs, sometimes less. A 45 often was in mono. Minimum wage was less than 2 bucks an hour. If we could find a job...

Any of the USB audio cards for a PC today can do a respectable recording from a good quality TV or CD player. Good quality playback to analog then analog back to digital with no rootkits and other crap to worry about. There is software out there to convert mp3 files to cda format which is what you will find on a CD. Google it. Try 'convert mp3 to cda' as a search term. Then you can play your music in a car CD player that does not have mp3 capability.

I saw earlier version of Magix that would make regular CD music from mp3s. The box mentioned its capability but the instruction manual ignored this feature. It is as if they did not really want this feature to be used.

So am I encouraging people to copy and share. Sure because I know what it is like to be poor. And to envy the kids with money. Music memories are important to me.

I own over 500 CDs of music from the 50s, 60s and 70s. I went back years later and purchased high quality media (CDs) so I could continue to enjoy the music of my youth. 28 CDs are Beach Boys. If the RIAA had pissed me off with threats and punishment towards me and my friends back then I would have bootlegged everything. Even today when I can afford any CD I want to purchase I am selective because there is too much orphan music meaning many songs of my youth have not been recorded to CDs. I am tired of buying one CD for for the one song that I don't already have on previous purchases. I miss the days when we could buy a 45 rpm for a single song that we wanted. Now I will be looking for a download site to fill in those individual songs that I am missing.

Sharing is what is happening now. P2P file sharing is easier than trading with your buddy down the street but copying will be done. Slowed but not stopped.

My blog likely will end up being removed because I say that copying is OK if you are broke. I will just start it up somewhere else. I am using a pseudonym anyway. I will just select another one.

Enjoy the music and avoid the RIAA.