I'm from the US and I do love the country, despite all of its faults, but did it ever occur to these idiots that maybe, instead of spending time and money trying to "destroy" the PCs of people who download music, the government could collaborate with software manufacturers and/or developers to come up with a way to promote free services for downloading media files (music, video, etc.), but only a certain number of tracks per album, or minutes per movie, or whatever, so that "legitimate" users of said services could continue to benefit (i.e. the chance to make sure the album has more than 1 or 2 good tracks) from said services. Obviously, this isn't a utopian solution, but it would serve to thwart the efforts of those people who use said services to avoid paying for the downloaded media? I have used Napster, Grokster, LimeWire, Kazaa, etc. and I will continue to do so, but I use them to evaluate an album before I actually purchase it to avoid wasting money. Or better yet, if I've bought an album, but it is stolen, or incurs irreparable damage affecting its playability, I just download it (if I can find it) because I don't think I should have to buy an album twice because it was stolen or was accidentally damaged.
The RIAA must think it's OK to release albums by artists who can't write s__t for songs, whose albums I wouldn't listen to if it were the only album accompanying me on a Tom Hanks-esque deserted island. The RIAA must think it's OK to dupe the average consumer into buying crap music(by heavily promoting, then releasing to the public, the only good track from an otherwise crap album from an otherwise crap artist), robbing us of our hard-earned money. It's not their money that's being wasted (and of course they benefit from said wasted spending), so why should they care? It is only fair and just that the average citizen be afforded the right and ability to "evaluate" the product before purchasing, especially in light of historically false representation (the countless number of albums/artists introduced to us in the past whose albums we've all purchased only to discover that the "hit" song on the radio, or the "great tune" we heard in a store, is not at all indicative of the earwax-promoting offal we discover once the album is in our unadulterated possession).
What if there were no 30-day money back guarantees? What if the word "sample" did not exist? Or "trial period"?
Wobbley