Yes that was really a personal attack. That is hardly flamming. More like calling out an idiotic statement. Don't you agree? My intention was not personal.

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Ummm, it was neither Kona. Do you use Kazaa? If so and since you do not skin, according to Styl skinner he is higher educated than you.

I'm not to sure "all" skinners are totally age against kazaa. I mean http://www.skinbase.org/kazaa_top.php had a skinning contest for Kazaa.
I use Kazaa sometines to download music that I know the bands are "ok" with it. Sometimes I even find a real gem

Sorry about the misunderstanding. Currently tearing apart skins to rainlander and sysmetrix to learn how to make my own. So far it has been fun.

cheap shot, Yrag!

Don't worry, your balls are still on my hit list


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I would hate to be on China's 'hit' list.

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majority of the Kazaa users tend to trade copyrighted files, not free music.

Unfortunately for all of us, that is very true...

Amen to what Jafo has said. But another side of the coin is the RIAAA represents the recording industry, NOT the artists, who are regularly ripped off by the very same people who sign them up. I read recently that only two to four percent of the cost of a CD goes to the artist if they are lucky, as big business deducts from that amount advertising etc. In the end, ripping material is wrong and a crime, but a lot of the blame lies at the feet of greedy business, who once again have failed to grasp new technology. Anyone remember the introduction of cassete recording,and vhs, and how they both were going to wipe out the music and movie industry? Well, it did not happen. What happened was the industry embraced the new technology and survived, and that is what they need to do now. After all, Apples Ipod would not be such a success if this were not true.

DJ, the part about being higher educated was a JOKE!! Didn't you noticed the smiley?

And skinning labels you real educated?

A: no, but when you are an ARTIST you don't like it to see people rip YOUR stuff, so you know what is wrong.

Alright, my fault Styl.

Yeah CaptainWin, most of the money a music artist makes comes from touring. So you're not hurting them like they would try to make you believe.

grayhaze, you can't listen to music in the store before buying a cd?

I went to buy the new rollingstones flashlight album, I walk into the store, get the and want to pay it, they take the money and then asked me: but don't you want to listen to it first?

I hope some sort of payment scheme (maybe somewhat like radio) is worked out so that there can be legal downloads that are flexible (the DRM stuff right now sucks). Until then, it's buy the CD, rip it, stick in a box -- over and over again. Oh well. I can wait.
One thing that concerns me about illegal firesharing is that it may very well lead to some unsettling restrictions in 'fair use'. Those of us who play fair will end up with inferior products (CDs that don't play in computer drives, etc.) while someone will crack it and the kazzaa crowd will have superior product. A good example of where this is happened is ebooks. You purchase the product for basically the same price as the printed copy, but you are not able to print (or at least print only very limited passages) while fair use allows the copying of comparitively large portions from the printed text (for legitimate reasons). I would never give the file to someone else (beyond maybe a colleague to browse for a couple of days -- which is exactly what we do with physical texts), yet I'm punished because of others.
I hope that the promise of the internet as sort of a global multimedia library can be realized. It is ok to loan something you own to someone else under certain conditions. I can go down the street and check out some old Louis Armstrong LP's from the public library (although this varies depending on jurisdiction). A few years ago I thought we were going in that direction, but a seemingly total disregard for the copyright holder coupled with an extreme distrust of the legitimate end user has resulted in a pretty severe regression in the quality of the internet in this respect. The solution starts with the end to rampant copyright theft. If users make a good-faith effort, perhaps the RIAA will provide us with a real digital alternative.