[Stuart]

Originally Posted by andyl

Is it OK to download a song which I already own on vinyl and, therefore, have paid copyright and royalty fees for?

I think the problem comes because the Record industry cannot prove you do or don't have the vinyl copy (after all, all they see from the companies that monitor the file sharing networks is a list of IPs and what files they were sharing).

I personally have no problem with people downloading music if they have already bought it (there have been a few times when I have bought an Album or Single, and over the years, it has been damaged so I just downloaded the songs to my PC).

With the music industry one point that never seems to get raised is why we now need record companies. The internet now allows bands to sell music directly (and simply) and significantly increase their artistic control and slice of the cake. The overall cake might be smaller but in a world where Robbie Williams can apparently command an £80m advance. Of course there are issues of marketing, but massive marketing budgets have given us the crassest elements of the music scene (eg Maroon 5, Busted etc) whilst the most exciting and interesting groups (eg Franz Ferdinand) have emerged on independent labels.

The problem is that the record companies (and media companies in general) directly or indirectly employ a lot of people. OK, the money goes to the studio staff, the band and band's management (not to mention the bosses of the record company). However, the record company also employes possibly thousands (or even tens of thousands) of support staff, ranging from cleaners & office staff through to the managrment. Not to mention the companys they use (video production, CD pressing, printing, marketing). These company all employ people (again, sometimes a few, sometimes thousands). People need to be paid.

DVDs are just stupidly expensive so I have no sympathy.

Not expensive if you look around.

But no-one's mentioned software. Software piracy is surely a massive issue for the computer industry which the 'artists' - the programmers - suffer. Anyone guilty of having hooky software out there? Mind you I've just paid £3.49 for Nero OEM when the retail version is about £40. That manual's blinkin' expensive!!

True, although the retail version of Nero has a lot of features that may not be bundled in the OEM version (for instance, the OEM version of Nero we have at work lacks the Video Editing stuff and Nero Recode, which my full version has).