Commentary: So, what is the value of a CD?

I still buy compact discs, and always will. Why? Because there are more CD–players than MP3–players in my life from day to day, the car being the most important place for me to hear music. Also, CDs seem more permanent to me than songs on a harddrive or memory card. Although, I do enjoy and trust burning over eleven (11) hours of MP3 music onto a CD–R. And, I have gigabytes of music on one of my workstations at work that me and my office buddy swap and listen to all day.

Another thing is that I am your modern–day record collector: I collect CDs instead of vinyl. Why? I like having the whole package: the artwork, the lyrics, the credits, the artist pictures, etc. Though, I do have to admit that many CDs lack quality packaging and I wish all new albums had at least sixty (60) minutes of music on them.

Now, you are probably wondering why I would pay so much damn money ($15 or more) for a CD these days and also be an avid supporter of the file–sharing community. Answer: I don’t spend $15 on a single CD. I buy CDs used from pawnshops, yard sales, used CD stores, and great websites like Djangos.com, eBay’s Half.com, SecondSpin.com, etc. (TowerRecords.com has a good used CD inventory also.) Or I join CD clubs like BMG Music Service or CDHQ (Columbia House) and know how to not get screwed. Or I check the Sunday ads from Best Buy and Circuit City for their new artist specials, usually around $7. Without shopping this way for the past ten (10) years, I would have nowhere near 2,000 CDs. And some of my friends that shop the same way have over 3,000!

But at the end of the day, lately, after reading how Hilary Rosen and the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA) are fining or prosecuting music fans for using music this way or that way (or storing music on a company server; or using a P2P file–sharing program to let online acquaintances hear some new music), I have to stand back from my CD collection and ask one simple question:

So, what exactly are we, the consumer, allowed to do with the CDs (or DVDs) we plunked our money down for?

But, while the question seems simple enough, the answer is so much more complicated and only leads to further questions. What did we buy? When I pay for a CD, isn’t it my property to do what I want with? And why does this have to be so complicated? I bought something, I now own that item as property to do as I wish as long as it does not cause bodily harm to others. (And CDs do make very good spinning airborne projectiles!)

At the rate that all this copy–protection regulation is going, it seems to me (as it should seem to you) that, if the RIAA gets its way, I will only be legally allowed to listen to my CDs via headphones. And of course, that means I cannot share my headphones with anybody else because that is essentially file–sharing. (Not to mention headphone wire splitters.) And of course, my headphones cannot be wireless headphones because somebody out there might be hacking the wireless airwaves for free music and I would be the one held liable for somebody else hearing the music on the CDs I bought. And, I guess my wife will have to buy her own copies of the CDs she wants to listen to because she is not legally allowed to listen to mine. According to the RIAA, the word “share” is only slang at this point in time and is no longer a valid word entry in the dictionary.

You know what we need? We need somebody who works at the RIAA to get busted burning and/or ripping music, using P2P software, and letting their friends and family “share” music, movies, and software. Can you imagine? Maybe the file–sharing community should do what the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) does, only the music industry version: get their members hired by major record labels, or by the RIAA itself; become rampant copy pirates; and then go public. Hell, if we could get web developer in there, they could turn RIAA.com into a secret MP3 server!

I used to work in communications (media/public relations) at a very powerful pro Second Amendment lobbying group (who’s name I will not mention here) and something very similar to the abovementioned situation happened, but the press never found out it (or at least, never had any evidence because no police report was filed). A fellow employee and somebody I personally knew had his gun in hand (something common at a pro Second Amendment organization that has a shooting range behind the building). Uncommon for this particular workplace, this particular idiot didn’t have the gun’s safety on and was swinging it around in his hand. And of course, it happened. The gun let one round off, luckily entering the floor, but not penetrating to the floor below and not injuring anybody at all (except for maybe this guy’s pride). If the press had known about this when it happened … damn!

(Wes Royer is a professional webmaster out of Williamsburg, VA, and a regular contributor of news headlines to Zeropaid.com. In his free time, he runs both the OpenUpAndSay.com online music magazine and the NetworkOfMinds.com news portal.)

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