Oh brilliant - lets hope the others follow suit then !!!! Its a crazy situation really - I sincerely hope that now people will begin to share again. The other day I wasnt doing much downloading or much else on the computer so set the monitor to let more uploads through - someone started to upload one of my favourites so I decided to browse that persons collection - no joy, so I started to look at lots of the uploaders as they came through and out of about 20 there were only 2 or so sharing more than 20 or so files.

I have lots of music on vinyl and cassette which I just cant find in the shops to replace and Im sure there are millions of people just like me - besides, they have brought this on themselves, if they didnt charge such exhorbitant prices for cd's there wouldnt be such a call for sharing - I reckon the greed of the record companies has caused all this. CD's were getting to a crazy price 3 or 4 yrs back - in fact, for somebody unfortunate enough to be on benefits it was representing about a third of their weekly income - that has me asking myself if music is a luxury or a necessity, for myself its the latter - as the saying goes, 'music calms the savage beast' - chuckles, no, Im not a savage beast really, but theres nothing better than a good tune or two for lifting me up when all else fails - am I saying I think of music as a basic human right? I dunno.

I cant understand why these people have been targeting people who have good collections of oldies cos no one actually makes any money out of it that way and I wonder if the people who have had hefty fines will be somehow reimbursed when the powers that be finally look into this with the spirit of altruism.

Im a bit on the fence when it comes to the people who do download for selling on and do realise that royalties are important to the artists but there I think is where the re-jigging needs to be done - after all everybody needs to make a living and if so much wasnt being creamed off constantly at the top end it may be a bit easier for the man in the street to be more honest.

Maybe this situation is a reflection of society as a whole - in fact, I dont think theres any maybe about it. I stood one evening at the far end of the checkouts in asda, it was peak shopping time and all the tills were queued up with people and trolleys piled high - I had just paid something like £60 for a few bits n pieces and estimated that most of those trolleys were gonna be costing more like £80 - £100 (at least) - I am still wondering where all that money goes. I live near a small town and there are three of those stores here, that lead me to think of how many stores and how much money disappears in the country as a whole - ok, there are wages, costs and overheads but the profits can be nothing short of gigantic. Oh happy indeed would I be to see some of that money being fed back in to the communities it is being leeched from.
oops - got a bit carried away there!!!
Trish