As the largest grassroots effort in the history of the world, file trading is essentially the average person's way of saying we don't agree with the … - Richard Menta

When the motto for the year 2001 is "Innovation Followed by Litigation" you know who the biggest winners are - the lawyers.

DRM goes beyond protecting tracks from being traded online. It is used to lock consumers to proprietary technology. It is used to control supply and push higher prices. It is used to undermine practices we have long defined as fair use so they can be shifted to fee-based.

When someone asks me where MP3 Newswire stands with regards to file trading (or piracy as some try to call it) I tell them that we support the growth of this notion of an online music industry. One that uses technology to bring us more music, broadening our pallettes while leveraging the Net to reduce distribution costs. The music can be paid for like CDs and tape or it can be free to its audience and supported by advertising like radio and MTV are. Whatever the model, the point is online music easily can and does supplement what we already purchase in the stores.