Michael Weischnitt wrote:

Fellow audio and music industry professionals,

I urge you to check out mpThrasher, a simple and free program
for Mac OS X that I wrote to combat online piracy via mp3 exchange.

The suggested approach constitutes wilful misrepresensation of the
oeuvre, at the very least of its sonic qualities and is thus a droit
morale violation. For those who wants a simpler wording "album sounds
like crap, why buy it?".

In my opinion, the strategy outlined in my web page

The only sustainable strategy is to make the audience want to pay for
their music because they understand why they should. In as much as
paying for music de facto is already optional, as is to a very large
extent paying for software, then this is about promoting a non-stealing
attitude.

- albeit simple - is the only one which really has a chance to
succeed against the peer to peer networks.

No. Somebody somewhere will make a checksum database and design software
to filter the damaged files out. The only result of your approach is to
alienate people further from the concept of wanting to pay. One does not
gain customers by offending people, and offend is all your program will
do.

Mind you, I agree with you in the problem and in its severity, but not
in the suggested cure, I think its sideeffects are worse than whatever
effect it may have.

Michael Weischnitt


Kind regards

Peter Larsen

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* My site is at: http://www.muyiovatki.dk *
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