Downloading Music - What's that got to do with conveyancing?

There is a raging debate over laws governing music downloads. Some condemn the Y generation of criminal piracy, while others say they represents the new generation of online consumers.

Yet there is an entire generation that is illegally downloading music and many of whom were taken to court by the Recording Industry Association of America and the local French / Australian equivalent.

In France there is an 18 year old student activist Aziz Ridouan that is lobbying politicians and spreading the message that the music industry is pushing pricing models that are not to benefit of the public nor the artists but to the corporation. Aziz lives in a government-subsidized building in the central Loire region of France with his mother, who works as a cleaning woman. He introduced his nonprofit association that provides legal assistance to those accused of illegally downloading music in 2004 by declaring his downloading habit in the middle of a news conference called by a music industry trade group to announce a crackdown on 50 Internet pirates.

"Until we started speaking out in public, downloaders were only shown on television like terrorists, with their face hidden and voice scrambled," Mr. Ridouan said.

At the news conference, where he held the Hewlett-Packard laptop computer he always seems to carry above his head, Mr. Ridouan added: "I am proud to tell anyone that I download and have plenty of music, movies and TV series on my computer."

I certainly cannot be desribed as Y generation more like late baby boomer. Downloading music illegally is just so easy as is swapping digital music files with friends. That's what is so attractive with the online model.

What's this got to do conveyancing? If we dont change the model we are at risk of alienating law graduates from our industry. Law students today study 5 years with lap top in hand and then when they join the average law firm - think "fuck, you have got to be joking, this is just a friggin paper factory".

And what solutions does Mr Ridouan put forward -

Mr. Ridouan said he was eager and willing to compensate artists, but not at the rate that record companies demanded. As for the amount he can pay, Mr. Ridouan said that for a high school student living with his single mother, he cannot afford much.

"The Internet is a magnificent new way to distribute culture, and why should I be stopped because of my limited means?" Mr. Ridouan said. "The Internet serves my generation the same role as the library did for previous generations."

The solution advocated by Mr. Ridouan is to create a fund, financed by fees from Internet users and Internet service providers, to pay artists based on the popularity of their works, similar to the system used by radio stations.