Robert Chapin writes on copyright issues for miqrogroove. LLFCC appreciates his sharing this essay.

For several years record companies remained unconvinced of the overall value as a promotional medium for their products, so they too joined the throng in fighting the idea. They thought people were less likely to buy a record if they could hear it for free. This fear was borne out by some figures which showed that urban areas were suffering a downturn in record sales. The larger record companies started taking legal steps and a series of lawsuits ensued.¹

If you think I'm quoting an article about the recent peer-to-peer (P2P) music sharing lawsuits, you couldn't be more wrong. That paragraph was an explanation of the technological revolution that took place in the United States music industry during the 1930s. I've simply taken it out of context by deleting the words "radio" and "disc jockey."

At that time, the throng was an organization of performing artists, the medium radio, and the criminals radio DJs. They stood accused of violating copyrights by broadcasting music recordings with no license to do so. One case almost reached the U.S. Supreme Court when an appellate judge ruled against the plaintiff, "They have never copied his performances at all; they have merely used those copies which he and the RCA Manufacturing Company, Inc. made and distributed."²