Where Are the Second-Hand Mp3's?

You buy music on iTunes and eMusic and Rhapsody and you can't re-sell it. If you buy a book, you can sell a used copy on Ebay or Amazon. But not the mp3 file that you own! Why can't you sell a "used" mp3 file on eBay? Because you can't.

If you want to shout "FIRE!" in a crowded movie house, you can't claim free speech. You'll be arrested for inciting a riot or disturbing the peace, or simply violating the theater's "Terms of Service."

The Internet hyenas who say "you can't stop us," (rage over their parents and teachers misdirected at the music and movie and wares industries) can incite other hyenas but they can't cite the law.

Defying the law won't change what's legal and what isn't. One can't sell second-hand mp3's on eBay for common sense reasons and legal reasons. It isn't "sharing." Yes some bloggers will say, "I have Paypal donations and Google ads because..." here comes the rationalization.... "I actually paid a few pennies for a legal download and I can't re-sell it to get my money back!"

Whining babies. How quickly these crying children turn into vengeful hyenas. Using their comic book names from the forums they love, they proclaim themselves to be evil geniuses and members of some alien death squad: "We can't be stopped!"

Great. And what is the end result, if you actually CAN'T be stopped? That there will be no new music because nobody can make a career out of it. All that you'll have is a bunch of amateurish idiots with myspace pages and Garage Band-generated junk. Nobody will have the money to hire the publicists, managers and roadies needed to tour.

And yet the clueless and ignorant hyenas who aren't in the music business and don't know what they are talking about, and rationalize and bellow, will insist they should be able to sell mp3 files on eBay, or give away files and get Paypal donations, and decide by mob rule that music should be free. What they do for a living, they should be paid for. But not anybody in a glamour industry that they are jealous of, and too stupid and talentless to be part of.