USATODAY.com - Piracy pillages music industry Yet another big newspaper piece that does not really explore this issue fully. My views are quite evident to longtime readers. I buy music, and I want to be able to use it anywhere. There are lots of issues with the music companies, including the ridiculous pricing of cd’s today. At the same time, I admit there is an issue here with piracy. People who can damn well afford to pay for the music they listen to are making copies of cd’s for each other. I was at a friends house last week, he’s a consultant for a company that does ERP software implementations. He was giving a copy of the Moulin Rouge soundtrack that he had made for another friend of mine who works in the same business. These are people who make six figures plus, not starving college students, not people who are frustrated with the lack of digitally distributed music. This hammered home for me that this really is a serious issue that is not the simple set of issues normally presented by the “Internet” crowd. Sure, I might buy more music because of the exposure to it online, but others will simply take what they want regardless of morals and ethics. Having said that, the music industry cannot point at digital copying alone for its woes, and their statistics prove nothing.