PTA Technology Corner

Nearly half of all teenagers did NOT buy a compact disc in 2007, according to a research study done by the NPD Group.

Online music sales continue to climb confirmed by a report earlier in the week that Apple’s iTunes has become the #2 music seller behind Walmart, and analysts predict that iTunes will eclipse Walmart later this year.

And finally, in January the debate behind HD-DVD and Blue-Ray high definition compact disc formats (echoes from the VHS-Betamax mess of the 1980’s) was finally settled when major movie companies picked Blue-Ray over HD-DVD. Toshiba, the maker of the HD-DVD drives, put it to rest when they stopped production on the units.

But who cares? Downloading movies is upon us. Only two days after the beginning of the end of the high-def debate started, Apple announced their iTunes Movie Rental service and updated Apple TV device.

The times they are a changin’!

This week marked the first guilty verdict won by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) against illegal downloading. A Minnesota woman was accused of sharing songs through a popular file-sharing network and was found guilty and fined $220,000.

The reason I bring this up to parents of grade schoolers is that while companies like Apple, Microsoft and Amazon have made it easy and relatively cheap to buy and download digital music online, many children feel it is their right to download and share for free music with their friends (and the rest of the world). What they don’t understand (but you need to) is that it is relatively easy for the RIAA to track down illegal music sharing online.

How do they do this? Each computer is assigned a unique number - called an IP address - when it goes online. The major internet service providers have been more than willing to share that information with the government and organizations like the RIAA when potentially illegal activity is suspected. The woman found guilty this week was sharing music from her home computer and even used her email address as her user ID on the file sharing network.

Two things I’ll suggest to you to help avoid this from happening to you and your family:

1. Make sure you do not have any file sharing software on your computers at home - Limewire and Kazaa are the two most popular file sharing software. Talk with your kids about illegal music sharing and explain the risks to them (it might to indicate that the woman found guilty this week was fined over $9,000 per song she shared online!)
2. Be sure to secure your wireless network at home. Turn off the broadcast ID or encrypt your wireless router with a password (see my blog post “Secure Your Wireless Network” for details). The reason for this is while you may not be illegally downloading music and sharing it online, if your wireless network is open, others in your neighborhood may be using it for illegal activity and could potentially be liable for their activities.

The days of visiting the record store (just calling it a record store has long become a misnomer) and thumbing through the latest albums (there I go again) has taken a dramatic change in the past few years. How and where we’re listening to music has changed as well. I remember working at Sam Goody’s when I was younger and I remember getting my first Sony Walkman. But we have entered the “now” generation. The online generation. And the download generation.

It all started with Napster – what became the popular – yet later deemed illegal – download service. Then Apple launched the iTunes Music Store in April 2003 (http://www.itunes.com) and now offers over 2 million songs, over 3,000 music videos, 11,000 audio books, over 25,000 podcasts (we’ll get to what those are in a future article) and recently dozens of popular and past television shows. They’ve sold over 850 million songs to date and over 42 million iPods – over 10 million in just the last three months of 2005. This is more than a fad. It’s a new culture! It seems that it’s hard to stand on a street corner and not see someone with those white earbuds hanging from their head. And Apple isn’t the only one selling music online or MP3 players (although they do have an 84% market share in this space even though the iPod only works with iTunes on both Macs and Windows computers).

So why do we bring this up? This column has become a sort of “how to protect yourself and your children” space and downloading music is a topic that warrants some attention. And if your child hasn’t bugged you about buying them an iPod Nano or some other MP3 player, I’ll bet they will be soon. So, what do you need to know?

First, how do you download music? Probably a better question is “how do you buy and download music.” This can be done from a number of sites, even though Apple’s iTunes Music Store is by far the most popular. The others major services include MSN Music (http://music.msn.com), Walmart (http://www.walmart.com/music), Sony Connect (http://www.connect.com) and Real Rhapsody (http://www.rhapsodydirect.com). These services either sell songs one-by-one at around $0.99 for each song or have a monthly subscription service. While the initial price of the subscription service may be appealing (one price and you can download any number of songs you want), when you cancel your subscription, you don’t get to keep the songs.

Second, how should you NOT download music? There are a number of “peer-to-peer” networks (or P2P) available where individuals can share music online. This is not only illegal, but is one way the Recording Industry of America Association (or RIAA) is catching individuals illegally downloading music. Stick with the pay services listed above and you’ll be ok.

Finally, it is ok to “burn” compact discs that you own onto your computer and transfer those songs to your MP3 player too. Most of the services, including the iTunes store, allow you to do this very easily. You’re not doing anything illegal here as long as you own the CD already.