Has it become an article of faith in the folk world that performers have to be poor to be taken seriously? Do folkies taken view that copyright and performers' rights are merely obstacles to the propagation of their chosen art forms?

I ask because, a couple of days ago, I received an e-mail from the providers of an Internet tool. They were trying to persuade me to subscribe for an update with added MP3 capability. Their promotional e-mail actually said that I would be able to use the new utility to record all of my CDs. In essence this means recording them in MP3 for the only likely purpose of posting them to a Web site for others to download

There was a thread about the ways in which MP3 would change music distribution. Nobody wanted to address the copyright issues, except to rubbish them. But performers and composers depend upon revenues from their proper royalties in order to live. If they cannot do that, then they cannot make music. In some countries both copyright and performers rights "benefit" from a private use exemption. But in many jurisdictions they do not. The composers and performers depend upon the additional revenues they get because people need to buy a tape as well as a CD, so that they can play it in their car, etc.

But no one wanted to debate the very serious issues of how proper revenue was to be obtained for performers and composers from MP3 duplication and MP3 postings of recordings of their compositions, words, and performances.

Why is that? Are all of you pirates?