Theft of Music on Internet

* Re “Music Giants Miss a Beat on the Web,” July 17: Karl Marx once remarked that history repeats itself: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce. The music industry’s farcical overreaction to Internet swapping of music files reminds me of a similar overreaction by King Francis I of France, who in 1534 outlawed printing presses in Paris at the behest of the powerful monopoly of scribes.

Despite the hyperbolic claims of present-day music industry monopolists, who seem to think that ideas themselves (rather than their expression) are intellectual property, the Internet is not in trouble, the sky is not falling and a “cultural Dark Age” is not upon us. While money definitely helps, the primary incentive for artists is the pleasure of creating; there will always be artists--with or without a monopoly that feeds off their creations.

By the way, the Parisian edict against printing presses was never enforced.

TOM HIGGINS

Granada Hills

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This is to let all of the record company executives know that they won’t have to be giving up their seven-figure salaries and private jets any time soon. The threat of Napster or any other (and there will be many) Web site that provides easy access to copyrighted material will not endanger their livelihoods.

I am 40-something years old and have purchased very little music recorded in this decade. While surfing around in the rogue Napster site I decided to (because they were free) download a song or two by Third Eye Blind. I was very surprised to find that I liked this new stuff a lot. I immediately went out and bought the disc. The probability that mine is an isolated incident is pretty slim.

Instead of trying to sue these young upstarts into extinction, why don’t you accept the fact that “the times, they are a-changin’.” I am especially fond of Time Warner President Richard Parsons’ quote that “the artists will have no incentive to create . . . the country will end up in sort of a cultural Dark Ages.” Does this man actually believe that creative inspiration for artists has anything to do with money?

DENNIS DeHARDT

La Palma