Music Piracy

* I’m a card-carrying leftist and have no ties to the music industry, but I fail to see how stealing music off the Internet can be perceived as a moral victory (“Music Makers at Wits’ End In Battle With Internet Takers,” May 29). You quote Ian Clarke, the creator of FreeNet, as referring to such pirating and the response by music makers to stop it as “an ideological battle.” By the lights of any ideology short of anarchy, piracy is theft and no anti-big-music-business whining will whitewash that fact. It reminds me of the ‘60s, when even some of my socially conscious contemporaries liked to “liberate” things they needed or wanted.

If these self-satisfied music thieves won’t think about the ethical considerations of stiffing the people who create and underwrite these products, they should at least remember that stealing royalties from artists and cutting off revenues to music companies is the fastest way to put the industry into bankruptcy. Then what will they listen to?

CATHERINE R. LEACH

Sherman Oaks

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As a member of the over-40 age group, I am watching the conflict between American youth and the record industry with fascination. The record industry has finally learned what most parents fear with an overindulged, spoiled child. Enough is never enough.

LINDA BUCHANAN

Newbury Park