A cure for the disease of which the RIAA is a symptom
Take the library idea one step further... I am, personally, more than willing to lend my music/video compilations - small as they may be - to as many people as ask for it. Am I breaking any laws by do so? What if the people I lend them to copy them, did I break some law or did they? Can I be sued for lending my music/video discs to people who then copy them?
Unfortunately for the RIAA/MPAA music and videos are now firmly seated in the digital realm where "lending" means to making them available for downloading. Unfortunately for us there is no digital equivalent to "lending" a physical object, -ie I give the disc, the borrower takes the disc, I no longer have the disc. In the digital world giving implies making a "copy" for/by the borrower.
But, isn't this like playing the music loud so more than one person can hear it? Would all the listeners be hearing the original music on disc or are they hearing a "copy" of the sounds as they propagate through the air. Are such "copies" to be made illegal too (don't laugh, wireless signals work the same way too and you can be sue for "listening-in")?
Perhaps we can find a way to make sharing digital music/videos that conforms, at least in principle, with the way libraries and friends share the same. I can think of at least one way to do it, and it's a side effect of a project I'm working on with some friends. Anyone with ideas about how this might work?