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Well I'm sorry folks but the news gets no better at all.

While trawling for headlines this morning I came across this "story" on the USA Today website.

Now I put the word "story" in quotes because this appears to be yet another blatant example of the media pandering to the recording/movie industries' disinformation campaign and printing whatever they give them without challenge, question or probably even editing.

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But why aren't we seeing the other side of the story in the media???

What about the reports that go like this:

Bob returned home from work, eager to relax after a long and stressful day.

Stopping momentarily at the fridge to grab a cold beer, he strolled into the living room and dropped his weary body into the old leather armchair, a chair that showed signs of frequent use.

The remote control for his stereo system fell to hand as he reached towards the coffee table and after pressed a couple of well-worn keys he leaned back, hands clasped behind his head, and waited.

He could feel his muscles relaxing as his body anticipated the soothing waves of melody that would soon sweep over him.

But something was wrong... the speakers remained silent and only a faint grinding noise emanated from the CD player connected to his very expensive sound system.

"Damn, don't tell me the CD player is broken" he thought to himself.

Rising from his chair he ambled over to the large and impressive rack of electronics and punched the eject button. With a whisper-like sliding noise, the tray slid open and he removed the disk, replacing it with another he'd already pulled from its storage case.

This time, pressing the play button produced an almost immediate crescendo of vibrant music from the speakers -- obviously the CD player was working just fine, it must be the disk.

Holding the offending CD so close that he could read the tiny copyright message carried by all genuine disks, he could see some discolouration around the center of the disk, right where the data area began.

"Damn" he thought, but this time the word actually made it past his lips and echoed around the room.

Yes, Bob, through no fault of his own, was now facing a bill of $30 or so to replace this faulty disk.

Sure, he could demand a replacement under consumer protection laws, arguing that it was clearly a defective product -- but this disk was now over 10 years old and even if he prevailed in court, the costs would be far more than the $30 it would cost to buy a brand new copy.

Bob's law-abiding attitude to obeying copyright law had just cost him money.

Faced with the prospect of spending a good amount of money to buy something he thought he already owned, he mulled the options.

Should he now backup all his other store-bought CDs onto CDRs despite the "burn and get burnt" attitude of the music industry? Why not -- after all, they weren't going to replace this faulty disk without a fight were they?

Should he even bother buying a replacement disk -- after all, a few minutes on the internet would probably allow him to download the same disk from a P2P network and burn it to a CDR. He had already bought the right to possess a digital copy of that disk after all?

But Bob's fear of the law and recollection of all the media reports that rammed home just how evil it was to infringe copyright got the better of him and he resigned himself to buying another brand new copy of this album.

"I just hope it lasts longer than another 10 years" he grumbled to himself.

Meanwhile, in a plush office building across town, a recording industry executive thumbed casually through the stack of BMW and Mercedes brochures scattered on his desk and smiled.

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