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It has been an interesting week on the download battlefront. On Friday, online file-sharing service BearShare announced that it was shutting down its business. The P2P company, along with its operators Free Peers, Inc., agreed to the terms of a $30 million settlement with the recording industry. As part of the settlement, Free Peers agreed not to start any other unlicensed music services, and the company has agreed to sell BearShare's technology, rights, domain name, and user data to iMesh, Inc. (footnote 1)

iMesh paid the RIAA $4.1 million in a 2004 file-sharing settlement, but went back online as a licensed music service. iMesh's CEO Robert Summer said, "iMesh is committed to transitioning the compelling experience of [file sharing] to an authorized marketplace."

So that means the record industry is winning the war on illegal file sharing, right? Not necessarily. On Tuesday, May 2, the Red Hot Chili Peppers' website posted a letter it called "Fleamail", a notice from the group's bassist Flea, concerning the leak of the RHCP's soon-to-be-released Stadium Arcadium double CD to download sites. Flea called this "not very nice," but interestingly enough his main contention was not that it was ripping off the band, but that listeners would be getting "a pale imitation of the record [and] it will be of the poor sound quality [typical of compressed downloads]."

What I found interesting about this was not that Flea is asking people not to download the new CD, but the reactions of so many outside commentators. Bob Lefsetz, who writes the entertaining Lefsetz Letter, called Flea a Luddite because he seemed unaware of the fact that files downloaded from the iTunes Music Store are as compressed and sonically compromised as any illegal downloads. Other websites bandied about the word hypocrite and even floated theories about Flea actually alerting his fans to the fact that free downloads were available if only they would seek them out.

Here's a radical idea: Maybe Flea was saying exactly what he thought. Perhaps I'm just a sucker, but I read the following as a cri de coeur: "we worked for a year and a half to make the epic record of our lives
and it is sad to me for the business reasons of course
i think we are selling something really cool and we put all we had into it, 28 songs, 2 hours of the best that we can offer
and i think it is a fair deal for everyone
and for people to just steal a poor sound quality version of it for free
because some asshole stole it and put it on the internet
is sad to me
but, equitable business reasons aside
the thing that really bums me out is
we worked so hard, and so thoughtfully, all of us, for so long
to make this record sound as warm and full from top to bottom
as was possible
we spent day and night for a year making sure every little sound was just right
that they were all put together in the most beautiful way we could
we did not leave a stone unturned in doing that work
i can not put in words how much this record, stadium arcadium, means to us
how sacred the sound of it is to us
and how many sleepless nights and hardworking days we all had
thinking about how to make it be the best sounding thing we could
and now, for someone to take it and put it out there with this poor
sound quality
it is a painful pill for us to swallow."

That sounds like an attitude most audiophiles can relate to. At www.stereophile.com, we've written numerous articles and editorials about the wrong-headed way that the RIAA has attempted to wage war on consumers over fair-use issues, but we do believe that musicians, record labels, and, yes, even writers ought to be recompensed for their labors. We're impressed that Flea argued his case directly to his fans, and on May 9, when Stadium Arcadium is released, we'll be happy to buy a legitimate copy of it.

But, since we don't want to break Flea's heart, it won't be from the iTunes Music Store.

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Footnote 1: as of 2018, iMesh is no more. See www.comparitech.com/blog/vpn-privacy/bearshare-imesh-alternatives/.—Ed.