Love Goes to Court

It’s about time that someone stood up to the recording industry (“Courtney Love Seeks to Rock Record Labels’ Contract Policy,” Feb. 28). I don’t really care about Courtney Love or her “fat bank account,” but I do care about paying $17 for a new CD at the stores. And the music industry wonders why we are crazy about Napster and why there is a two-week back-order to buy recordable CDs from Amazon. I hope that Love rocks her industry, as it needs to be. However, as Love and her fellow rockers’ bank accounts may get even fatter if this suit is successful, the consumer will have to pay the same price or even more for the luxury of buying new music. We could have guessed that one.

MARK STORHAUG

Pacific Palisades

* There will be tremendous pressure on Love to settle her case out of court, but she must see it through to the end. A public deconstruction of what amounts to contractual slavery is long overdue. One can only imagine how besieged the record companies are feeling, attacked from one direction by online file sharing and now from the other by this fearless warrior. That the recording industry is going to have to eventually redesign its monopolistic business model is a given, but what this case also portends is the fight over how we reconcile the future of copyright protection and individual freedom. It’s a war that’s just beginning. Long live Love!

TOM HYMES

Los Angeles