There's a new player in the Consumer vs. Big Music game and its name is lala. Take a look at this and read all about it.

Basically, lala purports to be an online facilitator of CD trading. In other words, you tell lala what you have and what you want, and then for $1.49 lala will take one of what you have and send you one of what you want. Sounds good, doesn't it?

Unlike file sharing, where you violate copyright law by making a copy of the song, with lala, you give up ownership of the whole polycarbonate mass of atoms we call a CD. Unlike the compositions embodied thereon (which you don't own and can not copy) and unlike the sound recordings of those compositions (which you don't own), you do own the CD. And you can do many things with it, legally, and without paying anyone a red cent more.

You can listen to it whenever and wherever you want. You can turn it into a coaster or a Frisbee. You might even be able to make a backup copy under the Fair Use Doctrine (but not according to the RIAA.)

You can give it away or sell it. You could even sell it for more than you paid for it. Of course that was more likely in those halcyon vinyl days when things really did go out of print. You could trade it for a handful of magic beans, or for a cow, or even for a different CD. The only catch is that if you give up ownership of the CD, you give up the license to listen to the recordings of the compositions on the CD.

So, here's where lala fits in. You are simply trading CDs you don't want with other owners of CDs they don't want. Or are you?

I'd like to help lala write their FAQ:

Q: Like, hey, I was just thinking with my brain for a minute... couldn't I just rip my CD before I trade it off?
A: No, that would be illegal.

Q: But, hey, who would know?
A: You and your god.

Q: Well, like, hey, I'm good with that.
A: Well, sure, we thought that you would be.

And that is exactly what lala is hoping, no matter what they say.

Just like the Don't Steal Music pasted on every iPod box, lala pretends it's all about being fair and above board. But, the iPod still plays ripped music on the assumption (nudge nudge, wink wink) that you are only ripping tracks from CDs that you own. Apple could have made it so that iPods only played DRM protected music, but then no one would have bought them, because that is not what the people wanted. (Remember that phrase - or variation of it: Give the people what they want, because we'll be coming back to it.)

lala's founder has a similar entreaty at the website: I ask you to do your part by doing the right thing: remove songs from your iPod or PC if you've agreed to send the CD to another member.

Yes, certainly, right after I erase all the cassettes I made of my friends' albums, and watch all the ads I skipped on this season's Lost before I erase them all from my TiVo.

So let's just call a spade a spade. lala is all about having people do what people do inside their houses, and about having people do what people do outside of their houses: whatever they want without causing physical injury to another inside, and following the law outside.

And let's hear it for the founders of lala for hoisting the RIAA and Big Music on its own petard. These guys are not paragons of virtue; they're not fighting the good fight against the monolith. They're American capitalists trying to make a buck. They're funded by Bain Capital fercriseakes!

For what seems like eons, the labels have been hammering away about abuse of fair use. Civil liberty, constitutional and other non profit groups have been battling Big Music on this front for years. If any praise goes to lala it is because they have joined the fight, whatever their motive, and opened up a whole new front. Just as Lincoln did not free the slaves because slavery was wrong (he did it to foment rebellion in secessionist states) lala and Bain have not joined this fight because it's right. They've joined the fight to make a buck.

The fight continues but on two fronts now. Press on with fair use, but let's hit them with First Sale. Let's beat them with their own statute. How are they going to fight this one?

Must they fight it? What about giving the people what they want? People want the jukebox in the sky. People do not want to own or house CDs. People want to be able to hear what they want, when they want, where they want. Survey after survey says they'll pay a fair price for that. And, study after study indicates that a subscription based system of music distribution without physical product would result in more profits for the Music Industry than it has ever seen. Give the people what they want!

The whole premise of lala, despite what they preach, is that no one wants the damned CD! Get it, rip it and get rid of it for something else you can rip. I'll bet that if you had the option to just get the best files for a couple bucks, instead of getting the actual disc, there'd be a whole lot of happy takers. Oh, yeah, that'd be called iTunes. Give the people what they want.

On the upside for musicians - and it is the musicians who are oddly ignored in this constant tussle - lala promises 20% of its revenues to the recording artists. (How it will allocate these funds remains to be seen.)

It would appear that canning lala and its progeny may require a special law, otherwise, you'd be paying Ford every time you trade in your Pinto. Would Congress pass a law that says once you buy a CD you must own it forever and not give it away or sell it? What are we going to do? Register them like guns? (I'd advocate a 20-day waiting period before anyone could purchase the Pussycat Dolls!) Could you make it illegal to organize a market for goods? Seems to run afoul of what a lot of Americans do every day to put food on the table.

But even with a law, how is it to be enforced? Whereas when you trade in your Pinto you obviously can no longer drive it, just how do you make sure that people don't trade discs that they still have copies of? Can you see Orin Hatch's storm troopers snatching iPods out of the hands of kids at the arcade?

Aha! Booty Drop! Booty Drop! Let me see your booty drop... papers!