Multiversal
Well-known member
If I said "No"...I would be lying to you. Now, honestly, I have some old cassettes from the mid-80's that were sent to me from over seas via tape trading. Were they the actual artists packaged music...No. I also have many vinly albums that I recorded to tape so I could listen to the music in my car. Is this illegal? Not sure, but it could be.
However, I have not gotten an illegal form of music in over 15 years. I don't like peer to peer sharing and with my security clearance, getting caught with something like that would be stupid on my part. As I have gotten older, I guess I have gained more respect for the artists in today's market. Due to all the cool computer stuff (not present in my day) it is easy to obtain material illegally. So, I simply just don't.
I'll admit it.. when I was younger all I did was download music. Through that, I was able to learn about thousands of bands that I otherwise would have never been able to experience, and now that I'm older I can afford to buy their albums.
In fact, EVERYONE I know still downloads music and then in turn buy the CD.
Nowadays with things like iTunes, YouTube, MySpace, and Pandora Radio(and other forms of internet radio) things like P2P filesharing programs are a dying trend.
Sure, there are selfish folks that will download all their music and the artists will never see a penny of it, but there's really not much about that that we can control. Bootlegging and piracy hasn't slowed down, and has been a huge thing since BEFORE the internet. Pirates will be pirates, and now the general public don't have to partake because there are better(and legal) alternatives to file sharing..
Popular musicians/singers/pop-stars talk about losing money due to Internet File Sharing.. well, to be quite honest with you I think that the reason why is because the listeners are realizing that the one or two HIT songs on the album is ALL that is worth buying the album for and would much rather spend a few minutes downloading the song instead of 20+ bucks to buy a hit song plus some filler. No doubt the listener has felt cheated once or twice in the past.. I know I have.
I dunno, that's just my take on it. I think CD trading is very important.. especially for foreign bands that don't have much of a market here, and because of that it's hard to get their material.
Besides, the rich artists are STILL rich, and the poor artists are still poor.. but at least through cd trading, file sharing, and the internet the poor artists can get their stuff circulated. MySpace is a great testament to this fact.. look at how many artists/people have gained fame AND money through something like MYSPACE.. a FREE service.
If people like it.. they'll shell out the money for it.
Also.. the people that are getting busted for downloading music are the people with gigs upon gigs of downloaded music.. which is blatant piracy without the intent to buy. That is wrong, but downloading for a taste is NOT wrong. Think of how much money we've wasted on buying a cd for a song that we liked only to have the whole album be nothing like it and suck.
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