silverstone
well, first off. I am really really against music pirating, and p2p networks. illegal downloading is killing the industry. If you only download music, you are helping the industry die. I know that the industry is still rich, but that wont last long if no one buys music legitimately. I dont download music, I wont steal a cd from the store, Im not going to steal one digitally.
i agree with you in principle silverstone, but there are two sides to every story.
the first, honest side.
i love music, whether it be classical, pop, rock, rap, reggae, or folk. i have a cassete cllection of 700+ original albums, many hundreds more on vinyl, and a cd collection of some 400 original cds. out of my collection, id say i have maybe 5 pirated cd albums - all given to me free by others. i regularly buy cds from stores, and on a whole id say im reasonably happy with my purchases, though the pricing system they sometimes use leaves me wondering. i recently brought the wall live in hmv for £10.99 in a sale. a great bargain. when i got home i flippedthe cd case over and there was a sticker on the back saying that the cd was orginally priced at £30.99! thats ridiculous, no scandalous! similarly i brought the original wall by pink floyd in sale, another double cd, i got that for £9.99. on the back the sticker said £26.99! thats why piracy exists, many people are unwilling to pay prices like that for cds, so they go else where, and i say good on them!
the second, dishonest side.
before you accuse me of killing off the music industry, hear me out. my biggest love in music is dance, and im not talking the dance you see advertised on tv. i have many albums on cd now that cannot be replaced through normal retail means - they've either been deleted, or the label that made them has stopped trading.
one of my favourite albums of all time is an old, early 90's dance album by 808 state called excel. i had many of the singles on cassette or cd, but i did not have the album, when i was 17, or 18 years old, i decided to go to the shop and buy it. i didnt buy it straight away, instead waiting a few months to buy it. that was my mistake. the album was only released in small numbers, and was deleted only 6 months after it was released. never to be heard of again.
how long do you think it took me to find that album available to buy in the shops? in the end, i found it going cheap in a second-hand shop clearout rack. how long had i waited to find it? 13 years! that stinks! i tried the record labels, and they were no help. i could of turned to the internet to find it, but i wanted the original cd in its original case. i eventually found it, but look how long i had to wait.
i find myself in a similar predicament again. i brought a carpenters double cassette when i was 10 years old in 1984. ive played it almost everyday, for the past 21 years, but alas it is at the end of its days. again i have tried to contact the record label to get another copy on cd, but all they did was transfer my call to HMV, who took my order, but sent me the wrong cd, thought it had the same name as the one i wanted!
i am a massive trance fan, and many of the tracks i listen to are never available for purchase in shops. what am i supposed to do? i get around this by ripping them from trance stations using station ripper. if thats illegal, im happy to be breaking the law. how else would i listen to the trance tracks i like? sure they release 'best ever trance' or 'now thats what i call trance', but thats for the non-believers, not the true clubber.
if im commiting piracy, its the fault of the music industry, and not me.
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