Bialar Crais

Depends.

Personnally I have dl'ed quite a bit of music. The artists I enjoy...Well, their albums I buy. The one that stinks, I delete. Try before you buy simply.

OTOH, people who sits on GBs or even TBs of movies, music, pirated software, etc and whose legal collection conists of two LPs and a purchased copy of Summer Games is wrong.

Am I a hypocrit? Possibly, but I do not suffer from bad consciense since I buy the good stuff I find, and delete the bad. I support the artist/developers whose work I enjoy, and the buggers who releases crap to make a quick buck gets none from me.

ChrisJGQ

Before I started downloading MP3s, I never bought any CDs ever, period. I barely cared at all about music, and simply listened to friend's CDs. I will only buy a CD if I have already heard the MP3s and know that it's a quality product.

Secular Pinoy

I saw a funny image a while back, a kid downloading mp3s while a guy in a military uniform watching over him. There's a slogan that read "mp3 sharing is Communism" or something to that effect.

I myself had a brush with the karmic forces. I have been downloading tons of mp3s since before Napster came along. I have a very big library, in the gigs, in my hard drive. Well, last thursday the Hard disk went kaput, losing gigs and gigs of mp3s, dvd-rips, program-installers, and most preciously, my quotefile! All the rest are expendable somewhat, but the quotefile is priceless (over 3 years worth of quotes culled from the internet and real life). I had pithy quotes for every occasion there!

There you have it. Download mp3s and be damned by Kismet.

(spelling errors)

[ August 18, 2002: Message edited by: Secular Pinoy ]</p>

ForeverSeeking

I used to buy CDs constantly, without restraint!

Now that I can download MP3s, I buy sporadically, and VERY carefully.

I think it is a great thing. I ONLY purchase music that I believe is high quality and worth my time and money.

I am hoping that it forces the industry to put out and support decent music. It has all gone to crap of late.

No way. I eat the white ones first. That is the best color. That is the color Jesus wore when he was baptised, so it must be best.

Gnothi Seauton
<a href="http://www.foreverseeking.com" target="_blank">Forever Seeking Truth</a>

miscreant

I download quite a few songs, but generally this is what happens. I download a song by an artist. Then I think, "hmmm... I liked that song, let's see what else they have", so I get some of their other stuff.

9 times out of 10, their other stuff is crap, and I'm not about to shell out $20 for a CD in which I only want 1 song.

The other times, I end up buying the CD (or sometimes several CDs) by the artist, and get good music I like instead of an album where I only want to listen to one song.

When the record labels get their shit together though and start offering downloads of a single song by an artist for a good price (like $1.00 or something) then I'll go to them. I don't have the hatred of the record industry other do, and frankly, getting songs from peer to peer networks has its limitations. I dislike getting crappy versions, or bogus tracks. I'd rather go to the labels and pay my $1.00 and be assured of a good quality recording.

What I don't currently like is their subscription services. I want to be able to download the songs I want, when I want, for a reasonable price, not having to subscribe and having the music they want to sell forced on me. I don't think I'm alone in this.

Miscreant

[ August 19, 2002: Message edited by: miscreant ]</p>

reklaw67

I download a crapload of stuff off of a file sharing program. Movies, Mp3's, games, etc etc.

If a retailer offered me a guaranteed speed to download these things (file sharing is pretty slow sometimes) I would pay for it. I dont feel bad in the least for downloading the things I do for free because the industries are not offering me a similar method of obtaining these items. Now if there were other options I could persue to get these files in the same way (internet) I would do so; even if there was a price attached.

Radcliffe Emerson

I don't see anything immoral about downloading mp3's.

[ August 20, 2002: Message edited by: Radcliffe Emerson ]</p>

slept2long

I will take what Maynard says with a freging ton of salt like I do with anything else from Tool. I am not a recording artist but I know the music industry screws artists royally (pun intended) and without lube. Maynard no doubt knew this when he got into the music business so if he don't like the fact that people rip mp3's because cd's are over priced, and that is a pretty freakin' big reason why people rip mp3's IMO, he knows where the exit door is. I will still BUY any Tool album that comes out though because I respect the band. I am also under the impression that bamds make most of there money on the road. Tool live kicks ass so they have nothing to worry about there.

Oh, to answer the question, no I don't think it's immoral to burn these cd's and I will continue to do so as long as I don't own a TCPA modded computer.

Theli

Speaking for myself, I think downloading full albums is only wrong if it replace a bought album (an album that you wanted to own). If there's an album that I find pretty good, but not worth buying then there shouldn't be immoral for me to have it on MP3. I was never going to buy it anyway.
I usually end up buying CD's that I've previously had on MP3 though. Just because I don't like the format.

But also, I rarely ever buy a CD that I haven't heard some MP3's from first.
I used to buy much more CD's when Napster was operational, kind of ironic I guess.

[ August 21, 2002: Message edited by: Theli ]</p>

Montefarle

At the risk of sounding technologically challenged, umm what is TCPA modded?