The Pros and Cons of Illegal Music Sharing

I've been trying to follow this court decision involving worldwide file sharing site The Pirate Bay, and it's got me thinking a lot about the subject, and the music industry as a whole, so here's my thoughts (mostly random) on it, let me know what you think.

Con: The bands work hard. It's their music. Support them. Give them props. They need to make money in order to keep doing what they love doing.

Pro: The music is free. With seemingly limitless good music out there, it's impossible to buy every piece of music that you'd be into, especially in times of economic struggles, so freebies are always appreciated. And some people just like to "stick it to the man," the man being both the record execs that you think overcharge you for everything and the musicians that make way too much money to just play around and waste it on excess.

Con: If everybody only got their music for free, the record companies and the bands would not make money, and would be forced to close down, and then there would no more music to download or even hear. This is obviously taken to an extreme conclusion, possibly even an illogical one, but an argument that record companies use. Without being on the inside, it's impossible to say how truly likely this could ever be.

Con: Audio quality is going down. While digital sound can be crisp and clean, I think it loses the richness of vinyl (they just require more care to keep clean). Bands still spend countless amounts of money to make their music sound the best possible, and yet we settle for lower quality files played on lower quality machines (like a blackberry) through lower quality speakers.

Pro: Convenience of Portability. CD's were great because you could play them in your car or walkman and take your music anywhere. And everyone had those great CD cases to lug their hundreds of CD's everywhere they go. Now with mp3 players and phones increasing that convenience since they're smaller even than CD players, and you don't have to lug around a gigantic case to have your entire music library at your fingertips, you can be listening to music no matter where you are or what you're doing. So you need more music in that format to fill up your 24-hour listening timetable.

Con: The loss of the whole artistic production. I, for one, love having the physical piece of music, and seeing how the packaging and everything works together, from the actual songs to the picture on the CD/vinyl, to the album cover, to the printed lyrics (if there are any), to anything else the band might throw in. I especially love it when they do something out of the ordinary, like Radiohead putting a second booklet hidden behind the CD tray of Kid A (go ahead, take the whole plastic case apart, it's there) or the whole flip-book and poster of Hail to the Thief Special Edition, Interpol's poster in the black embossed special version of Our Love To Admire, The oldness of Smashing Pumpkins' MACHINA complete with "fading" from the CD face onto the back of the booklet and Copper Staples, to Tool's old-school view master 3D goggles on 10,000 Days, to the simple pink piece of cardboard with a fly of Sunny Day's LP2, to the illustrations that enhance the story of Mae's Everglow. These are just a few examples of incredible artistic touches that are sadly lost when you buy/pirate songs and albums from the internet.

However, I do hate it when packaging and/or album tracklisting is radically different between CD's and vinyls. Obviously, there will be some differences, but try to be as consistent as possible, and don't give the people that buy one format bonus stuff that people that prefer the other format won't get, whether it be added tracks, bonus discs, DVD's pictures in the liner notes, or printed lyrics. Which leads me into my next thought...

Pro: When remixes and b-sides are only found on a bonus CD that only comes with the CD version and not the vinyl, or worse yet, that only come with the pre-order on itunes (or the new itunes Pass that they have for the new Depeche Mode album), it's really frustrating for someone who wants their music on vinyl (or CD if the album isn't coming out on vinyl, but still wants those extra tracks and remixes. I would even be willing to buy those tracks off itunes, but they're album only or pass only. Thanks a lot, itunes. I actually want both a vinyl and digital copy of songs, but I don't think I should have to pay twice for that. I understand the argument of having to pay for copyrighted music, but that shouldn't be separated by format. So...hello, file sharing.

Those are just a few of my random thoughts on the subject, what about you?

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Why can't you just let me be great?

Why I don't like Kanye:
http://www.nme.com/news/kanye-west/42269

'nuff said

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It's Been Awhile

Well, other than just a few listens of bands on here, I've been absent from virb for awhile. I don't even know who's still on here, but with the new virb coming, I decided to come back, and I guess I'll just have to double my efforts to get all my friends on here, so I won't have to waste as much time on facebook talking to them. Anyway, since my last post almost a year and a half ago was about my favourite songs for that week, I figured I'd do that again this time. So let me know if you're still out there and alive.

Songs I Can't Live Without This Week:
The Killers - Joy Ride
Of Montreal - Triphallus, To Punctuate!
Animal Collective - Brother Sport
MuteMath - Spotlight
Justice - D.A.N.C.E. vs. Billie Jean
TV on the Radio - Dancing Choose
Bloc Party - One Month Off
Jaydiohead by Minty Fresh Beats- Dirt Off Your Android
Franz Ferdinand - Ulysses
Ladytron - Runaway

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Faves this Week

Here are the songs I can't live without for this week. Again, there's some surprises, and also some long-time favourite bands.

Radiohead - House of Cards (really the whole album is on this list)
Rilo Kiley - The Moneymaker
Hard-Fi - Suburban Knights
Digitalism - Jupiter Room
Timbaland - The Way I Are (I almost feel bad for liking this one because the grammar's so bad)
Interpol - No I in Threesome
Smashing Pumpkins - Tarantula (Took me a few listens, but it's growing on me)
50 Cent feat. Justin Timberlake - Ayo Technology (stupid lyrics, good sound)
Gym Class Heroes - Cupid's Chokehold
Duran Duran - Falling Down

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My faves this week

I've discovered my new favourite food to put ranch dressing on: hot dogs. They are just delish!

Here are the songs that I just can't get enough of this week. And yes, I know some of them will come as a surprise since I've been such an indie kid for so long.

1. Folio - Branded
2. Rihanna - Don't Stop the Music
3. Paul Van Dyk feat. Jessica Sutta - White Lies
4. Timbaland feat. Justin Timberlake and Nelly Furtado - Give It To Me
5. Shiny Toy Guns - Le Disko
6. Paul Oakenfold feat. Brittany Murphy - Faster Kill Pussycat
7. Justin Timberlake - LoveStoned/I Think That She Knows
8. Maroon 5 - Makes Me Wonder
9. !!! - Must Be The Moon
10. Nine Inch Nails - Survivalism

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stephen king

I finally read a stephen king novel I liked: 'salem's lot. It wasn't quite the masterpiece that I had hoped, but I was able to finish it, and do that without getting pissed off at it. Maybe I'll check out some more, we'll see.

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Friday the 20th

I guess last friday the 13th was only the beginning of a roller coaster ride for me. This weekend will hopefully put a cap on one of the strangest weeks of my life. There's been such high points as friends getting married, new job situation looking up, getting closer to a girl I like, some friends getting close to adopting a daughter. But there's also been such low points as deaths of a family member and also a friend, hearing that my grandpa is not doing well, having a friend get kicked out of her house, maybe not getting as close to that girl as I thought, not hearing back on the job situation because the recruiter has been out of the office for most of last week, fighting with parents. It seems like every hour, I've had some sort of news that changed my whole disposition from a high to a low. And the next two days should be just as interesting, and I have no idea if that'll be for good or bad. I know it won't solve all my problems, but right now, I just really wanna get away. That's all.

leo

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Friday the 13th

Normally, I barely even notice when there's a friday the 13th; I may not even realize it til the next day. But I was prepared for it this time because it happened to be a friend's birthday today and it's also the first day of a 3-day weekend away from work for me. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a pretty shitty day. I don't even know what to say about it without going into long expositions about lots of stuff, so just suffice it to say that this friday the 13th sucks ass. For those that know me, and know what it means to me, I had to bring out the Sweet Clover today.

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It's been a while

I guess I've been kind of absent on here lately. It's been over 2 months since my last blog post. All the people I've gotten to join this Virb thing and told em how cool it was are probably mad at me for never doing anything on here.

Things have been kinda weird lately. There've been some fun times, some discouraging times, some really zany times (haven't used the word zany in a long time!). I moved into a new house, just across town, though, not to a new city (still working on that one, but hopefully things will work out soon, cuz Im going crazy here). It's not the greatest place, and there's some interesting characters in the neighbourhood. I dropped my old phone into the river, and got a new one, so if I haven't gotten your number from you recently, I probably dont have it and you should call/text me so I'll have it again. By the way, for anyone that has a samsung sync out there, do you know how to get .jpegs that were sent to you via multimedia message on to the computer. The .jpgs send fine, but the .jpegs wont.

I finally got to play football/soccer again after not touching a ball for over a year. Also, in the football/soccer world, congrats to David Beckham and Real Madrid for finally winning the trophy again. Love him or hate him, his time in the MLS should be quite a ride. I'm also getting stoked for Wimbledon. Could be another classic Fed-Rafa final, and let's see how these hot, young Serb girls fare on the grass.

If you haven't gotten the new Arctic Monkeys album yet, you're life has a gaping hole in it, so go check it out.

Well, I know that's not really detailed about what's been going on in my life, but at least I've done something on here, and maybe when my life isn't so crazyhectic, I'll do more. But at least I finally added one more picture, so you people can get off my back about that one. And now that I have a sweet camera phone, I'll try to add more. That's all I have to say right now; I'm not feelin' very talkative (or write-ative?) today. (I know some people will think "that's not very talkative?" but those that know me can attest, this is pretty short-winded for me). So have a nice sunday everyone!

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