Shut Up And Listen 159

Yeah, It's Theft . . . Well, Kind Of . . . I Guess . . . Maybe . . . You Know?

Sure, I've downloaded songs. Lots of songs. Hundreds of songs. I knew it was a crime and I did it anyways. Oops, nope. I'm wrong. It isn't a crime. At least not here in Canada. Yeah, you motherfuckers eat it.

I've known for a while that downloading is legal in Canada. You see, on all sales of blank audio cassettes and CDs have a portion given to the Canadian recording industry, thus eliminating all copyright issues. But, this still left uploading as illegal. Well, until earlier this week when a court threw out a request for the names of several uploaders from their internet service providers. The presiding judge said that there's no difference between file sharing online and having a photocopier in a library full of copyrighted material.

Reason nos. 43256 and 98449 that Canada fucking rocks more than your country.

Well, I'm done with the gloating, so maybe I can move on to talk about downloading in more general ways. The morality, or amorality, of it. Shit like that. I guess I should start by giving my perspective on downloading. Me, I'm both in favour of it and against it. I see it as cool when used like the radio or music videos, or for finding that rare shit you just can't buy without a lot of money, effort, and time travel. But that whole downloading entire albums and not buying CDs anymore is bullshit.

See, I download songs for three reasons: to check out a new song I heard or to hear more of an artist I just heard of in the hopes of buying the album; to make a compilation album of songs I like, usually two or three by a single artist at the most per album; and for b-sides and rarities like live covers or live shows. Those are the three reasons I can justify downloading. I've only ever downloaded an entire album once and that was The Grey Album, which could only be found online. I do have entire albums just by a single artist or group, but that would be in the case of a Radiohead live show a friend of mine got a hold of and let me download from him, and where the Radiohead b-sides I downloaded took up an album and a half.

The first reason I gave for justifying downloading shit is what the record industry should be promoting. Let people download the singles and maybe check out some other songs. I know, there are a lot of people who would do just that and not buy anything, but there are a lot of people like me who download a single and a few more songs and then go out and buy the album. My CD collection is full of stuff that I own because I heard a song, wrote down the title and artist, downloaded it plus some other shit, liked it, and then bought it. Downloading has made me buy more albums. I get to hear more stuff now and end up liking more and thus buy more. People say it only works for artists just starting out, but I've ended up liking the new single off the new album of an artist, downloaded more and then got stuck with having to buy their entire back-catalogue.

In a technical sense, yeah, I'm stealing. I'll admit that right out. Like with the b-sides, if it weren't for downloading, there might be a chance that with certain artists, I'd hunt down those singles on which the b-sides were released. Okay, probably not, but that's what they'd have you believe. I don't know, I'll stand by my stance that for me downloading is about loving music. I buy lots of CDs still. Hell, I've only made eleven or twelve CDs in around a year and four months, and a bunch of those are live albums or entire albums full of b-sides. I like buying CDs. I like having the packaging and the whole deal. I like supporting the artist in my small way. Sure, they may not make a lot of money off of the CDs, but by buying that CD I make it a little bit more possible for them to make another CD. That's the thing people forget: record companies like to make money and if they make money, they'll keep making music. At least, that's the way I see it.

But then again, it's easy for me to be so lax about downloading as I know I'm not gonna get sued tomorrow.