During
a short feature on MTV about rapper/producer Kayne West,
he made a statement that made a whole lotta sense (which
is rare for a hip-hop artist). On the topic of downloading
music, he stated, "I want people to download my music,
but if they like it, I expect them to go out and  support
the music (buy the CD)". This philosophy, preached
to the idiot masses on MTV by West, is one that I have always
followed.. And I hope, for the sake of music, that
all other music fans will follow us.
A
couple years before Napster and the MP3 music craze, I was
downloading tons of music from Newsgroups, underground warez
sites and rouge FTP servers. Then before I knew it, I amassed
a collection of a whopping 350 CDRs filled with nothing
but full albums on MP3. I worked for an ISP at the time
and with the aid of our T1 connection, I eventually ran
my own FTP server which I had listed on a popular warez
website for maximum exposure. I offered gigs upon gigs of
music, but in order for people to download anything, they
would first have to upload a certain amount. I would arrive
in the morning and I would find thousands of MP3s on my
computer, this of course after sifting through the porn,
junk, crappy movies & viruses that people were nice
enough to leave for me.
 So,
how can I have "stolen" all this music and still
sleep like a baby at night? Very simple. I followed the
philosophy so eloquently explained by Rocafella producer/artist
Kayne West (pronounced Con-Yaaah).. I may have over 500+
gigs of downloaded music, but I have also bought hundreds
of CDs over the years from bands who I liked and I felt
put out quality products such as The Red Hot Chili Peppers,
Pearl Jam, The Strokes, Dashboard Confessional, Pete Yorn,
The White Stripes, Travis, etc...
I
am happy to say that I have given these bands my hard earned
money because their albums were worth it. And thanks
to MP3s, high speed Internet & Usenet, I had already
downloaded and listened to their albums in their entirety
BEFORE I bought them. Now that's
fair.
MERRY
X-MAS FREAKS!! |
