BY MIKEY MIGO
If you've not stolen music at some point in your life then you are NOT a music fan.
Before you start to comment with "downloading is illegal" and all of that fun stuff please realize that there is MANY ways to steal music and money from your favorite artists pockets. It's been going on for years. I recently sat back with a friend and came up with seven ways to steal music from your favorite band. Some of the concepts on the list are outdated, but they still exist.
Bootlegs
When I was a pre-teen and in my early teen years "file sharing" was something that no one really could imagine. Rewind to the early to mid 90's. We all wanted our music and we didn't want to/couldn't afford the $10 for a cassette tape. I lived by a flea market and ended up spending too much of my youth hanging out around fake jewelry, over priced knick-knacks, and tons of bootlegged items. Besides the plethora of bootlegged TuPac, Biggie, Wu Tang, and other shirts that were all over the place there was also the bootleg cassette tapes. I bought "Doggystyle" from an old white lady for $4. I got my hands on Maryiln Manson's "Smells like Children" where the B side of the cassette was really the A and vice versa for $4. I remember buying Nirvana for $4. Hell, it was probably three tapes for $10. These were obviously illegal, but I was like twelve years old and came from a lower middle class family. The old lady selling them also collected basketball cards so I'd show up with a Topps Gold rookie card of Grant Hill and go home with the new Warren G. Pretty fair deal now that I think about it. Without these illegal bootlegged cassette tapes, I'd of missed out on some of the best music of the 90's.
Shared Listening
In this case, you're stealing your first impression from the artist. When you DO actually buy a CD you get to have that great moment of listening to it all the way through for the first time. If you're in a car with a friend and play your music, is that not STILL stealing as others who did not are getting the same benefit as you are? I know this one is a stretch, but in a sense this is a very watered down way of stealing. Why buy the single when you can listen to it on the radio twice within an hour? It's a corporate controlled way of file sharing if you really think about it.
Tape Trading/Mix Tapes
We've all made a burnt copy of a CD for a friend or loved one or that so you'd have one in the car or a second location. We've all made mix CDs or tapes for loved ones, ourselves, and for special occasions. This is STEALING and we're all going hell(if you believe in that kind of thing). We've taken specific tracks and put them on CD in either a random or specific order. We basically play God for the 80 minute duration of a CD. If I want an LL Cool J track to be sandwiched between Nine Inch Nails and Ace of Base songs I can do it. I remember some CDs were programmed to not be able to be ripped for awhile, but it was quickly remedied as fans found a way around it and complained they couldn't upload the track to their ipods. People traded tapes in the 80's and 90's and I'm sure Lars and other haters of technology took part in this. No money is exchanged, but music is illegally transferred from one person to another. It's not much different than file sharing.
Physical Theft
This one is obvious. You go into a store and physically STEAL the album from the store. This is the most blatant way to steal and easily the dumbest. When you get it from a friend or download it, you're not taking a physical property. You're stealing and unpackaged collection of songs as opposed to a factory sealed CD with album art. This is the road less traveled and it should be. This method is dumb.
Recording off the radio
Going back to the cassette era, this was always an option. I remember right before CDs really took over the market that I'd sit there with a blank tape in the cassette player waiting for the DJ to say a specific song is coming on next. Sometimes you'd get lucky, but for the most part you'd not get the first few seconds of a song, the quality would suck, and it would be censored to the radio's standards. The point is that I didn't pay for the music and now had a physical copy of the hit single that I'd want to listen to over and over again. A few years ago I found one of these tapes and put it in. It was pretty damn embarrassing to admit to enjoying some of these songs enough to record them off the radio. Still, it served as a musical diary of sorts. In that respect it was pretty cool. Now people use random programs to record tracks on MySpace, TV, etc but I'm sure the quality has improved.
Downloading
This is the most popular way to steal music. I'm sure more money has been taken from bands and label's pockets because of THIS method than any other. At first we had file sharing sites like Bearshare, Napster, or limewire. That's what brought the storm that is Larz and others. Eleven year old little girls were being sued for stealing NSync or Limp Bizkit tracks and their sixty two year old grandfathers were stuck with the legal drama all because their name was on the internet or phone bill. As time went on, the labels and bands would go on to try to regulate things. Apple threw itunes at us and everyone found 99 cents in their couches and all downloaded the new hit single from their favorite American Idol stars. As downloading became a new financial gain for everyone, the computer people just got craftier. We… er… They use bit torrents now. It's pretty much the same thing as a Napster, but a lot easier and shifty. I've heard stories that these websites use servers in "uncharted waters" to avoid any of the legal ramifications they may face. It's pretty smooth if it is in fact true.
I don't see downloading going away any time soon. When it does, fans will find new methods to steal, share, and experience new music at little or no cost. The same has happened with movies in almost the same manner (bootlegs, recording off tv, downloading). It doesn't make it right, but it's inevitable. It's going to happen. If a fan is a fan of the music they will PAY to go to concerts, PAY to wear the shirts, and will give the band a life long supporter. That's art. You display it to as many people as possible and you are paid your worth. More and more musicians understand this and are starting to change their business plan and cater to the new generation and technology. I think it's safe to say that the Myspace generation has been raised on piracy. They will overcome. The sooner an artist embraces it, works with it, or at least accepts it the better.
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