"What are you listening to right now?" thread | Page 388 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

Dark Overlord said
You actually buy albums off iTunes, interesting how many people buy their music instead of getting it for free off the internet.  

If you do a job do you want paid or would you be happy if someone took the money from you? 

Dark Overlord said
I understand that paying for it benefits the artist but I wouldn’t pay for something if I could get it for free, let’s use The Beatles as an example, since we’re on a Beatles forum and The Beatles are the greatest band of all time.

Let’s say you’re just getting into The Beatles and want to buy their entire catalogue, let’s say this kid’s parents have an old record player lying around so he decides to get everything on vinyl and since he’s heard that The Beatles sound best in mono, he goes for that, here are the prices:

Let’s say he finds a used but complete and in good condition The Beatles In Mono vinyl box set for $150

Since there is no mono Abbey Road or Let It Be , you have to buy those separately, at the same store he found The Beatles In Mono, they’re also selling brand new copies of both of these albums for $15 each, but the guy told him that he’d only charge him $20 if he bought the box set

That’s a total of $170 or he could just go on FrostWire and download all of that free of charge.  

You can get fridges, tv’s, computers and most other things for free all you have to do is take them out of the store. You would, however, be expecting to get caught, and it’s a bit more difficult to push a freezer out of a store, but the reason folk download for free is there is far less chance of getting caught and the perception of it is different.

Dark Overlord said
I guess I would be pretty pissed off if I didn’t get paid for my work but at the same time, I can only get so mad about my wages getting stolen due to people getting my music for free off the internet instead of buying it on iTunes or vinyl or CD because I’d do it that way myself and getting mad at somebody for doing the things that you do yourself would be like if I robbed houses and I called the cops on somebody because I saw them rob somebody’s house.

Also, just because you buy music instead of get it for free doesn’t mean the artist is getting money for it. For example, let’s say I go into a record store and buy Queen’s Flash Gordon on vinyl for $5. I bought it legally and it’s hard to say I did something wrong here but since I bought it secondhand, Queen doesn’t get a single penny from me buying that record, they would’ve got just as much if not more money if that guy just listened to the album on YouTube. Great album by the way, it makes me wonder if the movie is as good as Queen makes it out to be.  

Oh come on. ‘Flash’ is one of the worst songs ever recorded by Queen. 

Dark Overlord said
I know there’s shoplifting, pig pocketing, home invasion, and many other ways to get stuff for free but are we really going to compare free online music to going inside a Walmart (or ASDA if you’re in Europe) and stealing a TV or pulling someone’s wallet out of their pants while they’re not looking.

Also, although Flash’s Theme isn’t that good and quite a few of the songs on that album are just synth noises, I consider Flash Gordon Queen’s last good album and I think The Hero is the best song Queen recorded in the 1980’s.  

Music theft is theft. The music is not free, it’s made available for free by people who do not own it.

sir walter raleigh said
I like buying CDs from the record store and uploading them to iTunes. I no longer use the iTunes store because of the annoying protections they place on the files.

Now that I am transferring a lot of my old music to my new computer and new account, I am discovering that technically that music was never actually mine, which bothers me. That’s something about CDs that I like so much. 

I also like shopping at the record store because I can talk to the very knowledgeable owner about music, and help keep that very important establishment in business. 

I have never ventured into downloading free music from the internet. I don’t know where to find it, and I’m worried about downloading some virus.

But maybe that is why mmm was giving me greif for buying unauthorized bootlegs from my friend at the record store. With bootlegs as opposed to actual albums, the musician won’t make money off of it because in most instances they won’t have any idea of its existence. That is also a tough ethical dilemma.   

I was saying don’t pay for bootlegs as you paying people who have no legal right to the music for it. It might be a little hypocritical but the general approach is to buy legally whenever you can (including second hand) and don’t buy bootlegs.  I have paid a fortune for Beatles material over the years and would happily pay Apple for outtakes, I’m buying the 6-disc 50th ‘Pepper’ set, so won’t feel guilty over not paying for bootlegs.

A very murky issue are bootlegs.