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Originally Posted by Ich bin gael
I think the whole "download/listen/burn/delete" culture has caused me to burn out on music in a big way. It's just so overwhelming, and it really makes the music loose [sic] it's value, in my opinion.
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That's not to say that downloading is bad, so please don't get me wrong. it's [sic] a great way to find new music. But I feel people have misused it a great deal, and have begun to eat away at music culture, as well as the value that music has in general.
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I really feel you on this. Technology has allowed music to become so unbelievably accessible that it's become easier than ever to become burnt "out on music in a big way" as you say. Ripping, downloading, storing, and listening to music has become so infinitely easy that we don't even have to think about it anymore. It's almost become a bodily function. I eat. I drink. I breathe. I listen to music. And only occasionally do I put some thought into these activities.
The leakage of records only serves to worsen this situation. Our appetite for music has become so unknowingly voracious that we cannot simply wait for a record to come out -- we have to break laws in order to satisfy ourselves. And while I don't actually care about the laws that are being broken, I am a bit shocked at the manner in which these laws are being broken. Using this forum to announce and indirectly distribute leaked copies of
Rather Ripped is not only insulting to the band -- and in particular Chris Habib who clearly stated in the Sharing Forum that no copyrighted material is to be shared -- but it's detrimental to our enjoyment of the artform as a whole. The degraded quality, the lack of anticipation, the sabotage of an artist's hard work -- these are all valid points for the case against record leakage.
And so the underlying issue, the source of all of this trouble I think, is that we've become so selfish and thoughtlessly hungry for music that we're willing to compromise the artists' intentions. We're basically cutting the artist's intentions out of the picture and letting our appetites for music dictate the process. In this way, we're no better than the money-hungry grubby-hooked major label suit-and-tie sleazeball motherfucker who wants to change an artist's songwriting so that he can make more money. Major label businessmen traffic in money, sometimes at the expense of the artist's integrity. We traffic in personal enjoyment of music, also sometimes at the expense of the artist's integrity.
Honestly, I don't think there's any way to stop leakage -- not any way that I'd approve, anyway. I don't think the leakers should be fined, because I don't at all think it's about the money. Perhaps, in the future, bands that anticipate that their records will be leaked should execute a series of fancy tactics to curb the leakage, but also keep the masses engaged. For example, a band could flood Soulseek and the Bittorrent sites with files that have the names of their upcoming record, but the actual mp3 will be just a snippet, or a live version of the song, or a poorly recorded practice version of the song, or some such. I don't know, I haven't thought this through all the way, but I think something like that would effectively 1.) acknowledge the fact that we, as music consumers, are selfish; 2.) give us something exciting to listen to, even if it isn't the real deal; and 3.) assert the artist's authority over its own artwork.
I have more to say about this, some more ideas, particularly about the faked-leak, but this post has reached pretentious proportions, and I doubt it will get read, anyway. If you've read this whole thing, thank you. And keep debating.