My Fair Share

My web hosting provider recently sent out an email in which they asked their customers to remove copyrighted mp3s from their servers. Since I do have a few of those sitting around (in fact, I can't help but think the request was at least partially directed at me), I thought I'd take a look at that intitial email they sent out after I paid for my hosting. Sure enough, they stipulate that customers are not allowed to store such media files on their servers and those who do will have their accounts terminated without refund. Fair enough, but I wish I had known before plunking down the cash for a year of hosting with them. So anyway...it looks like it might be time to find another host.

The music industry's reaction to filesharing is ridiculous. I don't feel the least bit guilty about it, either. I spend plenty of money on music. Trips to Sound Garden in Balitmore, for example, yield stacks of CDs and a buck-fifty tab. Or let me loose in the Village in NYC and watch me go. I can spend hours record shopping and drop a couple hundred bucks, no problem. And let's not forget about mailorder. Thanks to my town's lack of a good record store, I often have to order stuff online to get what I'm looking for. In other words, I'm a record buyer's record buyer.

Filesharing has had an effect on my record buying habits—don't get me wrong. Now that I have an iPod (and have been downloading stuff and ripping stuff from friends), things are changing. I use to go record shopping and sometimes pick up a CD because I like the cover art or the band's name, a technique which carries a very low success rate. I used to make lists of bands I wanted to check out, find their record at the store (if I was lucky enough to find it), take a quick listen, and decide right then if I might be able to get into it. Now, I'll have already heard it and can go in with an informed opinion and buy only what I know I'll like (because I've been listening to it for weeks and know that it's awesome). I've cut out the middle man, in a way. Filesharing then, doesn't keep me from buying music, it just influences what music I'll end up buying.

But certainly the ability to hear things will have an impact on the amount that I'll buy, right? By weeding out all those deaf buys and hastily-researched discs (the discs I thought I might like after a brief listen in the store only to find later that I actually could do without them), aren't I cutting down on purchases quite a bit? No. If anything, I'll only be cutting down on the amount of records I have to sell. Now everything I buy is a keeper. Plus, the amount of records I won't be buying thanks to filesharing will be more than made up for by the amount of music I'm being exposed to, also thanks to filesharing. I'm still pretty much the same spendy music fan, just a more informed one.

I dunno, maybe I'm an exception. I haven't stopped buying stuff and I'm certainly not downloading Metallica or Britney. There are people who only download music, but you know what? The people who don't buy any music and who download such easily available, mainstream crap probably wouldn't be spending money on music anyway. These people would likely be satisfied with a shitty tape dubbed off the radio. So who cares? I know, the laws aren't based on unknown variables or what people might or might not do. But like I said, I'm not going to argue the legalities of this issue. I'm just explaining what I do with filesharing. I don't see what I do with it as morally wrong.

So there you have it, folks: For me, filesharing is A-OK. These other slobs, however, should be locked up for life. Not necessarily for filesharing, just ya know...'cause they suck and stuff.