my take on "music piracy" (briefly and angrily)

I personally would never download music illegally off the internet, because a) it's illegal and you can get caught and fined, and b) I feel it's a little conniving. However, I am a musician and I burn cds for my friends. I have friends who are musicians who burn cds for me and their other friends. None of us has a business doing it, burns an excessive amount of them, or makes any money off of it. And yet I have recently been attacked by two people for thinking that burning cds is not the same as illegal downloading, and that by doing it I am stealing music from artists, and helping bring down the music industry. And in return, I say...bullshit.

As a representative of the group who is supposedly hurt the most by burning a cd for someone, (both as an artist and an industry worker), I'd like to announce that there ain't nothing wrong with it. And I'm certainly not alone in that philosophy. Real artists would rather have a new fan hear their songs than not at all, and would appreciate you passing a couple copies off to friends who will probably go to their show with you the next time they're in town. If you're an unknown artist, then you really need the promotion more than anything, and if you're a known artist, then you most likely have enough money as it is. (In the case of the original biggest loud-mouths, Metallica, they obviously do.) So what is the problem exactly? As a former employee of an indie rock label where we all burned cds for each other, I'd like to reiterate (because it's certainly been said before) that digging your feet into the sand and fighting against the digital revolution is what has been bringing the major labels so much trouble. Working within it is helping independents such as Dangerbird Records get a leg up. Is that really so hard to understand? Understanding the fact that kids can and will download your releases for free online, and therefore spending more time and thought on the packaging, artwork, etc to get them to want the actual cd as well, is not really rocket science.

And the ideas we come up with in that regard are only keeping us on our toes, and further away from the stagnation that tends to take over this industry. Fresh ideas, "special edition" concepts, limited vinyl, bonus tracks and cover tunes as incentives... It's just making all those publicists work harder. And well they should. They get paid a lot, just to google their clients' names and send in reports of blog posts. (Not saying none of them work hard. I'm just saying.)