Illegal music downloads are a hot topic today with the news that the UK's six largest Internet Service Providers have teamed-up with the music industry to fight this dastardly practice—though the idea that the likes of Orange, BSkyB and Carphone Warehouse would slow-down their broadband service as a sanction made me chuckle somewhat (would anybody notice?).
Apart from the legal and moral issues involved, illegal download sites are a major source of adware, spyware and the like which can soon bring your computer to a grinding halt.
This is particularly true of those services based on Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks where the files are not coming from some sort of central database but from thousands of privately-owned PCs around the world—this provides very little control of the file quality or of any 'nasties' which might be transmitted with it.
I know a number of parents with teenage children who have paid-out more to have their PCs cleaned-up than it would have cost to buy the music from a legal source—though I believe that the 'culture' is now changing as people begin to realise that these sort of downloads are actually theft rather than 'a bit of a lark".
Also, when this activity started, there were no legal sources of music downloads but now there are a number including Itunes and the 'reformed' Napster.
For the past few months, I have been using www.we7.com which was launched in May 2007 by the musician Peter Gabriel and others.
The site has a huge and growing catalogue of music covering a number of genres including Pop, Classical, Jazz and Blues—in fact, I spotted several albums which I have on well-worn vinyl from before the days of CDs.
The charging model of WE7 is quite interesting in that you can either purchase the tracks (from Itunes) or you can download them for FREE with an advertisement tacked onto the beginning of the track.
At the moment, registered users can download up to 100 tracks per day and 500 per week which may change as the music industry assesses the value of advertising-based charging.
Like pirate radio, I suspect that much of the attraction of illegal music downloading is in the illegality. While listing to pirate radio might offend your musical taste, illegal downloads can and do damage your computer, as Les succinctly points out. It makes a lot of sense to download music via the excellent We7 site, rather than a poorly ripped version from Lord-knows-who.
The music industry has always claimed to be "hip" and cutting edge where the music's concerned but has been remarkably slow to explore the possibilities of distribution via the Internet. Compared with conventional production and distribution, downloading offers the opportunity for music to be made available at prices that would make illegal downloading not worthwhile.
I'm committed to live music and drama so I'm concerned that artists be paid for their labours and creativity. I'm less concerned with supporting the lifestyles of the myriad of hangers-on that plague the music industry.
Posted by: Father Brian | July 25, 2008 at 11:44 AM