Thoughts on Piracy

In chapter 10 of the book we read Derrick Clements talks about how bloggers may figuratively assassinate institutions. His argument is that many in this internet age feel entitled to receive certain things for free when the item is for sale. One example of this would be music piracy. Individuals may feel entitled to the music because they see the price of music as a form of corporate greed.

This is an argument I had with myself for a very long time, in fact for probably around 12 years. It felt unfair that I had to buy an entire album when all I wanted was one or two songs on the album (this was before the music industry realized how lucrative singles could be and started focusing on singles instead of albums, but that's a topic for another day).

When I was 12 years old I had a cd burner, I was the only kid on the block with one. My friends and I would spend hours burning cd's for each other. It was great. My music collection grew and grew. It became ridiculous how much music I had during my teenage years. I would put my incredibly old school, black and blue screened iPod on shuffle and try and find new songs to like because I didn't have time to listen to all my new music. Music was my passion, so how could it be bad to give into something that helped my passion grow?

About three years ago I started to evaluate my life. I'll spare the boring details but I realized that even though I loved music and was supporting starting musicians by attending their shows, that simply wasn't enough. I realized that I had given up my integrity because it was convenient to download music to my iPod that I hadn't purchased. I had "assassinated" the music industry, and without meaning to "assassinated" the musicians I so dearly loved and followed.

Late one night (I had to do it late at night, otherwise I don't think I would have had the tenacity to do it), I started making a list of all the music I needed to delete and buy back. I can't relate how heart-wrenching an experience it was. I deleted the music and started buying all the music back. I'm embarrassed by how much money I've spent (think hundreds, and hundreds), but it was worth it to buy my integrity back and support artists I love.

Along the way I've found there are some amazing artists who have put out songs and even whole albums for free (thank you The Civil Wars!!!). I've also realized that even though there are many ways to route around a bad node, it is not always worth the price.