In light of my last entry I've been wanting to clarify something in case I come across as saying that people should just steal music (which I almost surely am). I do not support just blatantly stealing music; but I am in support of what Trent Reznor is saying because in my mind what he's advocating will hopefully bring about a swift deconstruction and reconstruction of the music industry, and that is something that I think is sorely needed. With Nine Inch Nails in particular, I have downloaded their last two albums online a few weeks before they were released simply because I was anxious to hear their new music; however, in the case of both of those albums I still went and purchased them the day they were released because I wanted to support the artist. To further support the artist, as I've detailed here on my blog, I went to see NIN five times on their last tour through the US and I joined their fan club for an annual fee; so it should be clear I'm not at all trying to say that good musicians shouldn't get paid, because believe me I appreciate what they do and am willing to pay to support it.
Myself I really haven't downloaded hardly any music since the original Napster went down, although that is largely due to the fact that if I have a copy of something I'd prefer it was a pristine copy. I learned that when you download indiscriminately like that the versions you get are often either not full versions of the songs, or were ripped at a low bit rate or they could have a lot of blemishes and clicks in them. Really any downloading I've done in the last say 5 years or so was either to acquire some album which is not available any other way (some of the obscure soundtracks I've blogged about, like The Shining, Fright Night and Teen Wolf, for instance), or just to get an advance copy from a band I love, like NIN. There have been a couple exceedingly rare instances where I've downloaded a solitary song from an album I could have purchased, but there's probably been less than 20 of those in the last 5 years, and with those I've never used file sharing software (instead opting for trying to find the mp3 itself just hosted on some server online).
By far most of the music I've acquired in the last 5 years has come from either borrowing CDs from friends or from buying used CDs, usually online. The reason for this is because if I can I try to avoid buying new albums simply because I know that doing so supports the RIAA and the music industry and that is something I absolutely don't want to do. I am really hoping and praying for the music industry to collapse and be reborn as something that makes more sense for artists and fans. There is a way for musicians to still get paid what they deserve while simultaneously not ripping off fans and also encouraging a return to better music with more to it, and that is to just get rid of all the people in the music industry who are just taking up space and collecting paychecks. Let the money the fans pay go to the artists or to people who work with the artists because they have a true passion about music and not to people who couldn't care less but just like being in the entertainment industry so they can feel important or get laid or whatever.
In its current incarnation the music industry to me represents greed and bloat with most of the money spent by fans going to line the pockets of useless middlemen taking up space or to add to the coffers of giant media conglomerates who have no interest in music other than the fact that it helps their bottom line. These conglomerates who have in effect purchased the entire music industry in the last two decades or so have, in my opinion, completely eviscerated it by keeping CD prices arbitrarily high through collusion while simultaneously abandoning the process of finding truly talented musicians in favor of flash in the pan, bubblegum pop hit makers. They go after people who have looks and singing ability (sometimes not even that), but people who have no songwriting skill, and who even worse really put no heart or soul into their music. The state of contemporary music is as big a disaster right now as is the business end of the music industry. That is to say that the "show" and the "business" are both competing for which is worse off. So because of this, I readily welcome any kind of cataclysmic shift that can happen with music and the music industry and I welcome the imminent collapse.
And hopefully the movie industry is next.