agquarx

I wish record companies and RIAA (which is *EVIL*) stopped standing in front of the avalanche of the digital revolution and simply embraced the storm. I will tell you on my example how much they are wrong. Since I bought an iPod (160GB now), subscribed to last.fm and got a fat Internet pipe to be able to effectively use BitTorrent (I also use Mininova mostly) my CD buying increased 500% - I bought at least 150 new CD's of artists I wouldn't be able to encounter if not for the Internet and her services. I have several Smart Playlists to sort out first the songs I never heard before (uncategorized, no stars) - I have this playlist in iTunes. Every time last.fm or Pandora recommends some new artist to me I use Mininova to download discography of that artist and at the latest synchronization I put those new files on my iPod. There I have a "The Best" playlist, "Loved" playlist (five stars), "Liked" playlist (four stars), "OK Songs" playlist (three stars), "Undecided" playlist (two stars) and "To Be Removed" playlist (one star). I also have "Recently Added" playlist, that show all recently added songs that have no stars (uncategorised). If I have time I categorize songs while listening - the four and five star songs automagically go into the "The Best" playlist I can use when I am working and have no time to categorize songs. This way if I don't like some record or artist it shows fast (after a week or so) and I can sort the iPod library by rating and simply delete those songs. If I listen to most of the album and like it I buy a CD to have a hard copy, backup, so I can rip the music in case my hard disk fails. iPod in this case become another backup, geographically relocated backup of all the songs I like (2048 and counting, over 450 various artists). I also have a backup of my iTunes library (several gigabytes above 200GB worth) on an external Firewire drive so I have three backup copies of my music which kept me sane several times when due to crash I was unable to access my iTunes library. I buy CD's also because it compensates the author (I buy shareware too if I use some program more often than once a week...). I can't use iTunes because it refuses my card (Amazon.com and Audible.com have no problems with it...) - instead if I want to buy a single song I use eMusic.com service, for example lately I bought "She Is The Dark" by My Dying Bride and a whole small album by Loreena McKennitt (five songs, I will buy a CD as soon as possible). Using this strategy and those services I found myself listening to music of genres ranging from ethereal mediaeval folk to darkest gothic metal to candy pop. I listen to music I really like. I give money to artists if they deserve it and have multiple backup strategy at the same time. I wish Audible.com didn't use such hardcore DRM, one can only burn their books once and if you fail, you can't plead for more. I think with horror that one day they might shut down the access servers required to play the Audible audiobooks (I own over 200 of those). DRM is *EVIL*. Hack the Planet! I am a paying member of Electronic Frontier Foundation and sincerely hope something will change in the future, especially in case of Internet radio, like Pandora or last.fm - problem with last.fm is that they have mostly only 30 second fragments of songs and it's too little to really judge the song - it's almost as useless as a 10 second preview function on my CD player (yes, I still have one, just in case I need to go off the grid) - I never used it, it's useless. When I come back in my thoughts to pre-iPod times I can't believe how clunky is the whole record (casette, CD) business - I take my iPod everywhere I go, including hikes. I would not be able to take more than five or so CD's with me if I go out of the city. With iPod I can take almost all my Apple iTunes library with me. I hope Apple will soon make 320GB iPod Touch so I have incentive to buy it (right now the 16GB of space is simply not enough as I listen to songs in highest possible quality). Long live Apple leading the digital revolution! Music for the Masses! We will prevail!