[NoEgo]

Originally Posted by Torchlight

I remember living making less than $8 an hour, working part time so I could go to school full time and having less than no money. I STILL could afford to buy the one or two CDs I just HAD to have. I saved my money and when I had that baby in my hand, it was a beautiful thing.

Honestly this type of tired rhetoric about music needing to be free is so disrespectful to the people who have spend years of their lives learning how to play, learning how to read music, learning how to perform live and in a studio. It is disrespectful to the artist who worked their ass off at a $8 an hour job so they could scrap enough money together to go into a studio and record the songs they worked for years to create. Honestly, do you think it's free for artists to record? I lived on my line of credit so I could record my album, so it burns my ass to hear people whine and complain about how music should be free, how they don't have enough money to buy whatever they want. Boo hoo. Because you want something doesn't mean that it should be free. You don't expect your education to be free...nor do you want to work for free either.

Music is art, but without paying people to do it, what kind of quality do you think is going to result from that? If you expect everyone to simply make music because they "love to", basically you are getting people who can only do it in their spare time we all still have to pay for food and lodging and electricity...oh ya and all our gear. I suppose that is just supposed to come from our "love of music" as well. When you pay for art, you are making a statement. And that statement is "I value art". "I value music, I value musicians". Other art isn't free either. Do you walk into an art gallery and demand paintings on the wall as well? Musicians who play/record spend their days practicing, marketing, recording, writing. I think we will seriously dilute the quality of music if we start expecting people to work other jobs and give their music away for free.

In no other field are people asked to give away their talents and knowledge for free. To me, it's a very immature attitude. You have no right to steal music from other people. Just like you have no right to steal food from the grocery store (even thumbsupif you were hungry and had no money for it). It's wrong, and you can justify it to yourself all you want, but it's stealing plain and simple. There is no excuse for it.

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