I am sure that many music lovers in this forum would agree that music piracy is is not the bogeyman the record companies would like to have us believe. Piracy may rip off the record companies but not necessarily the musicians. Recently a group of Canadian musicians spoke out at attempts by record labels to curb piracy. One of them said-
I spend a comparatively lot of money on music. I have bought at least 300 albums in the past 12 months or so, although admittedly I pay full price only occasionally, instead buying second hand or parallel imports. Its an addiction just as insidious as drugs, but far healthier and infinitely more enjoyable than the transitory pleasure of substance abuse. The need to have my fix of new music gnaws at my vitals and must be satisfied. Every waking moment is filled with obsessing with what and where am I going to score. Pastimes that were previously favorites like drugs and sex are left by wayside because I know the money spent on them is money that cannot be spent on music.

Musicians understand this obsession. They may want fame and recognition. They may want money and a rock and roll lifestyle. But above all, they want their music to be listened to regardless of whether it is paid for or not. The record companies appear to be doing everything they can to stop this.

Many Appletalkers must have seen the music documentary Dig! that came out last year. For those that haven't its a story about 2 musicians, formerly friends, that take two very different paths with their music. One, the leader of the Brian Jonestown Massacre-Anton Newcombe(the subject of my avatar), refuses to compromise his music to commercial considerations. The other, Courtney Taylor and his arguably equally talented group the Dandy Warhols, sold out to the record companies. The movie is a bit of a beat-up in that it focusses on the eccentricities of undeniably eccentric Anton Newcombe rather than his music.

Anyway, pardon me for being so long winded about this, but the BJM putting their principles where their web site is, has made their complete discography including live performances and samplers of other bands, available for free download.

http://www.brianjonestownmassacre.com/mp3.html

They are in .ogg format downloadable as a .zip file. I have been trying to get these, at least the albums I had not already bought, onto my iPod for months. Thanks to Al Aero in this thread, I found out tonight how to do this.
The Switch converter software posted by Al Aero is available in a free, trail, and paid versions. I recommend converting to aiff, then buring to a disc and then importing to itunes via the disc to get the full metadata. Thanks for that Al Aero.

Not sure about the quality you will end up with but it seems ok. If you like BJM maybe you could buy the albums. Redeye and JB hiFi both stock them or they (minus "this our music" -out of stock)are available by mail order from the BJM website.

I totally agree with your intro. The music industry is making illegal downloads out to be worse than it actually is.

Btw, you can play OGG in iTunes if you like.
http://forum.ecoustics.com/bbs/messa...79/138840.html

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(marc @ Jul 15 2006, 09:07 PM) [snapback]195258[/snapback]</div>I tried the ogg vorbis plug-in but it invariably froze iTunes.

Funny thing is, if I didn't "download" the music I listen to, the bands would have one less fan, and coheranty a few less, as my mates have also bought their CD's, based on the music I downloaded. Previous to this, we had never heard of these bands.

I even emailed one of the bands once, and told them exactly what I did. I got a reply from them saying that it's funny how I used what is considered a bad thing to get a good thing.

On top of that. I am slightly responsible for them ending up touring on their latest album last year, and making their way down here. As I started somewhat of a small fanbase that was enough to make them visit our shores.

Now, let the record companies think that what I did was bad. It's the fact that their all run my old farts that don't want to leave their cushy jobs and are quite happy going about doing things the way they've always done it, be it 30 years ago.


Cheers
pipsqeek