PEER TO PEER FILE-SHARING?
"Sharing" or stealing?
The internet mechanism for "file-sharing" (OK if you own the copyright) is the "bittorrent" technology. I have never looked at this out before for ethical reasons. If you want to find a band, use Youtube.
But I checked the situation with, randomly, "Cargo" (1983) by Men At Work. I was looking for the album on Amazon to preview the tracks, only to see that Google had provided torrent links... or maybe the latter had technology that meant their sites were top of the search result.
In any event, the first link was this:
There were comments at the bottom:
"Not a quality torrent I'm afraid. Look at that first track for example, why is it so much bigger than the ones following, because the first 20 or 30 secs are filled with silence and clicks."
and
"Yep, ... this torrent. Better one:
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4157668/MEN_AT_WORK_-_3CD_[m80v]"
So here there are two options for downloading free music, written and performed at great personal effort and skill by musicians in the '80s.
Can this be right? On the face of it, no way. It's one thing to give a friend a blank tape copy, but this is world-wide, forever! Copyrights last fifty years, etc, not potentially a few days.
There is one benefit however: the page also lists "similar artists", so awareness of these groups may be raised--though in this case it is only the usual '80s suspects. But even if other groups are investigated, the downloader is not going to pay for them either!
Cannot these sites be simply made illegal, and online radio such as Pandora (which also lists "similar artists") be permitted in all countries instead? Youtube can still provide the general random search source, as it does so well.
As Pandora says, "Listen to free internet radio, find new music". Then buy it if you like it! Fair's fair.
Feel free to comment below