My battle against the music industry

OK, it's been about 5 years since the music industry declared war on file sharing and piracy. And I admit, I may have downloaded some MP3's. I've used Napster, Scour, Audiogalaxy. FTP servers. But there was a big difference between me and the 95% of people who were using such services to amass as much music as possible. I was using Napster for it's intended purpose. I downloaded music, found the stuff I liked, then went out and bought the albums.

My school started fighting the bandwidth issue caused by such programs in February 2000. After my main sources dried up, and repeated warnings from Dick Jacobsen to dorm residents, I stopped. I haven't illegally downloaded an MP3 in about 2 years (I think).

I spend quite a bit of time in front of my PC. Coding, gaming, surfing. Even just listening to music. My MP3 collection wasn't very big until recently. I usually just ripped the songs I liked from an album. Only about 600. When I got my iPod, I ripped all the songs (except duplicates). Even the horrible evil shit like faggoty *NSync (I never listen to it). About 2300 now.

However, I get sick of most of it often. So, I need new music. And I can't download it. Well, I could, but I won't. I'm trying to stay clean. I'd rather spend a few bucks on CD's every month than pay an RIAA fine of thousands.

CD's ain't cheap. The MSRP for a music album is $18.98. I ain't paying $19 bucks for a 12-song disc. No matter how good it is. I hunt for bargains. Look for sales in Best Buy. Check out Amazon.com and CDNow for $10 discs. Even visit a used music store for cheap CD's (in very good condition). And I try to get as many good songs as possible. I won't buy a CD for a single song. And even just two good tracks won't convince me sometimes. I try to get my average price low. Under $12 is decent. Under $10 is great. And you know those CD's with only one good song on it? Free iTunes from underneath 20 oz. bottles of Pepsi helped me save a ton. My time was worth the constant search for savings.

So, that's how I fight the system. Do what I can to prevent all parties involved from taking my money. You should take this approach too.