Atomictumor

About 10 minutes ago, I did something that is so monumentally big, and different, and huge, and earthshatteringly against the norm, that I expect that, much like the work of the impressionsts back in the day, people three generations from now will discuss it’s influence.

I downloaded music. Legally.

I know. Take some time to let it sink in.

I downloaded Vampire Weekend’s eponymous album because, well, as an indie rokk guy, I tend to do everything that Pitchfork tells me to do (not unlike the way that housewifes the world over go out and immediately buy a book, or a blender, or facial cream, or, I dunno, cutlery because Oprah told them to do it), and they said it was good, so I listened to it, and was like “damn, that is good”. So I downloaded it from AmazonMPG.com.

Now, I know the whole downloading music thing has been legal for some time, but the reason that I have flat out refused to do it, and continued to, ahem, obtain MP3s in another fashion, was because all of the music that you would by from iTunes, Napster, Rhapsody, whatever, isn’t music. Its a restriction package, like one of those plastic bubbles from hell, surrounding a sub-standard quality MP3 rip. Its telling your computer “this is what you can do with this thing you just spent money on, and all THIS stuff is what you can’t do. Aren’t you glad you bought this instead of downloading an unrestricted music file that you can do whatever the hell you want to do with?”.

Essentially, being legal meant that you could ONLY listen to this music file through THIS software, on THIS computer, at THIS time, and maybe, if you’re good, you can burn it to one CD that might not work in your car. You certainly aren’t allowed to copy the thing onto your new phone to use as a ringtone, or to listen to at the gym, or put it on your laptop to take to work.

Screw that noise.

Except for some time now, Amazon has been offering DRM-free 256 bitrate MP3s for about 2 bucks an album less than iTunes (who, admittedly, is starting to sell music that isn’t only non-drm’d, but also CD quality FLAC downloads), and word is coming on that DRM is on the way out, with something like 4 out of the big 5 RIAA record labels agreeing to sell non restricted music, they way they should be.  Really, its the only way to compete with free, non restricted music.

And the CD?  Its freaking awesome.  Totally worth my seven bucks.  Maybe worth yours too.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 2nd, 2008 at 2:05 pm and is filed under Consumerism, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.