I’ve done it. Chances are that you’ve done it. Millions of others have done it. I could be talking about a lot of things, but specifically, I’m talking about downloading music illegally. Since the first mp3 was illegally shared, it has spread like wildfire. Napster pretty much started it, although to be fair, there were some other lesser known file-sharing programs doing the same thing.
There are a few reasons why people pirate music. Some reasons off the top of my head are the fact that the big record companies have totally screwed over music buyers for decades. For years and years they have been giving us less and less and giving us music that isn’t worthy of spinning down my toilet bowl, much less spinning in my CD player. And what has become all too popular now is to hook us with one great song, have us go out and buy the album, and then the rest of the CD is filler crap. iTunes, Amazon, and other music sites are doing their part by letting us pick and choose our music. Yet, millions of people would much rather get something free than pay for it. And hey, that’s pretty logical thinking and I’m not going to argue with that. Conversely, I’m not going to sit here and condone it, either.
Your “mega-star” bands who have come out and cried, bitched, complained, scolded their fans (*cough* Metallica *cough*) for stealing music are only doing so because their cash cow, (insert big record company name here), told them to do something. Those “mega-star” bands don’t really care, they already got their payday. Besides that, most of their money comes when they play shows. Apparently illegal online sharing of musical performances hasn’t taken off, yet. When you steal your favorite mega-star band’s songs online, you’re hurting the record label more than you’re hurting the artist.
With all that being said, should you happen to stumble across what you believe is a great band or artist here on MarsBands.com and decide to download their songs illegally, think about this first:
Many of the bands and artists that are promoted on this site are either on a label that isn’t a “big name label” or they are on a label that they created themselves (i.e. Allison Crowe, Burning Shapes, etc.). Illegally downloading songs from these bands hurts the label, which is the artist. Now, obviously, there isn’t much I can do about it if you decide to go rouge and steal mp3’s. Ultimately, it is your choice. If you want to be total d-bags and not support your favorite bands, by all means, have at it. I, on the other hand, as well as the entire MarsBands.com staff, will be buying mp3’s and albums of our favorite bands as a sign of support. Our hope is that if the big record labels see our support for good music instead of the crap music they force on us, perhaps we can change the music scene.
