waider | Names obscured to protect the NAUGHTY PERSON

This showed up in my mailbox this morning:

Hello Waider,

I've just found your website accidentally, but I actually didn't read all of
the contents..:) From what I saw I can say that your'e a really interesting
person and you listen to good music too ;)
And as I have noticed you've got a single Boris Dlugosch - Never enough.
So I'm here with a little plea for you to rip the cd to mp3 and send to me
somehow :)
could you do that?
I am a good quality music fan so the quality of themusic, that can be found
on Kazaa or something like that, doesn't satisfy me.
I would gladly buy that cd, but in my home country - Lithuania, we don't
have such huge music shops where I could order some cd that they don't have
in stock.
I hope this little help won't be a big difficulty to you and you won't
refuse to help me.

Thank you in advance.

Now, I'm in two minds about this. On the one hand, it's not like I agree with taking the money out of the pockets of starving artists, etc. On the other hand, it's not like I agree with the tactics and policies of the businesses that run the bulk of the music industry, particularly mainstream stuff like the track he's mentioned.

Which is a good track, by the way.

Hmmm.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

IMHO, if you rip an mp3 for someone who wouldn't otherwise have access to a piece of music (like someone who lives in Lithuania and can't get any decent CDs), you're doing a favor for both him and the artist. the artist isn't losing any money, since the person couldn't have bought the CD anyway, but they're getting a new listener who 1) might play the music for others who could buy the CD and 2) might buy more CDs once he's able to get access to them.

i also don't really see anything wrong with ripping a particular track to share with a friend.

even sites like Napster aren't a bad thing if the music being distributed is stuff people wouldn't otherwise be able to hear -- it allows unsigned artists to get their music to a wider audience. i think the real fuckheads are the ones who use sites like Napster et al to avoid having to pay for music they could easily have bought for themselves if they weren't such fucking cheapskates.

you, of course, already know this, but for anyone confused who might be reading: if you admire an artist enough to listen to them, why the hell do you feel like it's ok to steal their music? yeah, major record companies blah blah etc. pfui. it's not a good system but it's what we've got. and those artists are still depending on selling their music (and being paid to perform) for a living. if they can't make a living on it, they're going to have to quit and go back to gravedigging or working the drive-thru at McDonald's, and then you won't get to listen to them anymore.

oops. i've been ranting again.

I would take the opportunity to burn a sampler CD. "If you like that track, here's some other stuff you might like." Then again, i like inflicting my musical taste on others.

Or you can do what I did, copy the work and send an anonymous money order to the artist. Some artists are pretty hard to track down, unfortunately.

Interesting suggestions. I just deleted the mail without replying. Sure, the Internet makes the world a smaller place, but that doesn't mean I have to actually be nicer to complete strangers than I would in real life.

Unless, of course, they're h0t chix0rs.

I would've at least sent a reply... then again, i crave fan mail. "Thank you for acknowledging my existence and stroking my ego. Here is a free witticism. Enjoy!"

I don't really consider being the result of a google search for a piece of music to be ego-stroking, to be honest. But to each their own.

Yes, that's because i'm pathetic.

Names obscured to protect the NAUGHTY PERSON

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