Content

A new Ipod "Classic" has 160gb of storage. That is astounding to me. Apple claims that it can store 40,000 songs. That number is a little dubious as those songs would have to be awfully short to fit and you really only get 148gb of storage, so lets call it 30,000 songs or so. By my calculation, legally purchasing this many songs would run you around $29,700.00. Of course this is a bit of an exaggerated figure as there are sales, there is free content like podcasts, etc. but the point remains that the amount of data most of us can fairly easily afford to store on a portable device is far in excess of the amount of data we can afford to put on that device.

This puts people like myself in an awkward position. I have a gigantic appetite for both new music and old music that I haven't purchased yet. I have a device that can hold more than I can think of in my pocket, and then there is a massive wall of temptation barrelling down on me.

In the first five years of Itunes' existence it sold six billion songs. That sounds like a lot, however Bill Wyman (of NPR and Salon.com noteriety) quickly shows what a small number that is. He tracked some popular torrent sites. In particular he showed that one Beatles Torrent, which contained 300 songs was downloaded 20,000 times in just five days. That means that six million songs were downloaded illegally, from one file, of one band, in five days. That is 1% of the songs that Itunes has sold in five years. Thus, when you extrapolate that out to all the existing music ever produced, it is obvious that illegal downloads dwarf legal, and paid for, ones.

Does the fact that "everyone" is doing it negate the fact that it is wanton copyright infringement and therefore illegal? No. Does it make it a lot easier to justify? You bet. I justify it in my head by saying that I will see the band live, or I will purchase it later, but even if I actually followed through with that, would it make it ok? Stealing is stealing...isn't it?

This is one of the topics I hope to talk about at On Tap, Thursday, 7-9 at Llywelyn's Pub. I hope you will join us and discuss your views on this and other music related topics. Don't worry, we won't take your full names in case someone from the RIAA is present.

- jason