Red Beard or Groupie?

  "What are you doing with your Dad's old tapes again? my Mom asked

"Nothing mom" i lied

mtcheww! "i know you are going to sit by the radio again “continue oooo! She replies

  I shut my room door and pull the side stool closer to the radio cassette player, slot the tape in, secure it with the cellotape and thus began an eager wait with one finger on the record button for my favorite song to come on.

 Back then all that mattered was Puff Daddy, Mase, Tupac, Will Smith, Wyclef, TLC, Missy Elliot, Snoop Dogg and any other hip hop-er that was in vogue at the time.

 I spent an average of 9 to 10 hours of my summer holidays in front of that old radio cassette player recording song after song and playing them over and over again and writing the lyrics out.

  When school got back I was ready to dazzle my friends with all the songs i knew by heart but they equally had not been breaking melons all summer they had been doing the exact same thing.

  Fast forward to 2001, I got my first CD player and that Jah rule CD, and i felt like i was on top of the world. I got every single CD I could lay my hands on, i had mountains of CDs i swapped CDs with my friends, I sold some and bought some more. Just so we are clear none of these CDs were genuine, Hey lets face it i grew up in Nigeria even the pirated copies cost me my weeks allowance and a lot of moms left over change. Anyways back to the topic, at the time i never knew there was a difference between the genuine CD or pirated, all I knew was i had a CD shikena!

  By the time I figured out what the whole piracy thing was all about I was on my second IPod and i had been running limewire on my PC for almost a year and a half!

  Ok, so what’s all this piracy thing about anyways it’s not like i am hurting anyone, or I would have gone out to buy the CD if i couldn’t get it for free off the internet right? Well it turns out i was actually doing something illegal for years and its gotten so much worse now. Where the argument gets murky is what’s the difference between a pirate, (Red Beard) and an avid broke fan (groupie)?

 Well my tongue in cheek answer would be that the pirate is the guy who downloads a song and burns it on countless number of CDs, sticks a label on it and sells it for half the regular retail price...FAIL!! ,the avid broke fan on the other hand is one who loves an artiste but can afford to shell out the 10 to 15 bucks or so for a CD (just so you know some CDs are cheaper *coughs* Ray J *coughs*) and decides to download from the numerous torrent/P2P sites/software out there sticks it on his iPod or makes a CD for his car and appreciates his/her favorite artist.

  I ask myself though; do anyone of the people above i.e. Red beard or the groupie actually buy tickets to see these artistes perform live? Well you know as well as I know that Red beard wouldn’t, he’s probably at the barber shop bugging you to take a look at his catalogue, and the groupie would not cough up 25 bucks and above to go see someone perform when he/she can see it on YouTube in a couple of days or weeks. So how then do you support your "favorite artiste”? Twitter?? All the good that would do..smh

 Information from the institute of policy innovation (however credible that is) reports that Music theft accounts for over $12.5 billion in losses every year and over 71,060 jobs lost! Staggering you would say, considering that $12.5 billion is probably more than some countries yearly budget.

 You might argue that revenue from album sales goes to the studio execs and not the artistes but if the album doesn’t bring money in, no studio exec would sink money into a tour, so when you dont see or hear from your favorite artiste that you avidly followed on twitter, know its all your fault.Whatever happened to Wayne wonder? *thinking*

  Granted quite a number of musicians have gotten their career breaks from "illegal" redistribution of their works, but truth be told i think its high time we start to do the right thing not because its better(the best things in life are free innit?) but because its the only way to help the industry grow. I know ITunes can be a female dog with all the file sharing restrictions and all but honestly it doesn’t cost that much to support your favorite artistes with less than 15 bucks you would get their albums or better yet pick and choose what tracks you like from the track listing and pay 99 cents and get it over with and rather than make a CD for that hottie you have been admiring from afar just get her an ITunes gift card (corny? I know right). Trust me you don’t want to receive that red and white enveloped letter from your ISP saying you have been involved in downloading illegal blah blah blah;not admitting that i have gotten such a letter of cause! *wink*

  In conclusion, all in favor of deleting all file sharing software say AH! ............... Are those crickets i hear!?