I have been into hip hop and downtempo production for almost a decade now. Though it is one of my passions, I have approached it more as a side hobby and not a means to earn me my daily bread. My daily bread comes from another passion - public administration - thus I feel at the liberty to say some things, do some things, and take certain risks that many who depend on their music can't. One aspect of particular interest is that of sampling.
Considering the fact that most of my music is sample-based, I require a non-stop feed of new and old music. A single composition of mine can be composed of anywhere from 30 to 40 samples. My acquisition of recording hardware and a microphone booth have somewhat allowed me to record my own sounds and melodies with rudimentary, improvised, and simple instruments. Despite this, my music collection is constantly growing due to my affinity for the sampler. I can't even begin to tell you how many full length albums I must rummage through to find a particular sounds that I want. The value of the music that I must take in to produce a single song would easily reach $1,000 or more. This price could be inflated considering that most of my samples come from out of print and foreign recordings. The price of clearing the sample would be ridiculously high. And like I said, this is a hobby. It would be quite an expensive one if I were to go through the process of clearing all my samples.
Thus, I depend heavily on piracy. Though RIAA and pop releases are of the least of my interest, I understand that even my most obscure and rare findings belongs to someone, somewhere. Most of my music downloads are ripped versions of old records salvaged by fellow music lovers throughout the world. These albums will be downloaded in mass, burned, listened to, archived, and organized into my neat filing system. Considering the amount of music that I must take in order to create a single composition, one could say that I am more of a music listener than I am a producer.
The subject of piracy and intellectual property has always been of interest. I enjoy applying a sort of laissez-fairer attitude towards it all: I simply am not willing to pay $20 for an album,  especially when all but one or two songs will be tucked away into my archive - far from my iPod's play list. Nor am I willing to pay $1 for a song. Imagine; to fill up my iPod with legal music I would have to spend maybe two years salary.
Despite all the protective copy righting yells, Apple knows what's up. Sony knows what's up too (do they think people buy spindles of 100 CDRs for backup purposes?). I wonder how much is spent on blank CDs, CD recording software and hardware, and broadband. One industry's loss is another's gain. When something replaces blank CDRs then even that industry will be crying for big brother's protective cast.
I enjoy hawking around used CD bins and shelves with marked down old releases. I would easily pay $5 for a full-length album, but there is no way that you could expect me to blow four hours of minimum wage pay on a CD. Considering the size of our computer and iPod hard drives and our short attention span, it's incorrect to think that such prices are reasonable. While CD, MP3, and DVD players are becoming cheaper, CDs are becoming more expensive. Personally, I fell that the music industry is committing highway robbery.
I like to break it down into economics: about a year ago I stumbled onto an uploaded version of a new artist's latest release. A year and another pirated album later, I had the opportunity to see them live. Without thinking about it twice I whooped out $80 and reserved my seats for the show. That $80 expense on my behalf would have never occurred if were not for the fact that I heard about the artist via piracy. The direct earnings for the artist shadow the few pennies that they would be getting through album sales.
Secondly, for the price of a single CD on the market I could purchase two 100-CDR spindles. After investing the time and effort into downloading 200 albums (which is getting easier everyday), I could have easily acquired 200 albums for the price of 1. I would be much more willing to have 200 CDs than 1 even if it meant that one or two of those 200 artists were to quit doing music due to piracy-inflicted losses. Sure enough, there is enough old music and artists who "do it for the love" to keep our ears attuned. Due to the decrease in recording costs and the growing ease in self-publishing music, we are starting to see the destruction of a profit-ran industry into a passion- and hobby-ran industry.
How many artists have you heard of quitting due to piracy? And I tell you, that if your not in it for the love or passion, then your quality of music is easily replaceable. I don't see how people could dish out $20 to "support the artist", especially after watching an episode of cribs. Your gesture of generosity helps your favorite rock star add neon lights to his heated pool. The way I look at it, these folks will be broke and on drugs within a decade or two anyways.
Culture - be it in the form of text, video, or audio - should be free. The benefits of opening millions of copyrighted bits of culture to millions of innovators, remixers, producers, DJs, and common citizens surely outweigh the benefits (if you can call them that) of our highly hierarchical entertainment industry. If a group of high school thespians can reenact a script in a movie better than the movie's cast could, then all power to it. The replacement of the over-the-counter CD sale with the free download mirrors the replacement of the factory worker by the automated machine.
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