I'm deleting my entire music library, and here's why it's a good thing

Better start paying for playing those tunes in public too, once you start playing gigs. The fact that you “bought” them legally does NOT give you that right 🙂

I absolutely believe in paying for something you want to have. Especially since you can now get just one song you like and don’t have to buy the entire album (trust me when I say I HAVE bought plenty of complete vinyl albums and later CDs that had only one or two tracks on it I really liked). And with the for an album like half of what it was in CD days that is another bonus. I do have a problem with paying for a track I already own on a different medium. If there is stuff I have on vinyl or CD, I have no problem ripping it (or in case of vinyl borrowing a CD with the track on it and ripping that). I figure since you don’t pay for the ownership of the track, but for the right to listen to it, it shouldn’t matter what medium it’s on. That’s just my opinion, no legal advice … no advice whatsoever. Everyone should come to terms with his/her own conscience anyway :-).

What I do find a bit double is that as a DJ you play music to, usually, groups of people. If you play a song by artist A, then suddenly not just you listen to the artist A track, but up to hundreds and even thousands of people.

I had very good contacts with one of the larger record stores in Essen, Germany when I worked there at the hottest place in town. They would always know when I played something new or different. People would come in over the next days to ask for the record. No wonder that DJs (both club and radio) with connection got more music for free than  they had to pay for. All for a chance to get an artists music out there. All that is gone of course, especially with internet, social media and such. Still, what we DJs plays gets an extra stamp of approval from our audiences.

I understand that logistically there is nothing to be done about the situation. Pluggers are gone and there are way too many DJs around these days to keep up with who is a mover and shaker and who isn’t. And it’s easier than ever to listen to a track before committing to buying it.

Bottom line is that things got better, way better in most cases, but I miss getting the freebies :-).

Greetinx.

I wrote an article on my web design portfolio blog on this:

http://www.amportfolio.com/knowledge/2012/01/23/the-age-of-software-piracy-is-over

Long story short, a friend of mine downloaded a bootleg copy of DVDFab (DVD ripping software).  When he installed it, his virus alert came up, and he kept getting warning messages claiming it was quarantined.  This did not come from some “keygen” file, but from the install file itself.  Hackers are able to hide malware into the install files.  This particular one would have sent out any usernames/passwords he might enter online somewhere.

DJ software has dropped in price to the point that it’s easily affordable.  So why pirate anymore?  In the article I wrote, I showed how one could get design/productivity software free and legal.

When it comes to music, I admitted I’ve pirated in the past.  What made me stop simply was how the tunes I wanted were not out there in the P2P networks. Plus I try to embrace quality over quantity…meaning I’d rather pay for 10 good tracks over illegally downloading 100 mediocre or even terrible tracks.

I’ve seen guys show up to club gigs with 1TB hard drives and barely use more than 5% of their library.  Better to just take 10% with you and deal with that.

“… easy to get a huge mp3-database …”

And that is exactly the greatest pitfall of these times. You’ll end up with thousands and thousands of tracks you haven’t prepped properly, probably don’t know inside out (heck, even forget you have at times) and might use only once.

Greetinx.