How many pirated burned CDs do you have?

[cyberfret]

As I was looking at a computer store ad today. I saw that you can buy a CD burner for $40 (US) and blank CDs for $.25 each. More and more I have found my students coming into their lessons with a pirated CD vs. one that they have bought. So I thought I would use this issue to test out the poll feature of this forum, and see what the numbers are like.

I would have to say that when I cast my vote in this poll, my numbers reflect a collection of CD that I use in my teaching studio. Have about 40 CDs of "greatest hits" about 500 songs from all kinds of artist. These are songs that I teach and use as examples. My CD burner, and Napster like sources on the Internet have been very valuable as a teaching and learning resource. I also copy some of my CD's for use in the car.

I should also say that I think that you should support the artist that you love. Especially the new artists that are out there on the battle field struggling to make it. Because every CD from these artists that you burn and don't buy is hacking away at their life line.

--Shawn

[SteelSlider]

I have twenty two disks full of various old artist that I've gleamed from various places.
None of these artists are alive. Some of them no one knows who has the copyrights.
None have current CDs on the market, none that I've found. I can't find their music anywhere but Limewire or Napster.
The only thing I use these mp3s that I downloaded for is to learn the words, and the style those men and women played. One of my favorite acts of kindness is going to retired homes, old folks homes, ect and playing old blues songs. Songs those old people haven't heard in years.
I dislike the term pirating.
There is no law against downloading music. If it were, only outlaws would own and sell Burners.
I look at it as spreading the sound that started it all so long ago.
The advent of burners in computers has revived the old blues. I participate on four blues boards, and if it weren't for the free downloads, a lot of those people would only be listening to BB King, Buddy Guy, Clapton and SRV. 90% of the people I've met on those blues boards never knew that back in the 1930's a drunken black man by the name of Robert Johnson wrote Crossroad Blues. A lot of people think Clapton wrote it.
One other thing about downloading songs;
I bought very few CD, records or tapes in the past twenty years, mainly because the kind of music I like is limited, and I write a lot myself.
But since I began downloading songs from Napster and Limewire, I've bought over a hundred CD in the past 12 months. Rock, Country, Classical, ect. And to add to the commerece $, I buy CD racks to put them in and a large book case to put those racks in, that I wouldn't of bought anyother way.
I don't feel guity about what I do. About 70% of the songs I download are not CD quality. The bass is too loud, the song ends aburptly, the vocals are being drowned out by the music. It's enough to make ya wanna buy the CD.
It's like shareware software. Rarely do I see an intire disk to down load, so after sampling the free stuff, I usually purchase the CD. And there are a lot of other people who do the same thing. And a lot of people who don't.
The songs on those twenty two disks I've learned to play, and sing, I play for other people, who say they like them and may buy the music, I don't know if they do or not, but if one does, that's one who wouldn't of.
That's all I got to say about that. 'from Forest Gump'

[cyberfret]

SteelSlider, I very much agree with what you wrote. I guess where the term pirated comes into play is this. Someone takes a CD that is very much available on the market, copies the entire CD and distributes it. I teach guitar for a living. More often than not my students are coming in with a burned copy of an entire CD. Of a current artist that is trying to become established. Someone will burn a CD for 10 of their friends. These are the favorite bands of my students, and yet they are hurting them. They think that just because they are a fan, they are supporting the artist. But CD sales are in part how these people are putting food on the table. So at least from what I have personally seen, this has to really be affecting CD sales. And getting into the evils of the record companies and how they screw artists is another story.

Now the other side. I love Napster....or loved it since it is now dead. I recently found MusicCity.com. I will use it to hear artist that are not readily available. I may download a few songs, then if I like the group, I will buy the CD. If the CD is out of print, or it is a rare live track that never was on a CD, then I may burn it. If there is a particular song that I am going to work on, I will download the song. I don't really know where the line is. But at least I know where the black and white of the issue is. If someone burns a copy of a current working artist, they are hurting that artist. Burn all the Beatles CDs that you what. They are no longer a band, and they have made their billions. But if it is a new artist, support them and buy the CD. Or else they will not make any more. And I guess that is the issue for me.

For old rare blues recordings, that is history. And thankfully there are those that have copies of the originals, have digitized them and made them available to blues lovers like yourself. There the technology is doing a great service to the music.

Post the links to some of those blues boards in the styles forum. That would be a great resource to share.

--Shawn

[jaytee]

im glad somebody can expain why i feel guilty when i copy a cd and make sense! the kid next door asks me to copy for him all the time and doesnt understand when i say NO!
most of my burned cds are of live recordings....which are unreleased...and....of dave matthews who allows live concert recording as long as its not done for profit....
otherwise im guilty of recording ONE whole cd....shoot me now...
it was a cd released about 11 years ago....i suspect it may still be on the market but i didnt look....
all my other burned cds consist of mixes from albums that i already own :)

--jt



oooooh thats a lie i just thought of one other...and youre right...its of my favorite band! but it is unreleased.....im not selling it....and to quote dave : "Im glad its out"...and the possibility of releasing it in the future with other songs on it exists...and hell yeah...if it comes out im gonna buy it! ok shoot me again....im so ashamed.....see what you did to me!

[ESP_Viper]

I will download a song that I like from a band and burn it to cd. I'll remember a song one day and put on my mixes. I have a full dream theater album in mp3 (which I burnt to cd) that I love. A friend gave me it. I am going to support dream theater and buy the cd. I downloaded some other bands and I want to buy their cds so I can support them!

I am a hypocrite w/ this whole controversy. I download songs, but I know it rips the artist off. But I'm not downloading whole albums. Though I have a few albums in mp3 completely, but they aren't that good that I would want to buy. I just have them so I can say "I have that 'cd'" I mostly download songs to preview, then I buy the cd. Which I have done a lot.

[AnUprightMan]

what shows do you have of dmb
I have about fifty, 20 or so from last summer and am always looking for a trade

[jaytee]

ohh im guessing you have alot more than me and i doubt i have anything worth trading....

most my stuff came off napster and its hard to find a whole concert in one shot....so i have parts that i burned to disc....

i think i got one or two whole concerts...i know i got woodstock...

problem is...i dont know anybody who records...and most people want a trade which i can not supply....howd you get started? sounds like you have a pretty good collection.......

i just read thru every setlist of his i could find and did my best to collect at least one version of every title....i know im still missing some...but i got alot of em too :)

hope you managed a copy of lillywhite......that cd is 100 times the album everyday is....

--jt

[steve]

I agree with shawn on the first post, I think that you should support the artist or band that you love, for me it was the red hot chili peppers, I bought a songbook that cost me quite a bit but was worth it.

[steve]

Another good thing to do is join a music club like columbia house or BMG. They sell VERY cheap CD's and all you have to do is buy about 3-4 CD's in about 3-4 years. It's pretty good..... and it's not illegal

[Zero]

I seem to be unique around here. I download many, many songs, but they are all different artists, i have about 2 or three songs from each artist, because I only like one or two songs, and if they are not on the same alblum, then i am not going to spend $60 or $70 dollars (Canadian dollars) for 3 songs.

I listen to some weird music, and sometimes, the band doesn't even release a cd... at least nowhere that i have ever seen... So i will download a whole bunch of their songs, because you can't get them anywhere. (and I have looked!)

~Z~

[GuitarGuillermo]

Me, i don't have any. I dont know if it's because im scrupulously honest or because I have no burner, and all the kids i know who do want me to PAY THEM to burn stuff for me. ok. i do know which it is

[mjamer]

I don't feel guilty about napster, or burning complete copies of CD's. Everything I've read says that artists (the people we want to support) don't make their money in album sales. They actually only get cents not even a full dollar per CD. Buying CD's make RIAA rich, to me RIAA doesn't care about the music but the bottom line.

If I could just send a dollar or 2 to the artist/band themselves per CD I wanted to buy, I'd happily do that. I'll concede that if it's a privatly produced band making their own CD's that I have no issues buying from them, because I know that I truely am supporting the artist.

I generally never burned/downloaded complete albums from napster. I have however seen those TV CD's you can get on TV, like tvmusic4u and mystic-music.. I'd go to their sites, look up that CD, go to napster and get those tracks. They're generally old songs of artists you never hear about anymore.. are the artists hurting? Probably not since they sold their copyrights away to the record companies and have no rights to their own music (sad huh?).

About napster -- RIAA says napster cost them billions in sales. I always love hearing arguments and numbers such as these. To me (i'm opinionated hehe), it's a lie, blatently. They have to first assume that if napster didn't exist that I and everyone else that used napster would have bought the CD, there's no way to prove this to be true. I know I have sampled many, many songs from napster, and there's no way I would have been silly enough to have paid for the entire CD. Napster if anything opened me up to new bands.

I really hope artists start using private distribution channels and steer clear of RIAA and big record labels.. maybe then things will be as they should be.. no more brittney spears, nsync, ricky martins..new kids on the block and the like.. =))


mjamer - my $0.02 =)

[AnUprightMan]

jaytee

I don't trade mp3 show. I will email you with my showlist and maybe we can set up a b&p

[Andrew]

I own none. I never used napster. I want to support my favourite artists that make the music I love. There would be a few exceptions (dead people, unreleased recordings etc. ) where i could have used it but in my mind this would just be supporting napster, and the real pirates that make money out of copying cds.

[disturbed_pyro]

andrew is right, the real pirates profit at the artists' expense

but there are some artists out there who make cd's with one or two MTV singles, then the rest is just a steaming pile of crap, thrown together to make a 12 track cd ::cough:: P.O.D.!::cough:: that pisses me off. i dont want to pay 15 bucks for 2 good songs and 10 fill songs. Red Hot Chili Peppers are an example of the opposite; their cd's are absolutely full of kickass songs. but i got the POD cd, Fundamental Elements of Southtown, and there are 2, maybe 3 good songs, then there's all kinds of short, pointless crap fill tracks. grrrr...:mad:

[CaputMortuus]

I feel guilty now, but my friends and I have done CD swaps, where we trade CD cases and everybody copies the discs they want from the other person. I have about 70 burned CDs, and about 40 purchaced ones. Half the artists I listen to are dead or The Dead anyway.

And ever since Napster came around, I've bought probably 30 of my 40 CDs. Napster was definately the catalyst for my interest in music.

[the_doors_girl]

HI everyone

I bought a cd bunner for two reasons the frist reason was that I needed to take many word publishing documents and give them to friends so they could help me to improve my papers for school. The other reason was that I wanted to make my own personal mix cds. I would burn them from mp3 or from the musicgenerator program I have. I like to make my own music and this was the best way I found to share it with other people. Also to buy cd signles for every song you like cost so much. For one cd single its like $5 to $10 canadian and you cant find every single song you like. Well that is why I got my cd burner but if you are going to get one do your homework cause you might not get the speed you are looking for.

Cya :D

[fatstrat]

yeah.. i have tons of cds i made, about 75 i'd guess. i have about 800 mp3s on my computer. whenever im trying to learn a new song i just download it. ok.

[WayOutThere]

I do think it depends on what you consider piracy. If just plain getting MP3s and burning them onto CD's is pirating, then I'm guilty of that. But I'd never actually sell any of the CD's I burned. Usually, I'll burn my out-of-print CDs onto copies, so I can take them out of the house without worrying about losing/breaking them. Or, if I do break them--accidentally happened with a Led Zeppelin III CD last year--I can find a friend to copy a new CD from, thereby saving $15. The way I see it, I already paid for one copy, so I already supported the band. Also, I bought the original Stop Making Sense CD (like the album, only 9 tracks) a while. The Heads re-released it last year, with almost twice as many tracks. I already paid for the original--it's an upgrade. I'm renting the new, extended version from the library and copying it--once it comes in, that is.

One thing I've been lucky with...well, almost...is having found nine MP3s off of out-of-print vynils. Those I will definitely burn, illegal or not. (If anyone wonders, it's the "Close to the Bone" LP by the Tom Tom Club, plus "A Clean Break" by the Talking Heads--available only on The Name of This Band is Talking Heads, a highly rare, out-of-print vynil.) However, my burner refuses to burn one song. (It says that it can only "burn WAVs, CDAs, or MP3s, so therefore it cannot burn (songname).mp3 because it is not an MP3, but an MP3." Argh.)

But...I am guilty of burning in-print CDs to bypass buying (though I do miss not having a cover pull-out). Recently, I've saved...oh, $50+ by burning four LPs onto two CDs. (One was out of print in the US; to get an import would cost a ton more than the average $10.) I don't feel guilty though; I don't have a cable modem, so I had to work damn hard to get those stupid things downloaded!

I've also burned a game or two. It's not illegal...they're just "backups" for my friends (ha ha ha...). Same with the out-of-print Primus albums I burned from my friend.

I don't know. I felt guilty, but that was before I had the CD burner, Now, after considering the whole thing, my rationale is this: I could go and tape each song off the radio, and I wouldn't feel guilty. But I'd be getting music for free, nonetheless. So I download it all from Audiogalaxy (www.audiogalaxy.com, if anyone wonders) instead.

[Jameseh]

i have only just got into the "cd burning" thang, i have about 4 burned cds.

but everything i like is older music anyway, iron maiden, metallica etc, so i feel i am not hurting the artist by reproducing that music.

also as, someone said before, they are MY mixes, of the songs that i want to hear together on one cd, my own now67827 if you will

[Tony_Iommi]

I only got a few... Maiden's "Power Slave", and Sabbath's "Never Say Die" and Dio's "Dream Evil". but im going to buy the real thing and toss these pretty soon. (i did that with Dehumanizer, Ozzmosis, and Paranoid..and a few others. just burn them till i buy them.. and pitch the burns).

[treyphish]

i have about 40 burns all phish live shows!!!!!

[ZakNafien]

I have 63 copies of CD's (yes mostly full albums) but thats mainly because i only buy origional albums of bands i REALLY like suchs as Sabbath, G'N'R, Marilyn Manson, Dimmu Borgir, Cradle Of Filth etc. It could have something to do with the prospect of spending 16 quid on an album from a band that i dont think are exactly ground breaking.