Do you download music?

[Brian Ellis]

As the thread title specified music, I voted zero, zilch, no downloading. Same goes for videos. I have an enormous collection of CDs and vinyls (plus a few 78s), mostly classical, and have no need to download. I think I've enough material that would keep me listening for at least a year 8 h/day, 7 days/week.

I did not include software, which I do download legally.

[J1NG]

I've downloaded the odd music file or two (bought the CD straight afterwards or already had it, because I found I liked it, or wanted to keep the original pristine and couldn't be bothered to rip it), and the odd game once in a while (abandonware stuff, only once have I actually gone and downloaded an actual full game, and even then, not the entire library, just the first CD which I needed).

Gamewise is ultra rare though. Think I've only ever done it once. This is because the blasted games need the CD in the drive, and when the only original CD is broken, and the company that does it no longer exists (So there is no legal way for me to get a backup, even with money), and I don't have a blasted backup available, the only way left is to "borrow" a CD image somewhere. Just made sure the copy I borrowed wasn't available for anyone else to get after I got it. Oh, and I made sure I only got CD 1 of 2 (which was the one I needed). Probably still illegal, but I had no other avenue to walk to get a backup, just tried to stay as legal as possible.

Everything else of mine is original, bought on physical formats.

(And No, it wasn't available on Ebay. I looked, for a LONG time before I jumped down this avenue)

J1NG

[dZeus]

software:
I've bought licenses to most of the commercial software on my PC, but not before downloading illegal 'full versions' or 'cracks' for packages and trying them before making any decision to buy or not to. Trial versions often are just too limited in functionality or don't offer enough time to fully get to know the software packages (and its potential quirks).

music:
right now I don't have licenses to most of my MP3s. I guess I should buy the CDs, but imo owning music on a physical medium is rather pointless. So I'm waiting for the digital distribution methods to become sensible for consumers... which in my eyes means: being able to buy a 'universal license' to a piece of music, entitling me to download that piece as often as I'd like to in as many different formats as I'd like to, up to the quality/resolution which I paid for. e.g. when I buy an 'CD quality' album online I want to be able to download it as often as I want in any format I'd like to (or be able to transcode it myself as often as I want with as little quality loss as is theoretically possible), up to 44.1 Khz / 16-bit PCM (or in a lossless compression form like FLAC).

The same goes for films. Right now I mostly rent DVDs from the local video rental.

[az]

Oh, btw, legal try before you buy mp3 music (and set the price yourself, and download in .wav after you paid): www.magnatune.com

Only unknown artists, though if you are into electronic music or classical stuff, you might find stuff you like there. And they have internet radio channels, and you can download mp3s as much as you want without having to pay. And the artists get quite a lot, compared with traditional music industry cuts.

[Nowhere]

As the thread title specified music, I voted zero, zilch, no downloading. Same goes for videos. I have an enormous collection of CDs and vinyls (plus a few 78s), mostly classical, and have no need to download. I think I've enough material that would keep me listening for at least a year 8 h/day, 7 days/week.

I did not include software, which I do download legally.

A year? I have (OK, OK, I "have" ) around 1000 albums, and this is only about 5,5 weeks of music. You seriously have several/dozen thousands of them?

@J1NG, it's perfectly legal...

And perhaps I'll add that I do have few/dozen CDs, and few/dozen games for PC/PSX(1)...just don't really have means to buy them (the former) for some time, especially since it's often obscure stuff. Of course it would be nice to have "physical" library one day, I really like the feeling associated with the CDs I have. OTOH...I'm too lazy now. Keeping music on PC is much, much more convenient (I wouldn't even have room for large number of CDs...). And the same convenience is true with downloading vs. shopping. And yes, iTunes/anything isn't available here...
Anyway, I don't have trouble admitting that I'm a thief . Actually, people who attach some rhetoric to the fact they, well, steal are a bit irritating to me sometimes... (BUT I tend to drift closer to such views recently because of rootkit CDs and copy protection on games that makes legitimate copies highly irritating (read about "Starforce" on Wikipedia)). Probably one of the reasons for this is that in the past some people were profiting on this much.

Haven't downloaded anything illegal in years, although I've ripped my sister's and brother's stuff.

BTW, this is perfectly legal here. And also applies to close friends.

PS. Wombat, audio service from my sig is quite good when you listen to obscure music...a lot of weird people out there (just look at my music, which is just tip of the iceberg since my computer isn't connected to the net (but I'm saving history of music playedon it anyway, just need to upload it...))

[Brian Ellis]

A year? I have (OK, OK, I "have" ) around 1000 albums, and this is only about 5,5 weeks of music. You seriously have several/dozen thousands of them?

Quite frankly, I've no clue how many I have, just a helluva lot. As a guess, judging from the volume taken, I would say about 1000 30 cm vinyls and as many again CDs. Your maths are not very good, though. 5.5 weeks = 38.5 days = 308 h @ 8 h/day = 18480 min = ~280 CDs, not 1,000. Not so very short of the year altogether, though, although I made no calculation.

[Nowhere]

Math was based on listening to music 24/7. And besides it's not very precise anyway, the only thing I'm sure is that there are over 17 000 songs (I tell you, I'll burn in hell ) with total playing time of 5,5 weeks.

PS. Do you at least know what you have? (I have a slight problem with this...)

[Brian Ellis]

PS. Do you at least know what you have? (I have a slight problem with this...)

Not 100%, but I've a reasonable idea in my head and can usually place my hands on a piece within a minute or two. I classify them initially into broad lines (e.g., opera, concerti, symphonies, lieder etc.) and then by alphabetical order of the composer within each category. The problem is that many discs within a category contain works from various composers. For example, I have a disc of baroque (broad classification of the publisher) in front of my eyes containing works by J.S. Bach, J.C. Bach, Vivaldi, Purcell, Handel and Monteverdi (what a mixture of styles!). If I'm looking for a particular excerpt from The Faerie Queen, then it means hunting through the miscellaneous section of the baroque category. I did think about starting a database to overcome this problem, but can you imagine the time it would take to enter Disc no., Track, Name, Category, Composer, Piece, Soloist, Orchestra etc. for each track of 2,000 discs, possibly 15,000 or more entries?

[GuchiGuh]

I never ever buy music CDs in Australia. It's just too expensive here. I just download music here.

However whenever I go back to Taiwan, I purchase around 10-20 new original music CDs, because its dirt cheap there.

As for my music collection, about 30 Vinyls, 70 odd original music CDs, 50GB of Mp3s...it's all over the place, not sure of what I have and what I have listened to or which ones I haven't listened to, etc.

[Paddy]

I'm into Pandora of late.

Fantastic site!

[Wombat]

I did think about starting a database to overcome this problem, but can you imagine the time it would take to enter Disc no., Track, Name, Category, Composer, Piece, Soloist, Orchestra etc. for each track of 2,000 discs, possibly 15,000 or more entries?

Not very long if they're on CD. You put the CD in, use a music player that talks to the CDDB archive, and it pulls down all that information for you.

I ripped encoded all of my 300+ CDs to MP3 a while back, and it wasn't too bad. I'm thinking about doing it again, but to FLAC.

[Brian Ellis]

Not very long if they're on CD. You put the CD in, use a music player that talks to the CDDB archive, and it pulls down all that information for you.

Very few CDs have that possibility and certainly none of my vinyls

[Brian Ellis]

However whenever I go back to Taiwan, I purchase around 10-20 new original music CDs, because its dirt cheap there.

Have you thought why they are so cheap? Because they are pirated copies. It is very difficult to buy the genuine article in many Asian countries, including here. One of the local cash and carry stores offers DVDs at CYP 1.00 each (~USD 2.00)! Pirated? Of course not! They are just the producers being benevolent But you would be hard put to tell the difference, even down to the quality/style of the shrink-wrapping. (Actually, mea culpa, I did buy one - of one of the greatest films of all time, Casablanca.) What amuses me is that they include all the copyright notices on the box, on the DVD itself and before the film, and they are copy-protected, to boot! The pirates are afraid that they will be pirated!

[Guru]

I'd never find out if I liked a band if it weren't for downloading. I'm one of the people that definitely buys more music because of it.

Same here! I also usualy download bonus tracks that are not available here in Finland!

[az]

Very few CDs have that possibility and certainly none of my vinyls

Certainly true for Vinyl, but for CDs, there does not need to be any metadata on the CD, it's all on the CDDB server. I don't know how it recognizes the CDs (probably EAN code or just track numbers and lengths), but it works pretty well - except that maybe some of your CDs may not be in the database (local artists for example).