November 16, 2005

Horse 439 - Mp3 Dilemma

Stealing music is bad, and wrong. There should be a new stronger word for stealing like wrong-bad or bad-wrong or... bad-ong. Yes, stealing music is badong!

I have 3458 tracks on my iPod. Some of these are free subscriptions of Podcasts so aren't stealing. My question is to do with the nearly 600 tracks that aren't music or poscasts. I of course refer to the Adverts and the Radio Promos I have.

No-one in their right mind would sell a CD with old radio adverts and jingles. Who'd honestly but a CD with nothing but ads on? Well the answer is that I would. The way I see it, adverts and jingles are as much of the radio landscape as much as everything else. Who can't forget the Louie The Fly adverts or the Happy Little Vegemites song. And yet, why can't you but these?

Millions of dollars every year are spent on adverts. The MMM guitar riff series was the stations signature for nearly 20 years, and when people hear that in my Ka they often comment that it brings back memories.

Often these things are less than 8 seconds long. As station idents go, they can't afford to be very long, and with adverts, as soon as the product is removed from sale, so are the ads.
So I ask is it wrong to steal and collect something which no-one a) wants to sell and b) would have been discarded anyway? Is it morally right to sift through the audio trash and steal the wrapping?

For the record (pun intended) I hate the concept of iTunes Store. I love walking into a record store and buying that bit of plastic. Artists should be funded I have no problem with that, in fact with a CD you also get artwork so you can find the CD again, but with radio adverts it just doesn't happen.

I like stealing adverts. They're part of my radio experience, and I want to preserve the good ones along with the music they accompany.1224 2WS, Melbourne rocks with 3AW, Triple M nothing but a long shot of rock, Z100 - New York's finest, One Million Watts of Music Power - Radio 1. I grew up with the radio, I want to remember that Happy Happy Sound!

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