[greerb]

Originally Posted by gallione11

Here's two interesting questions to ponder for those of you on both sides of this debate, speaking from personal experience: If you originally bought say 20 CDs, and someone broke in and stole them, is it now ok to go download them instead of buying them again?

This happened to me about five years ago. I had about 20-30 CDs in my car, and some thief broke into my car and took my stereo and the CDs. My insurance company at the time said they'd pay for the damage to the car and the stereo but not the CDs. So I went ahead and downloaded the songs that I liked from those CDs.

Secondly, I've been in a lose-lose situation when it comes to some of my music. I used to buy Video Game soundtracks... These are imported from Japan. The problem? If you don't buy within the first year or so of the game being released, it is next to impossible to find them...except for one particular website. Turns out, however, that those CDs were coming from Korea or Thailand or somewhere like that... that particular record label pirated from the source.

So another question to consider; what would you do in this situation? Download the songs you like for free, and the original composer get nothing or buy the pirated CDs and the original composer still gets...nothing? I had spent upwards of $300 before I found out about the pirating. Since then, I either buy from a more reputable company when I know I want the soundtrack (since as I said above, you gotta buy it quick) or download the songs if I cannot purchase it from the original manufacturer. (And believe me, as obscure as some of these songs can be, it can be difficult to find.)

So would this work with allofMP3.com, as well? You are technically buing the music but the artist or record companies don't see any of it. So rather than paying allofMP3 why not just use a P2P client?