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Re:I've begun to notice this phenomenon... by panck · 2004-02-14 14:31 · Score: 1 · on Amazon.com Pierces Reviewer Anonymity

I don't get it. Why do people trust reviews from people they've never met, have no reason to believe, and who are posting "anonymously" on the internet?

I'm a lot more inclined for or against a movie/book/CD if i read a review from somebody I've come to trust a bit because I've found in the past that their opinions hold some merit...

Decline of Individual Music File Sharing... by aSiTiC · 2004-01-17 12:37 · Score: 4, Informative · on P2P File Swapping on the Rise Again?

..does not mean decline in total music file sharing. People are moving to downloading complete ALBUMS via eDonkey/eMule. Users don't want to deal with many, many rips of the same song (many of which are faked) on KaZaA.

As a quick check visit top 100 lists such as Pitchfork top 50 of 2003, which contains sub-pop music flavors. Now search for the albums on edonkey networks with clients or FileDonkey. It's amazing to see so many RARs and ZIPs.

Less fakes, more helpful comments, better hashing, etc... at least for time being.

Count me among new file sharers by Anonymous Coward · 2004-01-17 12:36 · Score: 5, Interesting · on P2P File Swapping on the Rise Again?

I own more than 1,500 CDs. Up until recently, I owned an additional 400 cassettes, but they degraded so much over time that I eventually had to pitch them after several unsuccessful attempts to record them as MP3s. I have purchased, on average, three to four CDs, every week for the past several years.

Prior to this year, I had very little experience with file sharing. I always thought it took too long, required too much effort and I didn't want to worry about poor rips at low bitrates. I thought both sides have their collective heads up their collective asses. Traders whining about copyright law vs theft and the music industry doing everything they can to destroy themselves. I don't know what's more annoying, people saying that they steal because music is overpriced, or label executives saying that traders will put low-level employees out of business. Show me that trailer with the stuntman again and I'll barf! Plus, I liked to point out that just about every complete album I downloaded I ended up purchasing. It seemed like P2P was a non-issue and both sides were idiots.

Then I got sick over the holidays and ended up hanging out in bed. After my third straight day of Bond movies on Spike, I decided to see how long it would take to download Pitchfork's Top 50 Singles of 2003 on a P2P network. By the end of the night I had the complete list, and suddenly the challenge was "How long would it take to download their top 50 ALBUMS of the year.

In the last two weeks I've downloaded nearly 50 CDs (Only six of them were on Pitchfork's list). Many have been out of print albums, but many more have been straight-up recent commercial releases. The quality is awesome and modern software enables you to queue up a long list of files and forget about it.

I now see what the RIAA has been so afraid of. Just a few weeks ago I was spending $50 a week on CDs. Now I drive by a record store and think "What sort of chump pays for music?" I don't download because music is expensive -- I download because it's too freakin' EASY. If one of their strongest customers is so easily turned, what's up with the casual consumer. The media companies are screwed.

As a side-note... by ziggy_zero · 2004-01-17 11:21 · Score: 2, Informative · on Local News Anchor Feels Pain from Afar

Sage Francis and the Non-Prophets are going on a Fuck Clear Channel tour this year, so if you want to stick it to the man and listen to some damn good music at the same time, I highly suggest you hit it up.