ButtUgly: Main_blogentry_230204

Why Gnutella is good

I've never really been much of a music fan. I was around 19 and on my own, when I first had even the idea that I could actually buy records - which means that I don't really have big collections of music from my teenage years. I vaguely remember many songs, and they are nostalgic, yes, but there's no way to find them anymore. So I lost a big chunk of the soundscape of my youth.

if it weren't for the file sharing networks, that is.

I can catch a song, playing in the background somewhere, and it reminds me of something. If I can just catch a line or two, I can bang those words into Google (and add "lyrics") and get the title and performer. Then fire up Limewire, and rather probably find what I was looking for. Otherwise, it would be a very, very complicated search through old record stores, or friends' attics.

I also regularly go and find music that my friends tell that they like, because it lets me in their heads for a while. If the music has meaning to someone I care about, I want to hear it. Sharing the same experience helps you to understand each other, and that can never be a bad thing, right? So to hell with the detail that it is illegal - I appreciate my friends more than the pockets of big, greedy music corporations.

The problem with the commercial music stores is that they are interested in making money. And that means that they are not really interested in old, niche music that might have meaning to only some few individuals. In fact, it is possible that they cannot even license that music for online distribution, because nobody can figure out who owns the music, and with the perpetually-expanding copyright it will never fall into public domain.

Long copyrights really mean less music for us, not more. And this is why P2P filesharing is not going to go away.