Sampling: what is it good for?
Thursday, October 8, 2009 by Charmaine
I have been feeling increasingly conflicted about my habit of downloading music. On one hand, a friend of mine works herself ragged to stay afloat in the music industry. She knows that people are going to download her songs without contributing to her paycheck. Does it make her feel any better to think that some of them wouldn't have been willing to pay even if they hadn't downloaded it? No, not really. It's disrespectful - in a way it's like walking away from a performance without clapping. (Not a perfect metaphor, I realise, but that's probably how it feels to some artists.)
And yet I'm not willing to stop downloading, because that would mean giving up my habit of sampling. I have a hard time finding anything I like on the radio, so every so often I browse around on music blogs, download a bunch of songs and albums, dump it onto one playlist on my ipod, and hit shuffle. Then it becomes like Survivor over the next few weeks as I weed out the songs I don't like. I've discovered artists and genres I never would've tried otherwise, and I have friends who come to me with usb sticks and ask for "just any music - and lots of it" so they, too, can sample. Then I buy the ones I like off iTunes, if they're available.
At the moment, there don't seem to be a lot of legal services that allow this kind of extended sampling. I've heard of a few that run on a subscription model - you subscribe and listen to as much music, as many times as you like - but they seem a bit obscure and still developing. As for the new models that are more widely known, iTunes and Amazon only give you a 30-second preview, while imeem doesn't allow for the music to be portable on other media devices. Until a service from a reliable company lets me sample music fully and legally without being tied to a computer, (one of my favourite activities for long plane rides to listen to all the artists on my ipod whose names I don't recognise) I'm just not ready to give up on downloading illegally.
And yet I'm not willing to stop downloading, because that would mean giving up my habit of sampling. I have a hard time finding anything I like on the radio, so every so often I browse around on music blogs, download a bunch of songs and albums, dump it onto one playlist on my ipod, and hit shuffle. Then it becomes like Survivor over the next few weeks as I weed out the songs I don't like. I've discovered artists and genres I never would've tried otherwise, and I have friends who come to me with usb sticks and ask for "just any music - and lots of it" so they, too, can sample. Then I buy the ones I like off iTunes, if they're available.
At the moment, there don't seem to be a lot of legal services that allow this kind of extended sampling. I've heard of a few that run on a subscription model - you subscribe and listen to as much music, as many times as you like - but they seem a bit obscure and still developing. As for the new models that are more widely known, iTunes and Amazon only give you a 30-second preview, while imeem doesn't allow for the music to be portable on other media devices. Until a service from a reliable company lets me sample music fully and legally without being tied to a computer, (one of my favourite activities for long plane rides to listen to all the artists on my ipod whose names I don't recognise) I'm just not ready to give up on downloading illegally.