Music

It was people downloading exact copies (or near about that you can't tell) of their CDs on Napster, but sure, don't let the truth get in the way of a good story.

Like I said, Lars is a prick and James follows his lead. They never really cared about bootlegs until people started pirating their albums. They had no idea that was even possible, and I think Lars was right to say such a service should exist but only with the artist's permission.

Anyway, Metallica offer downloads of their shows now. I'm not sure if it's every show, but when I saw them in 2019, like a week after the show, I got my download code. I still have that album on my computer. It's a live recording of the show I was at. And it's a damn good recording. So like, why would you make a crappy bootleg recording when the band will just give you a professional quality recording of the show? I like how they defeated the whole thing. I guess you could argue that the cost of the recording goes into the ticket price, but if you like Metallica, nosebleed seats aren't that expensive (I think it was like fifty bucks?) and since they do pyrotechnics, you don't really wanna be up front or in the snake pit (special middle-of-stage area) anyway, unless you're much younger.

Metallica isn't a problem anymore. Music is kind of a solved problem. You can pay ten bucks a month or thereabouts (often less) for streaming, and it includes damn near everything. Holdouts, like Garth Brooks, are pretty uncommon and notable. For Garth, you can get his CDs at Goodwill and rip them, then if you have Apple Music (maybe others) you can just drop the files on the app and boom, they're in your library, you can even stream them. Because you know Apple has the files, but they'll only stream to those who own the songs. Not just anyone can get them. These days, computers are too small for disc drives, but you can get a CD/DVD burner for like $30 and it'll plug into any computer (or an Android phone, though I'm not sure you can burn/rip with one... wouldn't be surprised though). Use fre:ac, MP4/AAC, low complexity, highest bitrate, it's gonna sound better than MP3 320 at comparable file sizes. Takes minutes to extract the CDDA audio, and you can just run through your collection. Go thrifting, get discs for a buck or so apiece, rip them, donate them back, let the next guy enjoy them.