Just a reminder, there’s only a couple of weeks left to help save Internet Radio as we all know it.
Rather than waiting until it’s too late to tell our government that they’re out of their fool minds here, please spend a few minutes of your time, and have a read over at SomaFM’s website, on how you can help to save Internet Radio.
It can be as simple as a phone call, or a written letter, but please don’t forget to do your part to help save it.
Thanks. 
I remember when I first got an internet connection at home.
I paid for it almost in its entirety, from the phone line, to the dial-up package, and the computer itself. The family only helped me out in getting a monitor for that computer, and that was fairly cheap.
I discovered sites like Riffage.com, which would offer a free MP3 CD with much of their music on it to anyone who asked. The music was generally from independent artists, but I liked being able to try out all sorts of different music, to see what I liked.
Shortly after my dad died in 2000, and my aunt moved in, she brought the wonder that is called Cable television. With the cable line, we could also apply for high speed Cable internet. So I wheedled my way into talking her into that. Once I got that high speed connection (and a new computer, since the first one was dated), I started hearing about Napster (again).
I had heard of it while I was on dial-up, but it wasn’t really usable then. I tried getting songs, but it would take an hour or so for a single song to download. That was the beginning of my piracy days.
I gave up for a while in 2000, and in early 2001, when I got on high speed, I jumped on board the Napster train again. Shortly after I jumped on with the [tag]Napster[/tag] train again, it was being killed by the courts. [tag]OpenNap[/tag] was born, I was on board, and it was still going off and on.
I started discovering other ways to download music, to start absorbing more and more illegal music, such as [tag]Piolet[/tag], [tag]KaZaA[/tag], [tag]Morpheus[/tag], and numerous other programs and methods. I did it to feed my hunger for all sorts of new music at an ‘unbeatable price’. I hated the idea of buying a CD then, because I’d buy one, and only like two songs on a 15 song CD, but spend $15 or $20 to buy the disc.
I would fill my hard drive with pirated music, burn an MP3 CD for myself as a way to back it up, and delete that from the hard drive. Then I’d keep downloading. I’d end up with 15, 20, 40 copies of the same song with different tags (which became annoying to me when I switched over to Foobar2000 as a media player, and even more so when I started using [tag]AudioScrobbler[/tag] (now [tag]Last.FM[/tag]) at the end of ‘03, but I’m ahead of myself by a little here).
I didn’t care about the fact that the [tag]RIAA[/tag] wanted people like me to stop pirating then.
I was more upset that people couldn’t use proper tags on their music, and properly attribute their music to the original source.
This, as well as my shipping out to Job Corps at the end of 2002 began my downhill descent from my music piracy high.
When I got out of Job Corps, and got back onto a full connection, I was annoyed that a lot of my old haunts were either no more, or of low quality, or were infested with crap.
So, I started looking into legal ways to buy music.
iTunes was fresh on the block, and Pepsi was running a heavy promotion with them at the time, offering free downloads under most bottle caps.
I was [tag]downloading music[/tag], legally, and happily, and even buying the stuff when I was out of freebies…
And then I met [tag]Digital Rights Management[/tag] ([tag]DRM[/tag]).
I almost wanted to pirate again when I first ran into it, thinking that it’s wrong to be told just what I can listen to my music in or on. Then I found out about various methods to circumvent this ‘protection’ scheme on Windows, and well, I went back to buying my music, but without that layer of nagging permissions.
What annoyed me initially was the fact that though I paid for the music, I couldn’t listen to it in [tag]Foobar2000[/tag]. To listen to the music, I had to stay within the [tag]iTunes[/tag] app, even after paying money for music, just to listen to a few good songs.
What kind of sense did that make? I mean, gee, I paid for it. I wanted to listen to it, along with some of the legit free music I’d found, on an [tag]MP3 CD[/tag] while I was out and about. That wasn’t going to happen.
I eventually heard about AllOfMP3, and tried it out. For a while, I was fooling myself, saying “Well, gee, I’m paying for the music, though under another country’s laws, so I guess these artists are being paid like they’re supposed to.”
I bought much music with AllOfMP3, as well as having discovered worlds of music, sometimes remixed that was given away for free to anyone who came by to request the download.
Eventually, my credits on [tag]AllOfMP3[/tag] dried up as they started blocking payments from the USA, so I let that go with a wet flop.
Then, thanks to PayPerPost, I heard about a site called Amie Street, and fell in love with it.
The music’s got a great price tag on it (inexpensive, but legal, and from anyone trying to get their foot in the door, so to speak), and I’ve found a few pretty good artists there.
That, combined with my listening to [tag]Jamendo[/tag], [tag]Pandora[/tag], [tag]SomaFM[/tag], and [tag]OverClocked Remix[/tag]es, plus a few purchases from Sprint’s Music Store are what comprise my music listening points now.
Imagine my annoyance when I get an email that shows how our government, and how the music industry continues to squat on the faces of people who want to legally listen to music!
I spent two days composing my thoughts here, just to get you over to Save Net Radio. I’d appreciate it if you head over there, and help us save something that keeps me legal.
Thanks.
The following is a little copypasta (that would normally go in an email) from the guys and gals at MoveOn.org, a group with a mailing list that I’ve been subscribed to for a while. They sent me an email a little earlier today, which mentioned that our country’s government is attempting to take another slash at public broadcasting (NPR and PBS), which is something that I cannot accept.
When I was a kid, I grew up on PBS. I remember Sesame Street (though Big Bird traumatised me as a child 
More, for another story.), Arthur, The Reppies, Nova, Nature, 3-2-1 CONTACT!, and numerous other shows that showed up on the two PBS channels we have here in Tampa (Channel 3, WEDU; Channel 16, WUSF). In fact, I admit that those were the two channels I enjoyed the most, because they were the way I thought television should be: unfettered by constant reminders to drink Cloaca-Cola, requests to join the Dyspepsian Generation (You got the right one baby, uh-huh), and lacking in reinforcement that sex is a requirement to be popular on television!
I’d like to help save this resource while it still exists.
If I ever were to decide to have children, I would love to have PBS around for them.
I never really got to listen to NPR as a child — I probably thought that it was too boring then, but the issue is, both NPR and PBS are public resources that many of us rely on for news, education, and entertainment. If we let the United States Government take a knife to their already limited budgets, this could easily spell the end of quality television and radio shows in our country.
Therefore, I ask you to help me out. Put your name to this, and show our Government that you want them to show respect to public broadcasting. Put the knife away, and don’t cut their budgets!
Thank you for your time,
— Justin H.
Hi,
President Bush just proposed drastic cuts to NPR and PBS. We’ve stopped similar cuts in the past, but enough is enough: With the new Congress, we can make sure this never happens again.
We need Congress to save NPR and PBS once and for all.
Can you help out by signing this petition to Congress? It’s really easy—just click the link below:
Civic.MoveOn.ORG, Public Broadcasting, Referral link
Thanks!
[tags]Save Public Broadcasting, NPR, PBS, United States, Government, Politics, MoveOn.org, Children’s Programming, Commercial-free News, Commercial-free Television, Petition[/tags]
