It seems as though every day night brings with it a new nominee for the title of "longest day ever". If it wasn't for all the new music I've procured via $0u1$33k, I'd probably have gone completely mental by now. The long hours, many of them by myself, spent waiting for scans to finish (I'm fourteen hours into the latest such marathon) and the overwhelming boredom of all that time alone would have sent me running for the nearest loony bin (and I'm working in the sticks, so it would have been a long run). Instead, I have an endless supply of mp3's, a fridge stocked with food and beer, and one of the greatest music threads ever to keep me company.

This ILM thread was one of most entertaining (and rapidly expanding) music "discussions" I've ever seen. Wickedly funny, artistically embarrassing (at times), and more addictive than crack.

On more serious notes, a couple of interesting file-sharing stories were released. The Canadian "file sharing is not illegal" ruling even made the NME's news banner. Of course, Canadians are taxed on all blank media whether they are used for legal or "illegal" downloading/copying, in other words, the industry assumes that everyone is going to download and just takes its royalties regardless of whether that blank CD will hold music or Worddocs. However, that doesn't seem to have been a primary issue in this particular judgement.

A study out of UNC and the Harvard Business School concluded that "illegal" downloading aids music sales. I've been writing and saying that for years, as have many other people, so hopefully there will be more follow-up studies that concur. These researchers understand that downloading creates new music fans. The math can be so simple. If you start out with 10 music fans, and two of them go download crazy and stop buying music, then according to the RIAA, that's a 20% drop in sales. They choose to ignore the benefits -- the ease of downloading and word of mouth pub it generates can easily turn 10 music fans into 20 music fans. That's twice as many people who are into music than before, twice as many people who could buy music and go to concerts and buy magazines and surf music websites. Obviously if downloading is so rampant, it means that the number of music lovers is growing. Any industry would kill for that kind of interest (not to mention that sort of attention from a youth demographic).

I don't want to beat a horse than I beat to death many moons ago and is now decomposing in a field somewhere. Screw the RIAA and let's leave it at that. If you'll pardon me, I'm going to return to my morning wake-up call of Arvo Part while the sun blinds me through a nearby window.