I Love the Interwebs, Part 455
Last night, I found I couldn’t buy the classic “Paranoid” by Sabbath from iTunes, so I downloaded it from bittorrent. I’m gearing up for the next version of Guitar Hero which includes the classic “War PIgs.” I wanted to study it like a text book.
Looking at all of the music available, I noticed one file which called to me with its siren song. Some kind soul (or souls) had taken the list of Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs and put them together in one huge file. The whole thing weighed in at about 2.5 gigs, and given bittorrent’s effective multi-downloading, I was able to get it overnight. Overnight, some of contemporary culture’s greatest songs at my fingertips, for free. Let’s ignore the legality of such a thing. It’s amazing that this is even possible.
I get the distinct impression, that despite the RIAA’s ill-concieved and terribly executed campaign against downloading, that we’re slowly morphing into a culture of open source sharing and collaboration that will only get fueled by the increasing effectiveness of technology.
That’s a fancy-pants way of saying, ain’t no stopping us now.