Alone

No moral distinction has been given for how obtaining the music for preview is different whether through Rhapsody/Myspace/iTunes or IsoHunt (A torrent site). The name calling (lazy, thief, etc...) is unjustified because you're failing to make the distinction. Your central argument is "this is not the method the band/distributor chooses to interact with you" Whether or not the media is stored in cache on my hard drive or in an mp3 player is immaterial, it's still a digital copy obtained for free. The failed attempt here on your part, is to draw a distinction between the bits/bytes as they stream through to your PC (volitile memory), and when they are stored on your PC (cached), or as bits in an mp3 player. No such distinction exists, nor is any distinction meaningful. Here is another related topic... to further highlight how meaningless the distinction is. How about when you purchase a CD and you copy it to preserve the original disk... to prolong its life... to convert it into Mp3 format for use on your Mp3 player? These are all seperate copies of the same music. How about when the disk becomes so scratched that it no longer plays, and you then choose to go download the CD instead of buying a new one? How is allowing a friend to "borrow" a CD for preview different than allowing a stranger to "borrow" a digital copy for preview? ...since you seem to think going over to a friends house to preview a CD was a satisfactory solution. Perceptions of digital rights are already conforming to the fact that you can't "own" bits/bytes, and that attempting to police over "digital rights" is futile, and many examples exist. Recently an artist "Moby" marketed an album with a price tag on it that you could determine when you picked it up at the store. Just pay what you want. He also made the album available for free download online. Sites like "Hulu" are popping up more frequently now, because broadcasting stations understand they can't prevent the redistribution of their media... and they're making it all available for free in high quality. Even Monty Python has a high quality youtube channel, accessible at no charge... so that poorer quality videos become non-existant. The realization here is that it is a prerequisite for participation on the internet to conceed that what you put out there will be traded and copied without end. The internet, and information technology in general, have introduced new spins on morality such that old principles cannot be applied in the same way. ...so spare me your oversimplifications and spare me the name calling. If you would like to attempt to draw a distinction, feel free... otherwise you've got no leg to stand on.

I read Mansons biography The Long Hard Road Out of Hell, and it really helped me connect with his perspective on a much deeper level, after having already been a fan of his music for over a decade. I recommend the book to anyone interested in his body of work. http://www.amazon.com/Long-Hard-Road-Out-Hell/dp/0060987464 As a child brought up in a southern baptist home, his brand of rebellion appealed to me. His ability to point out the ironic and the contradictory intrigued me. The passion he infused in his music seemed genuine and brutally honest. The gruesomeness with which he presented his work is the constant reminder of how he views the things he criticises. I wrote a semiotics piece years ago linking together Marilyn Manson, The Founding Fathers of the United States, and an article Peikoff wrote Religion vs. America... which when boiled down the central theme was "The fight for the right ideas begins with the destruction of Christianity in America." Its not well written, as I was a freshman in college, but I could dig it up if anyone is interested about how I integrated all of that. I've enjoyed every album he's made except "Eat me, Drink me" although I haven't really given that album a chance. I also didn't know about "The High End of Low" so I'll be stopping after work to pick that up.

No, their first album was some horrible jazz thing about hot dancers and getting high called Fungus Among Us. In my opinion Science is their best work, and after Make Yourself the band just took a sharp nose dive, became overly commercialized and started cranking out singles and trash albums. Science In Order 1) Redefine > 2) Vitamin > 3) New Skin > 4) Idiot Box > 5) Glass > 6) Magic Medicine > 7) A Certain Shade of Green > 8) Favorite Things > 9) Antigravity > 10) Nebula > 11) Deep Inside > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kICLkq7jCCc 12) Cologne > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpDCzsOqUZk Hugely influential album for me when I was growing up.

Posting in defense of a great band. "A primary purpose of Keenan's lyrics for Tool involves a desire to connect with the listeners on a personal level; to encourage them to look within themselves for self-identity, understanding and reflection." Popular themes throughout the music include... Personal Growth, (46&2) Personal Freedom as being Achieved through the an expansion in consciousness, (Third Eye) Thinking for yourself (Opiate) Useful Idiot, (track is the sound of a record at its end that keeps spinning) Perseverance, (The Patient) (Parabola) Rejection of the Mind/Body, Dichotomy (Lateralus) Rejection of parasitic people / cleansing, (Ticks and Leeches) Stand for your Principles (The Grudge) And yes, 10k Days was a condemnation of American Consumerist Instant Gratification Culture. Bands like Tool, Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson etc... write from that perspective where they intentionally try to disgust you with a theme, and then reveal to you that you should be feeling this disgust for yourself (those who buy into the cultural poisons they criticize). ...not to mention the musicians in that band are some of the most talented in the industry. I also want to point out that I don't believe their pseudo-spiritual slant is anything but a strategy for provoking the listener into abstract thinking. These guys are not philosophers, they are musicians. They do drugs, and write abstractly about their own life experiences.

Incubus had a lot of Individualist "think for yourself and be yourself" themed music on Science and Make Yourself. Most of the music that appeals to my individualism is themed at criticizing people and things that aren't particularly individualistic... notably religion and religious people.

Right, and the scam artists I'm referring to will sell you an album that is 9/10th's crap with 3:00 minute manufactured songs with 3 cords and no substance... marketed with 1 decent single. The unit of value in the exchange is an album, unless you're buying singles online (I obviously don't). Suppose I operate on the assumption that the quality of said album ought to be reflected by the quality of said single, and it isn't. Scam artist band is marketing 9/10ths crap and luring people into buying it with 1/10ths quality. This isn't relevant whether many people regard it as valuable. Whether or not "many people" regard singles as valuable says nothing about my valuation of them. It isn't a majority rules vote for what is and is not of value. ....If you don't value that kind of music, don't buy it... Of course the little problem you're dismissing is that, since I'm not an omniscient being... whether or not I commit to buying something that I like would require that I know that I like it before I buy it, and I can't know that unless I spend time with the music. @ loads of convenient legitimate ways for you to preview a song or album before you buy it How could a "preview" be enough to determine whether or not a band is worth giving money to or not? Rhapsody, Amazon, nor poor quality Radio, give me enough to make a solid value judgment on a band. One minute previews are not sufficient for anyone with any level of sophistication in their musical tastes. This would be the equivalent of looking to buy a car, and during the test drive you were only allowed to circle the parking lot once and weren't allowed to test any of the instrumentation or electronics. The fact that they allow Rhapsody, Amazon, and the Radio give "free previews" of their music to the general public indicates that the creators and distributes do want to distribute their music this way. Through mass exposure. The concept of someone wanting to preview their music is obviously satisfactory to both the creators and the distributors. My "free preview" is no different, only more in depth to suit my taste in music. @any other way you choose to acquire the music is a form of theft, whether you wind up liking and purchasing the music or not. The difference between the music streaming through a radio, amazon at the click of a button, or rhapsody at the click of a button is no different than with the click of a button off a torrent site. The concept remains the same, they want to make their music available for preview so that people become exposed to it and are hopefully drawn to buy it. I've also heard of record labels putting albums on torrent sites before the album releases to stir up hype and generate a buzz in anticipation for an album release. They use it as marketing strategy now. I don't support labeling it "theft" when someone hands you something and goes "hey check this out, and if you like this buy it."

I have the type of taste that prefers a good album over a good single. Bands that write/play singles, to me, are scam artists. My defense mechanism against this scam artistry is piracy, it allows me to distinguish between bands that are genuinely worth giving money to, and bands that would have otherwise suckered me into buying an album with a decent single. I download a copy of an album, and listen to it for maybe a week. If I like the album I'll go buy it, because promoting good bands is important to me. I feel it is also equally important to not promote awful bands. 8) Morally I find this no different than buying an album, disliking it, and attempting to return it... except I save gas money driving back and forth from places that sell CD's. A store won't allow you to return a CD because you got the album home and decided that the band was bad... they would obviously believe you took the album home... ripped it... and are trying to get your money back. I don't think I'm being morally inconsistent with this approach at all.