Editor, Daily Nexus,

Illegal downloading is pretty sweet. This movement to stop people from enjoying music is a joke. A lot of people are being too greedy to realize that if it wasn’t for these “illegal” downloads many bands wouldn’t make it in the music business. The music industry needs to realize that by allowing people to download music for free, they are getting free exposure; the type of free publicity that bands strive to receive. These “illegal” downloads are what get bands into the mainstream. Sorry Download Legal, the organization fighting piracy, but if you weren’t so money-crazed you might see “illegal” downloading for what it really is, a way for bands to make it into the big time, to become famous!

One of my major issues with the article by Nicki Arnold (“National Group Aims to Reduce Student Piracy,” Daily Nexus Feb. 8), is the claim made that “illegal downloading hurts many small record labels and emerging artists.” Nonsense, if anything it’s hurting the musicians that have already made it to the big time and are too drugged out to go on another tour, so they need the CD and record sales. It appears to all come down to greed. Why are they charging $20 dollars for a CD that probably costs less than a tenth of that to produce? According to the emerging punk/grind band Magrudergrind of Washington D.C., “free downloading defiantly helped our name get out there” and “from the bands standpoint, the more it gets out there the better. It will help live shows and people who might download the record on the internet a lot of times want to buy it on vinyl at the shows.” Think about that Download Legal, emerging artists are actually benefiting from piracy! Furthermore, as long as there’s music to be heard, listen to it by any means necessary.

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