if people like you weren't stealing from them

Let's stick to the facts here. I am not stealing anything, nor yet am I advocating theft. If I want an album, I go out & buy it; if it is a passing curiosity lifted from the dark mists of near archaeological obscurity (as in the case of And Now it is So Early - which I hadn't even heard of until a fellow Mudcatter brought my attention to it) I will download it in the same spirit in which it has been uploaded. Be sure, if I ever I saw And Now it is So Early in Oxfam I would pay good money for it - as I often do with such cultural treasures - but I think the chances of that ever happening are about as remote as some enterprising label reissuing it on CD. Is it still theft in your book, Ruth? Should we just walk on by least we dirty our ears with such tainted music? Or, for the love of such a beautiful & unholy racket do we give thanks that we have a chance to hear it at all? Because one thing's for sure, you will never hear its like in today's climate of bland corporate Folk aestheticism. Like I say, no one is losing out here - and, more to the point, no one is gaining anything either, other than the opportunity to hear something wonderful that they wouldn't otherwise have heard.

The issue of otherwise available albums is something very different but I will say that I do firmly believe those of the Folk Mindset would never do such a thing because the consequent guilt would destroy them. In the past, friends would sent me cassettes of their favourite albums; these days they might send me a blog link. If I do choose to download the album - and it's a big if - and I like it (an even bigger if) - I will then go out and buy it, just as I bought the albums I liked from the cassette copies of yore, so I might appreciate them in their full glory - cover and all. God knows the amount of music I've bought from such recommendations and long may it continue to be so!

People share their passions, and sharing music is part of that exchange; broadband internet makes the sharing easier, especially in the context of personal networking. It's a fact of life, and a fascinating aspect of folklore to boot. One can but wonder how analogous this is to The Folk Process - people copying songs from other singers and broadsheet sources and singing them on in the days before recording technology made copyright & ownership an issue thereby making music into the commodity that it is today. As Peter says, music is so much more than a commodity - it certainly didn't start as a commodity, nor yet does it affect us as a commodity; music is a vivid dimension of our natural born spirituality - it carries meaning that transcends the commonplace & the mundane, and if people hear something they are moved by it is pretty instinctive to wish to spread the word, which is all, I think, that is happening here.