exo : blah

After a fashion anyway. Poking through the weekend's Observer I came across an article on the decline of independent music shops which is saddening in itself. They're great places in which I've spent many happy hours. More saddening was this tale from the owner of such a shop.

'There was a guy came in last night,' he says, 'a young bloke of about 22. He said he wanted a couple of posters we had on display, and offered to buy them off me. I said, "I don't really like to charge for them - just buy an album, and I'll give them to you." He said, "Oh, I don't really buy albums any more. I download everything." What did I say to him? Oh, I gave him the posters. You've got to be friendly.'

What can you do in the face of such staggering ignorance? You walk into a shop and cheerfully inform the owner that you are undermining his whole business for the sake of a tenner or so. Just buy a fucking album. Given how much money you'll have saved from downloading stuff you think you could at least see you way to handing over the cost of an album. Think of it as a charitable donation if you like.

As a footnote I'd like to say it's not that I'm pro the RIAA and it's heavy handed tactics to cling onto it's bloated, creatively bankrupt business model. Just that I'm not sure how distributing music for free makes things better. After all, if you find the RIAA and their cronies that egregious there are ways to avoid buying from RIAA members.