This is the about the 4th time this has happened to me. I was curious about a band that I've never heard before. So I downloaded a song or two of theirs. After falling in love with it, I bought the cd. I just did this with the Streetlight Manifesto. I saw them mentioned on a thread here, so I downloaded "here's to life". Holy crap. For once I have completely enjoyed ska. I just bought a cd of half.com.

I haven't enjoyed music that much since the last time this happened to me. Someone posted lyrics for Reinventing Axle Rose by Against Me!. Sweet mother of Jesus this is the greatest band ever. It makes music fun and meaningful at the same time. I bought the cd. Two days ago I downloaded sink, florida, sink. I loved it so much that I decided to by another cd of theirs. So far I've been boosting record sales. Sure one was used, but it was still legit.

Before that happened I had bootlegged Microwaved from Pitchshifter. Yup, you guessed it, I bought their Deviant cd. Before that I downloaded from At the Gates and as a side effect bought "the red sky is ours".

Then I downloaded something from Nickleback. I wasn't too happy with it, so I deleted the song.

So far, all my illegalness has only boosted the economy and record sales. Is downloading songs really that big of an issue? I find it hard to believe that some people will download thousands of songs. If the number of songs could be limited, I don't see why the record companies/Metallica would complain.

Please don't ban me for this, I checked the rules and I am complying with them.

Believe it or not it's true.

And yea, Nickleback is pretty lame.

I just bought a Cowboys Fringants CD after my buddy send me an MP3 of one of the non-single songs on it. Good stuff.

My friend sent me Reise Reise (The entire CD) about a week before it came out in Germany. I love Rammstein, and I want to support them, so the day it came out in America I bought the CD. When I go to germany in April 'm going to buy the Amerika single CD as well. Also a few Dream Theater CD's, Metallica, and the band Tourniquet. I know own 3 or more CD's from each of these bands. I heard through friends sending me mp3s.

I haven't really illegally downloaded many songs, but I have downloaded a bunch from epitonic and Amazon. After hearing some MP3s from some bands off those sites, I bought some of their CDs. I did this with Enon, Mates of State, The New Pornographers, Say Hi To Your Mom, and Sigur Ros. I really think that artists that offer some of their songs for download are really smart, I would have never bought any of those CDs if I didn't download any of their songs first.

EDIT: Spelling

Tell that to the RIAA.

I downloaded a few Rammstein songs off the internet because I heard alot of people giving good feedback about their music. I liked their music alot and bought some of their cd's. I've done this before with a few other bands, but I cant really remember which ones...

I'll be honest, I download a lot of music from the internet. However, as a result of my downloading music, I've gotten 2 Tool CDs, 2 Dream Theater CDs, 5 No Doubt CDs, 3 Nightwish CDs... A lot of times I'll download one album, and if I like it, I'll go out and buy their other albums.

south park got it right, even if someone rips off all your albums, if you're a good band then they'll still buy gig tickets and t-shirts.

the problem with the RIAA is they can't distinguish between the jerks that always download the cds and never buy, from the nice people that only get a few songs, get the cds and other merch.

You really think the RIAA gives a crap about people's honesty? Of course not. They just want the profits. Internet filesharing is the best thing that's happened to artists since recording music became possible. Some of them are just too dumb to realize it and exploit it to their potential. In the end it only hurts the really popular artists whom everyone already knows. Everyone else has something to gain from it.

The RIAA don't like it because it essentially means they're no longer needed for promotion. Everybody knows the real profit comes from shows, not CD sales. Selling CDs has always been a sort of publicity to get fans to come to the shows, and to get their music heard at the same time.

I'd suggest Big D and the Kid's Table, Minus the Bear, and Colossal.

My god, they're all sexy, sexy beasts of bands.

If it wasn't for file-sharing, I wouldn't have been exposed to 80% of the music that I listen to. I'm not wealthy enough to throw money away on a CD on the chance that it might be good, and unfortunately, since much of my music isn't available at local stores, that's what I'd be forced to do, without file-sharing, as well as [url]www.allofmp3.com.[/url] I need to listen to a CD in its entirety before I buy it, and if I enjoy it enough, and wish to support the artist, I will purchase it.

I don't pretend to buy every CD that I like. As a matter of fact, I only legally purchase about 2% (estimation) of the music that I listen to. However, I pay for what I can, and since I don't share music, and am already spending the maximum amount of money that I'm able to spend on music, the artists aren't losing any money. In my case, my illegal downloading of music has resulted in friends purchasing tons music that I've told them about and let them listen to, and so on.