by Jason Parker

WINMX, have you checked it out yet. WINMX.com, it's the next big thing in file sharing. Well, another awards show down and 50 more to go. My own political views aside, I was happy to see that with the exception of Fred Durst, not too many chose to voice their anti-war feelings, or at least weren't allowed to do so. Not because I'm for or against war but because it's a joke to do so at the Grammy's. Just present or accept the award and shut up. I expected to hear someone say something much nastier than what Durst said. Something like " the W. in George W. Bush stands for Warmonger."

I was also happily surprised that no anti file sharing music piracy comments were made by anyone. When someone rants on about that stuff and says that file sharing takes money out of the mouths of the artists who create music, I laugh. Why? Because Madonna is reported as having the best record deal, she gets about $1.75 last I heard. That leaves about 16 bucks left. And where does the rest of that money go? It sure doesn't keep cold Evian in the dressing room of your favorite spoiled pop princess, a steady flow of weed or coke in your dreamy crotch-stuffing rocker, or the Cristal flowing in the homes of the hottest hip hop artists.

Instead that money keeps fat, white, greedy CEO's and other higher ups along with their families in fat cribs and rides. So who is starving who? Exactly. So go forth and download and share and swap my friends. File sharing will never end as long as there is the internet to do it on. What's the difference between downloading songs and then burning them to a CD or borrowing a CD from a friend and making a copy? Nothing really except often times your friends CD will produce a CD copy with much better sound quality.

Those fat white greedy CEO's shouldn't be so bent on shutting down file sharing companies and programs, after all isn't it the advances in technology that have been the ultimate downfall in CD sales and many things for that matter? I was making compilation CD's 6 years ago, before Napster, Kazaa, Bearshare, and Winmx.

The process I used was a bit slower as it was a real time burner that wrote from a CD I borrowed so I had to sit there and monitor the machines as it burned. But thanks to technology I can now download a few songs overnight on my horribly slow 56k dialup, get up the next morning and burn them to disc before I even get undressed for a shower and a shave.

I will concede that burnt CD's are not the same as purchased CD's in that you don't get the hassle of opening the thing. And if the sound quality is off on a file, you get a tin sound and that sucks. Personally downloading songs from the net only make me more interested in an artist and makes me want to go and buy their CD. Besides if some inbred hillbilly can log on to that there internet superhighway and download their favorite David Allen Cole songs and burn them to CD for a cost of maybe one dollar, why can't you purchase a CD for cheaper than you could 5 years ago?

Remember to kill your T.V. because it's just going to be pictures of Iraq for the next few months.