AW: MP3( wasRe: swap CDs, for musicians only, slightly ot)

[jh]

>Whilst I dont mind swapping CD's two things annoy me emmensly about >MP3.
>1) theres a lot of bootlegged stuff on the internet, its wrong/illegal/ and 
>simply unfair, its like Kevins problem.. Why should I (or any artist) spend 
>weeks/months/years makeing an album to have someone rip it off? dont get >me 
>wrong, I dont mind swapping my stuff with another list member, but Id be 
>pretty pissed if the other list member sent it to someone else without at 
>least asking me first!
>2) The quality is simply not there... sorry, but theres something missing 
>from an MP3 even when conbverted back to full 16bit 44.1Khz wav.
>
>Just my two penneth..
<
>Paul

I very much agree with that. MP3 is good for a demo or preview, in order
to let a potential customer get an idea of what he might be going to buy.
But for the "real thing" I want to hold something in my hands. It's not
even the sound quality in the first place. 
I've been doing swaps of music, first cassettes, then CD's, with a friend
in my home town for many years, and it was *always* that kind of
pleasant excitement and anticipation when I knew that something was
in the mail, and receiving it would mean first priority to listen to it in
the evening of the very same day when it arrived. Gives the whole
thing a kind of "value", which it wouldn't have with impatient downloading,
listen to a few seconds, well, try the next piece, and then, would I go
thru the hassle to record it to a CD or tape, or would it just vanish on
the hard disk of my noisy PC. 
Would you want your music be treated like that ? I know the same
thing can happen with CDs, but it's less likely.

Just my personal opinion. If someone wants a brief impression of my
music, he can download short mp3 sniplets from my homepage. If
he happens to like it and wants the whole thing, he has to buy the CD.

JH.