Piracy

music piracy is the wave of the future, and is currently revolutionizing the way media is distributed. i suggest you start with the following blog post by famed goth producer Rob Sheridan, entitled "when pigs fly - the death of oink, the brth of dissent, and a brief history of record label suicide" http://www.demonbaby.com/blog/2007/10/when-pigs-fly-death-of-oink-birth-of.html

now for the meat - how to use torrents to download anything you want. there are a large variety of programs that utilize torrents, and every one works a bit differently. if you're on a PC i suggest www.utorrent.com ; on the Mac i use www.azureus.com . both offer napster-esque lists of what you're downloading in a single streamlined browser, as opposed to some programs which will open a new window for each new download.

once you have downloaded and installed your program, leave it alone for a minute while you find something to download. there are hundreds, thousands of websites online that host torrent files and trackers (the files tell you what you're downloading and what it should look like; trackers help connect you with the other people who have the music you need); some require registration, some not. unfortunately the best usually require that you either be invited by a member or that you happen to check the site during one of the infrequent open registration periods. my personal favorite, www.demonoid.com , falls inot that category.

luckily there are plenty that will allow you to just jump on, search, and grab what you need. you can find a whole long list of those sorts of sites right here:

audionews.ru (Music production) blackflowermusic.com btbeat.com bt.etree.org btmusic.org chronictracker.com deepbassnine.com dimeadozen.org djiq.org filemp3.org funkytorrents.com indietorrents.com kerrazy-torrents.net libble.com metal-torrents.com onemoresolo.net pj.sidewalkcrusaders.com (Pearl Jam) punkhc.dyndns.org punktorrents.com purelivegigs.com smithstorrents.co.uk (The Smiths/Morrissey) stmusic.org thecellar.afraid.org themixingbowl.org thetradersden.org torrentazos.com tracker.twee.se trancetraffic.com zombtracker.the-zomb.com exigomusic.org vipmusic.org modetrance.com tranceroute.com softmp3.org punkoiska.com metalbits.org tracker.gunsnroses.us (Guns ‘n’ Roses) mullemeck.serveftp.org/jps_beta/ (Japanese/Asian) nipponsei.minglong.org (Anime OSTs) tracker.shoegaze.lt/ (Shoegaze, Dreampop) puretrance.org (Trance) tracker.jpopsuki.com (J-pop) zonebits.net (Primarily Danish music) komodoisland.net tracker.shoegaze.lt (Shoegaze, indie, post-rock) proaudiotorrents.org (pretty self-explanatory) u2torrents.com (U2) and don’t forget: thepiratebay.org mininova.org meganova.org suprnova.org isohunt.com torrentspy.com torrentz.com

open site, search for what you want. make sure you doublecheck what exactly you're downloading; you don't want to spend an hour downloading a concert only to realize you downloaded .flac files and have no program that plays or burns .flacs.

when you've found what you want, there'll be some sort of download button. what you're getting here is a .torrent file - NOT the actual stuff you want. either open the .torrent file in uTorrent/Azureus or set it to automatically open when downloaded. the download will pop up on the list and hopefully start powering away within a few minutes.

here's a few more things to keep in mind.

1. as long as you have the torrent program and torrent open, you are both downloading AND uploading each file simultaneously. seeders are those people who have downloaded the entire thing but continue sharing it with those who haven't; leechers are the ones who have part of it. without any seeders, a torrent dies, and can no longer be completely downloaded. leave your torrents open and seed when done, or the whole system dies. (note, though, that if you attempt to move/delete the files that were downloaded without somehow letting the program know you're doing that, it will redownload them!)

2. torrents are way safer than the record labels would have you believe. just watch out for those HBO/Fox television shows and/or movies, or for the "hottest" new releases by the "hottest" no-talent label-lackey fucks out there.

3. some sites (demonoid) that make you register will actually track your upload-vs-download ratio, and if you download considerably more than you upload, you can be banned. the recently-deceased oink was like this as well. generally, though, it's not too hard to keep up on uploads. just let everything you download return to the net for a while; get used to leaving your computer on overnight.

4. while rare, sometimes you MIGHT get a virus. remember that if you got a virus from something, though, so did all those other people who downloaded it, and once you all figure it out and stop downloading it you kill the torrent and save the rest of the internet. the .torrent file does something called Hash Checks, wherein it doublechecks the data you have downloaded from other people against what it knows the data is supposed to look like. if there's a discrepancy, that piece is immediately trashed and reacquired.

5. discographies are god.

6. once you're comfortable doing this, buy an external hard drive. keep up any kind of normal downloading pace and you'll need it ASAP, especially once you start using those sites to look up movies and television shows in addition to music.

the revolution is fucking now