Originally posted by Sammy:
The only ones I've downloaded are ones that couldn't be streamed and then I retained them just long enough to hear them once or twice to decide whether I liked them and then deleted them. And, as far as I can remember, these were all by independent artists who encouraged this so that people could hear what they sound like.

No need to delete them, if you don't want to. If indy artists put up their music for downloading, help yourself. That's why its there.

Now my point: How does anyone find out about new music and artists? 30 years ago, radio was that source because the stations then played a wide variety of music and artists. Radio today is boring and monotonous, playing the same 20 to 30 songs over and over and over . . .

I feel some form of internet sampling is needed because of this deficiency in modern radio programming.

This is a great point and one I think the record companies and the artists are going to have to address. However, until the majors decide to give away "free samples" it is just as wrong to steal a recording as it is to steal a candy bar just to get a "sample" of it.

As to the state of today's radio, I must assume either you are too young to know what radio was like 30 years ago, or that you have a poor memory. While it is true that top-40, pop radio is amazingly repetitious, I can assure you that the variety available on contemporary radio is enormously larger than it was 30 years ago.


.

[This message has been edited by TrumanCoyote (edited 09-15-2003).]