The Future Is... (a Moral Dilemma)...

...Now?

Thanks to my friend Aaron for linking this video:

So that got me thinking - I've finally made the switch from desktop to laptop for most of what I do. I can't imagine going to a mobile device for most of my internet usage - so I'm a dinosaur, I know. Who knows.

Fun fact from the video is that 40 million people have been rickrolled - and if you don't know what that is, check out Wikipedia. Anyway, I sort of got rick rolled (not really, since it's not "Never Gonna Give You Up" - well, it isn't even Rick Astley, but...let me explain).

So here's the deal, and I say this with a hope that some of you who read this will actually comment with your opinion about my moral dilemma.

Here's what happened: I own early Boston on cassette. My tape deck is slowly going the way of the buffalo but I want to get digital copies of stuff I have on cassette. So I turned to torrents - you know, peer-to-peer networks - to download stuff that I own in analog format digitally. My moral dilemma is: is this ethical? I don't have any interest in buying the CDs (that's what I have my iPod for) and I CAN copy them from cassette to the computer and create the digital versions myself...but this saves time. But is it wrong? Is it even legal?

And here's what happened - I downloaded the first Boston album and there's a track on it called "Something About You". And I'm listening to the album and suddenly there's a cheesy 80s pop song playing - and I swore it was Rick Astley singing, but it was Level 42's "Something About You" - which is quite a shock when you're expecting another Tom Sholtz riff... So, I guess I Level42 Rolled...or whatever...

So, any thoughts?



Comments

Michael Airgood said…
I don't see any ethical problem ... as long as you destroy the tapes after you have the digital copies (or put them in storage and never play them again ... which is what will happen if you don't destroy them.)
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