Wherever possible, I buy whatever I use, musically. Exceptions -- locally pressed, now sold out, limited run local bands are a big one. Out of print anything. Live radio broadcasts that didn't air where I live. I will -- if possible -- download cuts from an album I am thinking of purchasing. And, if I like what I heard, I'll buy it. If I don't, at least I didn;t waste twenty dollars. Because I got to hear it, I'm buying the new Joni Mitchell. For all the noise made about downloading, I've always seen collectable records dealers as even bigger pirates. I remember paying about $90 for a doo-wop single once, and thinking that nobody who was on that record was gonna see a dime of it, but that the dealer made $75 on a record he found in a warehouse full of unsold singles. The group didn't even see a regular royalty for a first sale, and, when it was finally made, for pretty serious bucks, they got nothing. skip h
I see one difference in position here - Steve is talking about copying a whole CD, Skip is talking about one tune on a compilation CD. These are two very different matters and should not be considered comparable at all. I happen to agree with Skip on the compilation issue. While it's still technically illegitimate copying, it's considerably more acceptable than duplicating an entire CD.