Technophobic in many things, I have only ever committed my credit card details to the internet, kicking and screaming, in order to buy plane tickets from Virgin Blue, since it's so bloody difficult to buy them any other way. Otherwise I have stayed away even from irresistible sites like Amazon, fearful of credit card fraud even though I know perfectly well that hackers don't need your credit card number to do you over; they can get, through the banks, at the hard-earneds even of computerless people who are still keeping secret cash stashes in the teapot.
But a new era has dawned. iTunes Australia opened today.
THEY'VE got my credit card number. If necessary I would have given them my tax file number, my passport number, my front door key and my first-born, if I had one, as well.
I've already downloaded the live acoustic version from San Franciso of Missy Higgins singing The Special Two, as well as Steve Earle's Copperhead Road which still stands my hair on end, Jane Siberry's gorgeous The Life is the Red Wagon from what I think was her first album, and Emmylou Harris singing Hickory Wind which I haven't heard for about fifteen years. For some reason it won't let me download Sting singing Fields of Gold, and they haven't got Leonard Cohen's Alexandra Leaving at all. But it's early days.
6 comments:
Hmm... Just a quick question... Why didn't you just download them for free off the Internet ages ago? (or if we want to be trendy, the iNet)
Well, to quote John Griffiths on crikey.com.au today:
"You might have noticed quite a lot of people around lately with white earphones protruding from their heads. Most of them are listening to an iPod. Up until now they had two ways to get music into their ears.
Either they went to a record store to buy a CD which they would rip onto their computer. Or they would chance their arm on pirate networks, infested with record company poison pills and tricksy malware."
Damn those "white eatphones". Damn them to hell.
I obtained an iPod Photo through a raffle win about six months ago, and have regretted it ever since. They're simple to use, and look cute, but that's it. Kinda like if Fischer Price made an MP3 player. I'll keep using my MP3 stick, thanks, which is faster, doesn't crash, and I can copy whatever music I like straight onto it without using iTunes (and can copy music back off without a hack).
But yeah, I never have any problems with the pirate networks. I haven't had a virus or spyware in over 4 years (oh, I surf pirate networks daily and DON'T have any anti-virus installed). Some people call it lucky, I call it skill.
It's like paying for a limo ride when you could just as easily drive there yourself, if you weren't afraid of having an accident ;-)
PS: Not trying to troll here! :-) Just trying to make people aware that "iPod" does not equal "be all and end all of digital music". iPods really make me angry at how an inferior product can be marketed really well (think VHS vs Beta, etc).
Did I say "white eatphones"? Hahahahahaha. I meant earphones, of course. :-þ
'Course, the other thing about pirate networks and downloading for free is that some might say it was immoral as well as illegal. I don't mind ripping off the record companies because they do it to us all the time, but you're also ripping off the artists, every time you violate their copyright. As a freelance writer I have extensive and expensive personal experience of people violating my copyright, and since it makes me grind my teeth with rage, it would be deeply hypocritical of me to do it to somebody else.
Ceduna Shell sels the cards up next to the check out where the cherry ripes used to be.
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