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Even for an old dude like me, who thinks Puff Daddy is a magic dragon, a visit to a music store can dent finances. Just a couple of days ago, I came home $100 lighter from shopping for some swinging new sounds, like that "Mob Hits" album of music from Mafia movies in which people who share my Italian heritage get whacked, plus Kathie Lee Gifford's popular collection of Songs Your Parakeet Could Sing Better Than I Can.
Napster could have saved me big bucks.
All I needed to do was follow three easy steps, so easy a child could do it: (1) Find a child who could teach me how to use a computer; (2) Choose the artists whose music filled my soul with ecstasy, like Andrea Bocelli and Nancy Sinatra, then (3) Download every song they ever sang in their lives.
Cool.
It got me thinking of all the money I'd squandered in my youth, running to a record store to buy the latest albums by musicians whose work would never go out of style, like Chubby Checker or the Cowsills. What a waste it would have been to shell out 10 bucks on something unimportant like shoes, when I could spend it on something far more necessary, like a new album by the Turtles.
"Napster is for me," I said.
But before I could load one single single into my private stash of tunes, I had to ask myself something. Namely, is this right? Isn't this stealing? Doesn't a record belong exclusively to its label? How can my favorite heavy-metal acts like Metallica or Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass make a living if paying customers like me are suddenly ripping them off for free?
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