Might as well become a criminal

I decided that in this time of change, I should do something crazy. And since drinking, drugs, smoking, cussing, exercising, and having the sex are out, I had to find something a bit more low-key. So I have embraced the criminal activity of P2P file-sharing.

I know! Are you shocked?

It was actually my Legal & Professional Issues class here which made me question whether or not I should be worrying about copyright infringement all the time. And yes, I realize how twisted that is. I'm sure by the time I've finished writing a dissertation all about Open Access, and about how people should just stop being so darn stingy with their stuff, I probably won't have any principles left. I'll have a pirate name and everything! Aaaaarrrrr!

(This doesn't mean, though, that I'll be okay with people using my stuff in nefarious ways. If anyone tries to pass my stuff off as theirs, I'll mess them up with my pirate weaponry.)

I decided to download the sountrack from The Last of the Mohicans. And no, I'm not a geek, so shut up. I wanted to hear something inspirational, okay? Also Daniel Day-Lewis + Hair Extensions + Buckskin = Hot. Only when I did the search in LimeWire, I found out that the P2P world is a mess, people. I found the exact same track listed under the following names:

Enya - Last of the Mohicans - Promentory
last of mohicans--yanni
James Horner - Last of the Mohicans theme
John Williams - last of the mohicans theme
Last of the Mohicans (Riverdance) theme
Clannad--last of mohicans--proment
Last of the Mohicans (irish fiddle) yanni
(and lots of variants of the above)

The track I was looking for was "Promentory" from the soundtrack by Trevor Jones and Randy Edelman. How in the world is anyone meant to slog through all that junk? And who is doing the labeling on these things? Are they just picking names out of thin air or something? I'm telling you. Those people need a librarian, because that is just shameful. No wonder people are willing to just buy the stuff off I-Tunes where at least they'll get the right thing. I downloaded an entire track which turned out to be something from Braveheart, which, you know, is actually a completely different film altogether and contains bagpipes. So not only do they need a librarian, but they possibly also need an additional system for ensuring that uploaded files are labeled correctly--like possibly a hand with a gun that comes out of the screen and shoots offenders in the face.

So then I gave BitTorrent a go, and 14 hours later I had my soundtrack. Only then I had to email WR to find out how to open APE files because they wouldn't open, and he kindly obliged by providing a link to this extra software I had to download, which did work.

But seriously, this? This didn't feel like cheating The Man. This felt like work, people. And I just don't know if I'm cut out for the criminal life anymore.

Posted in: England