MoCheeks.com

Muxtape & Piracy In The Digital (and Analog) Age

 Disclaimer:  This is not another blog rant about how flawed muxtape.com is for not having better piracy protection, nor placing wagers on how long it’ll be until the RIAA shuts them down. —- 

Back in the “old days” I was recording songs off of the radio onto cassette tapes with the best of them. I was an early adopter to CDs too, and paid a good amount of money (especially for a kid) for an external 2x CD burner. With that, it got much easier to make mix-CDs (still known as “mixtapes”). 

CDs & computers made making mixtapes noticeably easier.  In high school, I was one of the kids selling CDs to my classmates. Also like anyone else, my girlfriend has received a few lovely mixtapes as gifts in our day. One especially fun pastime was exchanging mixtapes with my brothers of our favorite songs. 

Because of my obsession with CDs I was a (relatively) late adopter to iPods. While I had been using mp3s for years, it took me until 2004 to get my first iPod (aka a portable mp3 player). Actually, as I recall, my first iPod was given to me… which is not at all the normal course of action for me and new technology adoption. 

Anyway, since having an iPod I haven’t made one mixtape.

Apparently this website muxtape.com wants to rectify that lost joy. While there is a bit of a disconnect, as there isn’t anything physical to hand anyone, it is pretty neat. 

If you were one of the people who enjoyed copying mixtapes (or mix-CDs) you will be rather pleased as to how easy it is (albiet back door) to copy these “muxtapes” with a little googling for advice. 

Many people have been writing about how muxtape is doomed, because essentially they exist to freely distribute music, much of which is copyrighted. 

My feeling on the matter though is - “WHO CARES!?” 

Tapes were copied, CDs were copied, and digital music will always be copied. What muxtape is doing is essentially taking a leap of faith and declaring that music is meant to be shared… digital or not. 

Blank cassette makers weren’t to blame for piracy, nor were blank CD makers. In that same light, I don’t think muxtape is to blame for the fact that people’s desire to share the music that they love outweighs their worries of the law. 

I suppose the fact that a script could potentially be written to download all the songs of all the muxtapes that ever appear on the homepage is a bit startling.* But once something like this gets out, I’m sure the clever people at muxtape will do their best to thwart it. 

The point is, I applaud the creativity of the people behind muxtape.com. I wish them the best, and I hope that they reinspire people to share music. 

*does something like this exist already?