Music Piracy

Hello blogging world. So there's a sin of my past that I'm still working on to make amends for, and that is music piracy. I started downloading music illegally a long time ago. I think as early as high school. I remember the days of Napster well. I then got into other illegal methods for acquiring music once Napster folded. For many many years I increased my music library to an absurd amount. I even filled up a 60GB iPod.

I mark the date I finally downloaded my last stolen music as around July 2010. This was also around the same time as my marriage. If I could point to one turning point in my life - it would be my marriage to my wife. Nothing made me more serious about life and my faith than that one pivotal event. Instead of living for just myself, I was now in a 'one-flesh' union with another human soul. Anyway, after these past three or so years of legitimate music years I've finally been able to root out all of the music from my personal library that was pirated. The last stolen song was excised in February. It was quite a project and took me months just to catalogue the albums I did actually own.

I next went to work making a list of all the albums that I had stolen that I know I should purchase legally because of the number of times I've listened to them. It's this point that some don't understand. My argument is, if someone steals something from you, and then just throws it away, that doesn't really fix the root of the problem. It's better than just keeping the stolen object, but to truly make up for the sin of theft, you should either give the object back or purchase it legally. I have confessed this sin and I know that God has granted me forgiveness because of the sacrament, but just because you've been forgiven of spilling the milk doesn't mean the milk will clean itself up - there's still work to do.

Thus I've catalogued all of the music I'd like to purchase to make amends and the total has come to (based on amazon and iTunes mp3 costs): $1,351.92. This is not something I am going to buy back all at once of course, but over the course of many years. I have vowed that I won't buy any other music for myself before I first make amends. I think a goal of maybe one album a month is a good pace.

Since beginning this process I've noticed one thing: legitimate music sounds better. I know that's a strange thing, but I've found it very true. These albums I used to have would sound great but there would always be something in the back of my mind, in my subconscious that would say something's not right here. Now that I've started purchasing the albums, that voice is silent and I can enjoy the music to a higher degree. I love dancing to this music with my wife and son in the kitchen. I love listening to it on an iPod while driving. If you too have this kind of sin in your past I encourage you to take the dive like I did - you won't regret it!