Yet More Grokster

Andrew Leonard has a surprisingly poignant piece in Salon (you'll have to click through an ad to see it) about an act of rebellion against the RIAA - ripping all his old vinyl records on to MP3, and the memories that evoked. Not especially IP-related, but a nice read.

"Play another record, Daddy," my son says, staring with fascination at the spinning black platter. My son is only 7, but he likes to rock. So I throw a little Killing Joke on and think back to my first summer after college to a late-hours club called the Vatican in Gainesville, Fla., where the playing of "War Dance" was a regular reason to hurl oneself onto the dance floor, with or without company.

Underneath Killing Joke in a stack of albums is Neil Young's three-record compilation, "Decade." Running my hands over its well-worn jacket, I recall persuading my grandfather to buy it for me when I was 13 or 14. He didn't know beans about popular music but he was trying to spoil me by offering to purchase one album. Being a sly opportunist, I picked an album that contained a whopping three records. And then listened to it, obsessively, for years.

Beneath Neil Young's plaintive visage stare the gangsta faces on the cover of N.W.A.'s "Straight Outta Compton." The strutting of Easy E seems ludicrous now. But staring at him I recall a night, fueled on tequila and rage at a busted marriage, spent chanting "Fuck Tha Police" with a friend at 3 in the morning, while throwing darts at a picture of my ex.