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One of the reasons for this is that I seem to have (finally) reached the age when contemporary music (hip-hop and rap) simply don't appeal.

The other reason however, is that, even if I did find a track or two that took my fancy, there's simply no need.

Hell, the broadcasting industry is drenching my home in RF which carries all the music I could ever want.

Using my TV/radio tuner card, I can tune into a plethora of radio stations broadcasting everything from "golden oldies" to the latest tracks stuttered by such famous artists as "seventy cent" (that's fiddy-cent at the current rate of NZ/US dollar conversion).

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For example, if I'd wanted to add a few Golden Horse tracks to my music collection, I'd have just set up my PC to record the recent concert they performed with the NZSO and which was broadcast by state TV.

Even out here in the boonies, that transmission was received in glorious stereo with a very good dynamic range, signal-to-noise ratio and frequency response.

It would have been trivial to capture both the video and audio -- or just the audio if that's all I wanted, and burn it to CD in any of the popular digital formats.

Since I find Kirsten's voice to be something like a cup of Milo with six teaspoons of sugar (okay in very small doses but sickening if you try to scull a whole cup), I avoided the temptation to fire up my PC during that broadcast.

Nor do I run any P2P software on my computer -- simply because, deep down, I don't think it's ethical to pilfer other people's intellectual property.

However, if I were searching for one of those great old tunes from my youth (can you put a 78 rpm record onto CD? Telecom?), I might be tempted to go searching on the Net -- if only because such things are so hard to find in the local record store.

The reality is that just about anyone these days can get their music for free but, despite this, the recording industry seems to be rolling along quite happily.

This clearly indicates that, despite the RIANZ's claims to the contrary, the levels of piracy and illegal copying in New Zealand are surprisingly low.

Surely, in an age when we could all get our music for free if we wanted to, the music consumer should be praised for the fact that they do go out and buy legitimate, legal recordings rather than simply download or copy CDs.

Unfortunately, (perhaps blinded by greed), the recording industry remains hell-bent on branding us all as criminals and thieves, despite the fact that the vast majority of us are ethical decent folks.

Of course I'm left wondering just how long this state of affairs will continue.

It's been my observation that if you keep calling someone a criminal for long enough, there's little incentive for them not to become one.

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