So think about this:

>It just kills me to see such blatent display of sharing
>here in the producer forum.

I just copied what you said you could re-read you OWN words. I did this to prove a point.

Once again, YOU said:

>blatent display of sharing

you DID NOT SAY - "blatant display of SELLING UNAUTHORIZED COPIES OF DILLA'S SHIT"

In all honesty man, one of the main benefits of the internet is the free exchange of ideas and thoughts. People get turned on to new stuff they would have NEVER heard.

It would be impossible to figure out how many fans Dilla has gained by cats hearing ANY of his stuff online.

Radio had no love for him.

He never had any huge commercial hits.

The internet has done a lot for Dilla - whether you, him or his family ever realized it or not.

Once again, you must consider the duality of the RIAA.

They have managed to fool people like you and houseshoes into thinking that, because I GAVE (not SOLD) a compact disc of music to a cat I've never met on the other side of the world, I'm gonna cause the crash of the global economy somehow.

Oh yeah - I never saw that cat in person either. He handed me the CD by way of a digital format.

PLEASE REMEMBER - it was this SAME INDUSTRY that talked shit to fans back in the 70's about tape trading. CASSETTE TAPE TRADING ART. I'm not bullshitting you. Do the research if you don't already know.

MOW - all of THIS is going on while they raise the prices of music purchasing to unnecessary levels while LOWERING what they pay the artists who actually CREATE the music they're selling!

Doesn't that blow your mind just a little bit?

Now mind you, I didn't bring all of that up to justify NOT buying CDs - I currently own just over 1,000 of them myself - 90% of them are STORE-BOUGHT - and if ai like something that I download, I then scour the internet and every store I know or find out about to buy an actual physical copy of said music.

Am I still "violating" now?

I would urge you to re-think your position on file-sharing and what it means to those who MENTALLY benefitted from it.

>I'm with your Treble... playing dilla's music to a person who
>has never heard it is the BEST way to breathe life into his
>legacy... it's the manner in which people do it is my only
>issue.

But why should you care when you're not even sure if Dilla himself would care? You can't speak for him - he's dead and gone.

In all reality, his moms can say she may not like it, but have you OR shoes done ANY research to see the impact Dilla's music has had on the people around here?

I don't think y'all have.

I'm born and raised right here in Detroit man - and one of the things that I have hated MOST about my city is the "exclusive club" nature of the underground - as if, because I don't know "person A" or "person B" that I don't deserve the right to hear, know about or share the dope shit.

The internet destroyed all of those walls, and in MY opinion, most of these cats who had to jock people they didn't like to be accepted into the "circle" are mad - why?

Because I didn't have to do ANY of that shit.

I logged on the internet, met some cool people, and got in one year what most underground cats got in 5 years.

You'd be mad too wouldn't you?

Some cat that you thought was a "herb" got what you got AND he got it faster than you did?

The cool kids just ain 't cool no mo - lol...

Lemme tell you a Dilla story.

Back in 2003, I started hearing a buzz on these boards about some record Dilla did called "Ruff Draft".

By way of a file sharing program that most of us around here use, I downloaded it, checked it out, and was blown away!

However, I decided to wait to buy it because I heard it was vinyl only, and at that time, I had already bought the vinyl of a previous release (the J-88 release) he did for the same label two years prior when I REALLY wanted a CD of it in the first place.

Actually, shoes was working at Record Time at the time if I remember correctly - he was the one that put me up on that J-88 release and the remix Dilla did for Carl Craig's Innerzone Orchestra project, which I purchased the vinyl for.

I LOVE vinyl, but for shit that I listen to regularly, I prefer CDs. That's just me.

So anyways, when I heard Ruff Draft was vinyl only at the time, I waited until a CD was gonna be released so I didn't get got twice - cause when I sold to he J-88 vinyl to get the J-88 CD (which came out less than a year after the original vinyl release), I didn't even get my full value back.

One year later, I seem to notice that there hadn't been ANY noise about this wonderful piece of work ANYWHERE but on the net - and no CD release was coming, so I did what any fan would - started looking for a tangible copy in ANY form.

I found a cat selling the vinyl of it on eBay for 10 bucks (sealed) and I bought it.

Am I violating because I downloaded the mp3s and waited that long to buy the real shit due to a personal preference? The RIAA wants you to believe I committed a crime. But I didn't.