Love Slash, song is bad. Riff isn't catchy at all, vocals are sub-par even for the genre. Fuck, I'm disappointed.

For the record, I did like most of Slash I; just not the few songs that followed this mold. If this is the template or poster child for how the rest of album will sound, I'm not buying. And to a certain extent, I hope the album is more cohesive than the previous; but then please let this song be the odd one out.

First off, bread indeed isn't the most creative type of food, but some dishes definitely are. I would dare to say creativity is an important part of the art of making food. It's one of the main reasons people go to expensive restaurants instead of eating good ol' fashioned home cookin' every day (one of, not necessarily the only reason). So although cheaper alternatives are available, people still pay a hefty sum of money to eat at "Les Pantalons Fancie" for something that basically fullfils the same need as a Big Mac. People are willing to spend money for certain things although they can get cheaper alternatives.

Furthermore, if you say that it's okay to duplicate bread, would it be okay to duplicate "Eli's Most Famous Cheesecake"? Or, only ordinary non-branded cheesecake? What about truffles, there's no creativity in truffles as such, but they are hell-a expensive because they're so difficult to find. So if we could duplicate those at no cost, would you be against it? Lot's of truffle searchers would be out of a job, but maybe that's just the natural course of events...

Did you know that it is not illegal to make a copy of a car that looks exactly like a Ferrari? There are companies that sell kits that help you convert a Mazda Miata into a Mustang or Aston Martin look-alike. And of course, it's also perfectly legal to cast your own transmission boxes based on the design of a Ferrari transmission, so it's not just about looks either. Basically, in all instances, law says: if you can make a copy for your own use, feel free to do so. As long as you don't claim it's the real thing, and as long as you don't profit from the brands and patents of others. Why does music need to be different again?

Yes, this discussion is very specific to non-tangible goods (digital is a technical detail, but in reality if you can make super-high quality analog copies of something you'd have the same situation), but that's exactly what the exercise about the replicator is all about: try to imagine this in the realm of actual tangible goods.

Well, the fact that we've been ass-raped by the industry for decades on end by artificially keeping their prices high, meant we had no choice if we wanted to enjoy music. Now, the artificial limitation has been lifted, and the music industry gets to see how people really value music.

Well, well... sweet lookin' line-up this year... might have to buy that ticket anyway
http://www.graspop.be/en/bands/index.html

It's naive to think that downloads equal lost sales in even a marginally significant number of cases. And yet that's the leap people make over and over again. I don't care how many times it has been downloaded, I would like to know how many sales have been lost. The actual sales figures don't support the "piracy-is-bad" doctrine, and that is a fact.

Did you know that there is not a single independent study that has been able to confirm the RIAA's position on piracy? Yet, lots of studies exist that demonstrate piracy has much less of an impact than most people are willing to concede. You've got to be quite the conspiracy theorist to disregard those studies as organized misinformation by the left-wing hippie anti-ownership crowd.

I think the point about record stores is more that the culture of loving and appreciating music has deteriorated at the hands of the music bizz (amongst other things by killing the "magic" of the record store). And I agree, you know... kids today (*cough*) don't appreciate music in the same way we did. So much more one-hit wonders, so much emphasis on production, it all creates a kind of music fatigue that detracts from the value of music.