To play the devil's advocate in this discussion, I will pretend to be a musician with a confession to make.

"I am an underpaid musician, and often I am guilty of downloading tunes (without paying) for the purpose of learning a song. For example, I'm playing a benefit this weekend, filling in for a musician who is recovering from heart surgery complications (a severe infection), and one of the tunes is a song I had never heard before. At the first rehearsal, the vocalist presented a complete set of lyrics , but the changes were lacking, so I downloaded the tune for learning purposes. In addition, to make the next rehearsal go better than the 1st (I hate disorganized rehearsals), I inputted the changes into Biab and made a desktop video (music playing while I moved the cursor in Biab) so the other musicians could see the chord changes as the tune progressed in the video. Each musician also got a print out of the Biab chart as well as a copy of the video which had the tune embedded in it. So, in essence, I not only violated copyright law, but I also did it big time in Aces.

However, I do not want this tune in collection of recordings. As a matter of fact, I really don't like the song even though it was nominated for a Grammy, and, after this gig, I will be happy if I never have to play it again. You can rest assured Matt, this tune did not come from your Cd, unless you are into Grammy nominated Power Pop covers. Nevertheless, I confess it is stealing... Oh me, oh my, oh me, oh my, am I the only musician guilty of this crime?"
______________
Legal Note: If you are a Fox or RIAA agent reading this message, please realize I am only quoting a dead musician from some time ago.

JBlatz