Massively Parallel Procrastination

Been away so long I hardly knew the place...

Last night I did something not atypical for someone of my age. I bought some music online. I used an online merchant of some notoriety and slightly ill repute. They're called "allofmp3.com" and they're located in Russia.  Because they operate slightly outside of US law (for the moment), they get to do things that the the more online players don't get to do. One of these things is to distribute music that the rights-holders haven't  explicitly agreed to.  That means they're able to offer me music that others can't. Like the Beatles' catalog.

Last night, I paid for and downloaded "Love", the new Beatles mashup album. It cost me half of what it would have cost to get the album from amazon.com and less than a third of what the chain cafe was selling it for down the street.  25 years ago, people in Russia were quietly distributing illegal home-made "samizdat" recordings of the White Album on repurposed chest X-rays. Now they're actively  and publicly flaunting the law and the international business community. They take credit cards.

MP3 downloads aren't quite as stylish as proof that Dima has been slowly smoking himself to death, but Russia sure has come a long way.