Music Treasure
Since Apple has come up with the iPod, iTunes and the iTunes music store they have sold a high quality music playing device with fairly mediocre earphones (buds). Some may not pay attention as they are delighted by the 99 cent/song price tag, but what they get is a 192 kbit/s quality song from the iTunes Music Store. Not only, but there is a default for importing CDs in iTunes which is ACC at 128 kbit/s.
Let's overview, shall we?
Audio (MP3)
- 32 kbit/s - MW (AM) quality
96 kbit/s - FM quality
128 - 160 kbit/s - Decent quality, difference can sometimes be obvious
192 kbit/s - Good quality; difference can be heard by only a few
224 - 320 kbit/s - High, near transparent, quality
Other audio
- 800 bit/s - minimum necessary for recognizable speech (using special-purpose FS-1015 speech codecs)
8 kbit/s - telephone quality (using speech codecs)
500 kbit/s-1 Mbit/s - lossless audio as used in formats such as FLAC, WavPack or Monkey's Audio
1411 kbit/s - PCM (WAV) sound format of Compact Disc Digital Audio
Video (MPEG2)
- 16 kbit/s - videophone quality (minimum necessary for a consumer-acceptable "talking head" picture)
128 - 384 kbit/s - business-oriented videoconferencing system quality
1 Mbit/s - VHS quality
5 Mbit/s - DVD quality
15 Mbit/s - HDTV quality
There is a justified argument for why you get low quality versions from iTunes, and the company would rather not tell you about it's default setting because they would want you to believe they actually sold a better product than a CD when you heard playback. But they will also whine that if you are a true music fan, you will just buy the album to support the band. Well, iTunes just came out with iTunes Plus. For 30 cents more, you can upgrade your music quality to a whopping 256 kbit/s so 10 songs would cost $12.90, still not at full-quality.
Now many pirates, to be smart, would do best to stick to the code. Realize that we defend our own rights and civil liberties from corporations that are trying to get to a point where they can say "you can't make a mix tape for your girlfriend" by law. By practicing our rights frequently, we allow the potential for freedom to continue in this country and remain educated on issues that promote our self-generated happiness. If we are bound to corporate rules and forget our rights we stand the chance to lose them.
Keep your CD's, they are gold. Exercise your right to share high quality music over Limewire, not the low quality stuff. By sharing your iTunes downloads you are perpetuating recycled garbage.
How did I know that Tink would like the dancing pickle...? It reminds me... I promised her something....