In the absence of Napster, the slowness of WinMX and the threat of getting sued by the RIAA, I stopped downloading music a couple of years ago.
It just got to be pointless and relatively worthless. 90% of what I downloaded were bootleg recordings of Led Zeppelin and Zeppelin-related. A lot of the time, files had pops and noises and the quality was very poor.
A few months ago, I heard of Zeppelin show from Madison Square Garden that had recently been discovered and was being traded on the internet. It piqued my interest, and after doing some research, I discovered SharingTheGroove.
On STG, MP3 files are strictly forbidden. Files must be traded in a lossless format such as SHN or FLAC. The best part -- it's completely legal. The worst part, a good Zeppelin show, usually three hours in length, will eat up 1.2 - 1.5 gigabytes. That's right -- gigabytes.
But this doesn't deter me at all from going out and getting new shows almost daily. Every single day I have two or three new CDs to listen to. It's music that I like and all it costs me is a little time and effort. Did I mention it's legal?
I've downloaded more than just Zeppelin, mind you. A recent show that I picked up was Aerosmith in Hamilton, Ontario -- recorded and released on STG the day after the show, which was on April 22. Pretty cool huh?
You may be wondering how these massive files get transferred? It's through a technology called Bit Torrent. I don't know all of the details on how it works, but I like it, despite the long download times. But, when you have a cable modem and unlimited bandwidth, it's not an issue.
Right now I'm listening to a classic Zep show -- Welcome to the Knebworth Festival. The show occurred on August 4, 1979. It's a fairly pristine soundboard recording. Not as good as what the band put together on the official release, How the West Was Won, but it's pretty good, and showcases how powerul Zeppelin was as a live band.
For what it's worth, live shows are also archived at archive.org with written consent from the band. Highlights include The Greatful Dead (literally hundreds of Dead shows archived), Ryan Adams and Zwan.