The Copyright Dad

This copyright dad is pretty brutal, forcing his wife and kid to go cold turkey on their downloading habits:

Then came that very tiny, somewhat questionable downloading phase that we don’t like to talk about. The day my 11-year-old and I fumbled our way into the downloading world, Disapproving Dad (who gives workshops on copyright infringement) washed his hands of the endeavor, refusing to help.

Watching the two of us victory-dance around the computer to Hot Chocolate’s “You Sexy Thing,” he finally cracked a smile. But a few weeks later — when it became clear that we were definitely, er, bending the law — he trashed our downloading software and forced us to come clean.

Bye-bye, obscure John Prine cuts and unreleased Steve Earle-Lucinda Williams duets. Bye-bye, “If I Only Had a Brain” and all those other great songs you had meant to buy but didn’t get around to — all of which combined to produce one whale of a Songs for a Snow Day mix.

Taken from a light-reading personal piece on the joys of mixed tapes and playlist: Mixed Up: The evolution of the Playlist.