And besides, it won't be a drawback for long. One day, we'll be buying our music online and directly downloading it to our computers, skipping the UPS man completely. Then the balance will shift and a direct-connect device like the Empeg will be an advantage instead of a drawback. Everyone else will still be burning their custom CDs on their burners, while I've already downloaded my tunes into the Empeg and I'm off and listening to them on the road.

I'm waiting for this day, but I doubt it will come anytime soon. The RIAA is a monstrously huge behemoth with billions of dollars at its back that it willingly throws at anyone trying to innovate in the area of making online digital music purchases a reality. They aren't going to stop these kind of tactics anytime soon, unless some laws get changed, because right now most of them lean in their favor.

I guess it also draws the line of which artists are more interested in people listening to their music or the check they receive from the label. If digital music purchasing is going to make any headway, they certainly aren't going to be charging 16.99$ for 12 tracks (10 of which people will probably only listen to once or twice then only listen to the other 2 "popular" songs). The artists are going to make (I would think) much more money with sticking with RIAA's monopoly than offering their own music independantly over the net. Sooo... something is going to have to give... and I don't think it's going to take place anytime in the near future.

So, that's why I installed my CD deck in conjunction with my empeg. That, and it gets much better reception than the empeg.. (Yes, I know that is changing with the MK2's but that is still what, 3? 4? 5? months away?) and having a CD deck is much better than not having CD ability, because my friends often bring albums of their own they want to just pop in. Before I installed the CD deck, they were like "what, you spent 1200$ on that thing and it can't even play CDs?!?!?"..

Down with the RIAA!

(O|||||O)