How a Mail-Order Music Scam Taught Me to Steal

It ’s gruelling to say exactly when I learned how to steal music . At first , I think it materialize when I memorise how to torrent . Then I call back my late dark with Napster . But if I really think hard about it , I call back middle school and Columbia House and that unbelievable eight CD for a penny quite a little . That ’s when I start stealing .

Columbia House , the company , just filed for bankruptcy . I know what you ’re imagine : That fishy ring armour monastic order music business is still around ? That vestige of the pre - internet medicine sales event may palpate like a moldy souvenir , but the Columbia House Music Club hung on long past the CD ’s prime . It closed in 2010 after an unbelievable five - and - a - half decades of peddling disc for unheard - of price . As streaming music services stormed into the mainstream over the past five old age , the company struggled to come up with an oblation of its own , and sustained itself on a knavish videodisc club . Nevertheless , the legacy of Columbia House will last a generation .

My family did n’t have a circumstances of money growing up . If I wanted to corrupt a CD at full price , I ’d have to form for it , mowing the lawn or washing dish aerial in my parents ’ eating house . look back , it was a great way to learn about how the cosmos work . At the time , though , I was frustrated when it take a half day ’s oeuvre just to realize enough cash for one album . That ’s why I constellate to the Columbia House euphony club . The batch variegate , but I knew that I could easily acquire a stack of CDs with little or no Johnny Cash up front . I compute that I could get out of the dedication to buy more since I was a nestling . It all seemed too good to be true .

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Columbia House taught me and my peer that medicine did n’t ask to be expensive . It could even be costless if you knew how to bet on the system . Already a rapacious euphony lover by my pre - teenager , I gobbled up the seemingly complimentary CDs as often as potential . The deal was , you ’d sign up for a music cabaret membership and get eight CDs for the low , low monetary value of a friggin ’ centime . Once you encounter that sweet intro offering , you just had to cancel the membership to avoid getting tear for the obligatory monthly purchase . You could even sign up multiple times using unlike name and credit cards .

How could I not cash in on this bargain ? Back in the 90s , Columbia House ’s text - heavy ad for cheap music watch over me wherever I went , blot out in the back of magazines and tucked into stacks of junk chain mail . Without telling my parents , I ’d fill out the cards , take all of the hot soda water favorites — MC Hammer , TLC , Alanis Morissette , 311 , Sublime — and wait patiently . A few weeks later on the record would make it , and I ’d start to dodge .

Before long , I got drill with the selection at Columbia House . I also tried its competitor BMG , but the selection was mostly the same . ( Columbia House and BMG later merged . ) So like any enterprising stripling with confutative morality , I figured out how to take the devoid CDs to the local record memory and exchange it for what I really wanted . Columbia House burned me a few metre , since it would sometimes press its own branded copy of albums so as to squeeze out a better net margin . But mostly , I got aside with it and ramp up a dainty little depository library of tardy ninety alternative rock music . Meanwhile , Columbia House raked in cash regardless of adolescent chiseler , with its parent companyclaiming $ 1.4 billion in revenue in 1996 .

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It seemed like everyone was a victor . I teach my friends the conjuring trick of the patronage , and by the metre we were finish up middle shoal , we were packing thick Caselogic CD wallets at all the pool parties . By the time we corrupt certificate of deposit burners , we were DJing dance parties .

I fall upon Napster not long after it launch in 1999 . By that time , I ’d been a serial Columbia House member for a few years and built up a monolithic library of ludicrously cheap medicine . I ’d gotten a little bit greedy , I ’ll admit . I used my phratry members ’ gens to localise up spare accounts for my siblings and my parent . But the gratuitous ride could n’t last forever . finally , the medicine ball club bills turned to aggregation notice , and I had to pay up .

In the end , I paid a few hundred bucks for my various euphony club memberships . I also dodged a few hundred clam more in rush , by drop a line letter of the alphabet and complaining about terms . Nevertheless , I do it that the Columbia House model help me acquire a fuckton of music . If you take trading with friends into account , I ’d say that my CD library was worth a few thousand dollars by the metre I first lumber on to Napster . In its first two yr of cognitive operation , I spent countless minute on Napster , upload my scammed tracks from Columbia House and downloading whatever I want .

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I ’m conflicted about all this . File sharing did n’t feel like stealing . It feel like sharing . After all , I ’d lick severely to acquire my monolithic euphony collection , and I was offering any random Napster exploiter approach in central for something from their library . When the record companies brought Napster down , I found new way to share . Through the other aughts , I ricochet around on services like Kazaa and Limewire before settling on BitTorrent and the Pirate Bay . By the clip I finished college , I had at least a terabyte Charles Frederick Worth of euphony and movies , the vast majority of which I ’d downloaded for free . Yet , I pay spate to go to concert and flick dramaturgy . It felt like a tradeoff .

It ’s strange to let in being complicit in a scam . On one hired hand , it felt in good order at the fourth dimension . On the other handwriting , it seems rather shameful in retrospect . I ’d be consist if I said my music hoarding was a guiltiness - innocent endeavour . From the early Columbia House album days to the long night torrenting entire discographies , I ’ve felt a little moment awful every stop of the way .

I was scarce the only one doing this . In 2000 , a New Jersey manplead guilty to sham chargesrelated to his chain armour order music club dependency . This twisted hero make out to get nearly 27,000 compact disc by setting up some 2,400 accounts with various clubs , sending his spoil to over a dozen addresses . The skill would be telling if it were n’t so harebrained .

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But this is the form of refinement that Columbia House boost . Eight CDs for a penny was too right to be dependable , and yet , you could do it . The so - called “ negatively charged choice cycle ” that the concern model use is in reality illegal in 15 land and some foreign countries now . The terminal figure refers to the pattern of lure customer into a club with “ spare ” gift and then charging them — often high fees — if they fail to scrub their membership . company like Columbia House inevitably made money on people that were n’t give aid to their bills , not unlike AOL and its taxation from dialup customers . Inevitably , I learned the operose way that these music nightspot would find a direction to squeeze money out of you no matter what . It ’s somehow meet that free filing cabinet - share-out spelled the downfall of the seemingly gratis music era of Columbia House . Services like Napster simply made it soft to get the music without shady rank strings and collection agency attached .

These daylight , I pay for my music and movies . I ’m not a teenager any more , and streaming is wonderfully convenient . In fact , I pass more money now on streaming movies and music than ever before . It ’s worth it , too : drop more than a few penny does n’t impart me with the uneasy feeling that my career as a medicine scammer did .

Nevertheless , I ca n’t shake the idea that I scammed my means into a dependence on easy access to euphony and , later , pic . It almost seems like the entertainment industry pull off one inferno of a long con by enable us all to become addicted to capacity . Columbia House taught me that I could get what I want without pay for it . Napster and acquaintance made it prosperous . Now , I want it all — and I can have it , too .

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