BURN: The Story of a Millennial Pirate

           It was the year 2000; the beginning of a new millennium. There were no smart phones, YouTube was still 5 years from creation and digital cameras had worse picture quality than a Polaroid from 1980. It was the dark ages of the Internet revolution that had just survived the Y2K scare and it was the time when the Ethridge household would finally get it's first computer. The timing of this event could have very well been responsible for setting me on my life path.

          The Ethridge household was always last to jump on any bandwagon when it came to technological advances. This came from the attitude of my dad who would never be guilty of buying into a technology fad that would flop. We were the last to get cable TV, last to get satellite, and last to get a computer with Internet. It was more than 10 years after I graduated high school that my parents finally got a television over 32 inches! I'm not trying to say that I didn't have much growing up, because that would be a ridiculously false statement; I'm just stating that when it came to technology, we were nowhere near cutting edge. Luckily my uncle David's residence next door was the polar opposite of my house hold. He was a true tech junkie who was quite often the first to have everything. He was one of the guys who had one of the original satellites in his back yard. You remember the ones that were so big it looked like your property could be a remote location for NORAD? This access to uncle Dave's cutting edge technology helped me stay up to date and not suffer from technological retardation that my mom still struggles with to this day. She's still working on getting her a "MyFace" page, as she says.


     
      In the year 2000 my dad had finally decided that computers and the Internet were here to stay and mainstream enough for us to invest in one. As I was entering into high school I think he realized how important computers were becoming in school. By this time most people already had a computer and were transitioning their usage from countless hours of Sim City, Microsoft Paint, and Oregon Trail to the first Internet social phenomenon known as America Online. I remember it like it was yesterday, My dad saying "I'm going to get my buddy at work to build us a computer, do you want a CD burner on it?" A CD burner? I didn't know what the hell it was, but it sounded awesome, so I said "sure." Little did I know that this simple addition would change everything. Being last to get a computer meant we were going to be first to get a CD burner.


         When we first got the computer, I completely ignored the CD burner. I felt that a failed attempt to use such alien technology could easily result in a complete destruction of our new computer that we had waited so long for. I treated it like the Ark of the Covenant and refused to lay a finger on it. I assumed it would take a computer genius to figure out how to burn Cd's.  I was just excited about having dial-up Internet. It wasn't until I visited my friend Joe Regan several months later that I would unlock the power of the CD burner. Looking back on that visit to the Regan household I was kind of like Neo visiting the Oracle. Joe was a computer genius in my eyes. Somehow I feel like he secretly helped invent the Internet. When I mentioned to him that I had a new computer with a CD burner he explained to me what Napster was and how I could download any song that I wanted. He even brought a hard drive to my house and copied all his downloaded music on to my computer. The madness was in full affect. Little did I know that what we were participating in would spread like wild fire across the country and forever change the music industry worldwide. I remember when I successfully burned my first CD, it was like I had discovered a cure for cancer. Instead of buying a $25 CD with a couple of good songs and a bunch of filler (Yes that's how much Cd's cost in the 90's) I was jamming out to a CD filled with Metallica, Rolling Stones, Queen and Guns n Roses.


        I think the first public appearance of my custom Cd's took place on long basketball road trips. Once my teammates heard of this black magic they begged me to make them a copy and some wanted their own favorite songs included. Most of them didn't understand how disk burning or downloading from Napster worked, but they didn't care. A custom burned CD was something that most people hadn't even heard of or knew existed. I remember fooling some people into believing that I actually burned the discs with a zippo lighter.  It took up to 25 minutes per song with dial-up Internet and at least 30 minutes to burn a CD. They began offering me money, $5 for a custom CD was a heck of a bargain. Five dollars for a product that only existed in their minds and I could bring it to life. Soon, the word of my new found power would spread all across the school. People would make me lists and lists of songs. They would beg me "Please make me a CD." I would open up my locker and folded up lists of songs that people had delivered would fall to the floor like an avalanche. I wasn't just a few months ahead of the game either. I was years ahead. It's easy to forget that when the digital revolution was in its infancy things progressed much slower than they do now. People forget that at this specific time period there was no Best Buy in Texarkna or an Office Depot. Sears was known as the best big store to get electronics. Sears! CD burners were still so rare that there wasn't even a store in Texarkana where you could buy blank disks for recording. The process of getting blank Cd's that I could deliver to the public was just like drug trafficking. I had to give money to my dad from my CD sales so that he could give it to the guy who built the computer to purchase them in Dallas.

          Everyone in high school is lumped together in stereotypical groups. You have your sports people, your computer people, band people, rednecks, druggies, Goths, etc. Just about everyone is known for something. I was the CD guy. I had created my own sub culture for myself.  I was a mix between Al Capone and Ferris Bueller.  I was the ultimate hookup when it came to music and there was no alternative. I was dealing to everybody; even to the faculty. I became very well educated on music due to the fact that I spent countless hours downloading it. Sometimes I would spend 20 minutes on a single song only to lose Internet connection with the song only 88%
complete (everyone remembers how flaky dial-up Internet was). It was just too bad for the person that requested that song. they would get their song cut off and they couldn't complain because if they did I wouldn't deal with them in the future. If there was a song I hated, I wouldn't include it on the CD. I was like the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld. "No Styx for you!" In 2001 I supplied the music for prom only to take it all away mid way through the event forcing everyone to listen to the radio. It basically ended the prom, nobody stayed much longer after that. That's what they deserve for kicking me out of prom. You don't kick Al Capone out of the prom and not expect consequences. I'll take my music to the after party.

        As the Napster phenomenon would spread across the country so would it also die. Spyware, lawsuits, viruses and Metallica would eventually end Napster's run and the war on file sharing had just begun. Other online sharing sites would pop up like Winmx, Kazaaa, and LimeWire, but the recording industry was always fighting them. Songs became harder to find and viruses became more vicious which deterred people from going through the hassle of downloading music. I think all computers sold after 2002 would come with CD burners straight out of the factory. Even though my reign as CD master would eventually end it was just the beginning of my role as a multimedia guru. People often mistake me as a person who is "good with computers" or "good at making websites" but the fact is I have almost zero knowledge in those categories. I am a content creator who uses the most recent consumer ready technology. Ever since the days of sailing the digital seas of music piracy I have tried to position myself near the cutting edge of certain technology advancements. It is a lot harder these days because of the rate of speed that things advance and you really have to pick and choose what you want to focus on. After CD burning I moved on to DVD recording and consumer video editing & authoring. Now I find myself at the front of what I believe to be the next multi-billion dollar industry, consumer drones.


        As the compact disc slowly becomes obsolete I find it very interesting to look back on its history in conjunction with file sharing sites like Napster. It revolutionized the music industry and was a real kick in the balls to corporate greed who thought they could get away with selling albums for $25. I'm glad to have been a small part of it and it played a crucial role in shaping my career path.