Gift giving done wrong

The art of gift giving is really an incredible thing. Gift giving goes back for centuries as a way to just tell people that you appreciate or love them. A gift with no strings attached is incredible and shows others how much you care.

Recently a couple made a special trip up here to offer me a gift that, in my opinion, was a total insult on so many levels. It was a CD by a friend of mine. Now I know my friend has a new CD out and I've been meaning to go buy a box of them so I can sell them in our gift shop here at the Featherbed Railroad. So why was I insulted? It was a pirated copy. 

Stealing music is wrong, period. I don't care how easy it is, that "everybody does it," or that it's rampant. It's wrong. It steals from a number of people and, in this case, it steals from someone I know who is not getting rich on CD sales. He's just a cool local guy with a lot of talent and three CDs. We sell two of these, we will sell this third one when I can get down to see him. 

It's $10 to buy one of his CDs, which supports his talent and efforts. It's the equivalent of four overpriced coffees at that big coffee chain. Yet it rewards his talents and efforts. This is true if you support that band that's your favorite or the local guy down the street. $10 isn't much to ask, so when you steal out of an artist's pocket, it's a slap in the face to that artist 

Gift giving is an art and I was honored that someone thought of us and knew that we would love to have this wonderful musical journey down the tracks. But to steal out of a friends pocket and have that as a gift is beyond an insult to me, whether that's the pocket of a friend of mine or someone who makes millions of dollars a year on music.