July 15, 2026
Streaming killed the pirate vibe?
The lost joy of music piracy
Fans say music piracy never died — it just got less magical and more messy
TLDR: The article says music piracy used to feel like an exciting way to discover new artists before streaming made listening easier but less adventurous. Commenters pushed back hard, saying piracy is still alive, while others mourned the shutdown of What.CD like the loss of a cultural treasure.
A nostalgic essay about the “lost joy” of music piracy somehow turned into the comments section equivalent of a family reunion where everyone swears they’ve changed while secretly doing the exact same thing. The article, centered on former Nine Inch Nails art director Rob Sheridan and the wild early-internet era of leaked songs, dorm-room file sharing, and music discovery before streaming took over, argues that something special was lost when everything became neat, legal, and bland. But the crowd’s reaction? Lost joy? Speak for yourself. One of the first replies bluntly declares, “I still love pirating music,” and that pretty much sets the tone.
The real heartbreak in the comments is over What.CD, a beloved invite-only music-sharing community that many still talk about like it was a fallen kingdom. One commenter compared its destruction to burning the Library of Alexandria, except over copyright fees — which is either wildly dramatic or exactly the right amount of dramatic for music nerd grief. Others rushed in with practical “move along, folks” energy, insisting the scene never died at all: Soulseek is “still very much alive,” Bandcamp and SoundCloud supposedly still have easy download loopholes, and someone coolly notes that a lot of pirated music is basically on YouTube now anyway.
So the drama is deliciously split: Was piracy a lost golden age, or are the olds just being nostalgic while everyone else quietly keeps downloading? The comments have a clear answer: the magic may be gone, but the hustle absolutely isn’t.
Key Points
- •The article is a July 15, 2026 Pigeons & Planes feature by Eden DaSilva about music piracy, framed through an interview with Rob Sheridan.
- •Rob Sheridan says he began building websites in high school to learn HTML and remembers downloading an early leaked Nine Inch Nails track in RealAudio format.
- •While attending Pratt Institute in New York, Sheridan says he used dorm-network file sharing to access MP3 collections and discover music he otherwise would not have purchased.
- •A Nine Inch Nails fan site Sheridan created led to his hiring in 1999 to design the band’s official webpage.
- •Sheridan says he later moved to New Orleans, worked at the band’s studio, and helped bring attention to emerging internet tools such as LimeWire within the band’s creative environment.