This is during the era before Spotify existed: during the time CD’s were big along with the infancy of iTunes including the first iPods during the early 2000s (third party sites is where users uploaded mp3 files of songs, the full length available for free download) my cousins would often download entire albums.
The same crap generations before did with vinyls (with a wax mold, used to etch the soundtrack onto a wax copy but audio is shit) since buying an official copy from a record store isn’t cheap for some people. I’ve heard “torrented” songs from cassettes (via a tape recorder) when the radio played a song, press record.
Music stores in the 90s would sell CDs of the latest hits from known artists of the time, a friend would buy a copy then rip the hell out of it by “pirating” the entire album onto a blank CD-R. Pirates did the same with concerts of famous singers, placing a tape recorder on the side adjacent of where the singer would perform.
napster, kazaa, limewire, audiogalaxy are the big ones I remember in the pre-torrent era
hell I remember there were PCs at some kiosk at the mall that random folks had installed Napster on and a bunch of random folks had downloaded random stuff on.
I burned so many audio CDs. Even if it was just to add one single new song, since one song could take like an bour or so to download before we got broadband.
When mp3 cd players became a thing, that was a magical time. Before iPods and before the Creative Nomad, WAY cheaper, and some could even read CD-RWs.
I even sold a few mix CDs, with nicely formatted printouts for the slim jewel cases.
What an era.