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.
Media piracy is part of the family lore. I don’t recall having more than a handful of original cassettes (audio and vhs), later on the same with cd’s growing up. Turns out my dad was the progenitor, he only had maybe 25-30 records, but recently I unearthed a huge box of reel to reel tapes with music mostly recorded from other people’s records (from about 1966-1980). When online piracy reared it’s head, it was only yet another way to obtain quality home entertainment.