Regarding the Eminem Loop files:

In this months Yahoo Internet Life (August 2002), the Inbrief column (page 13), there's a small notion about Eminem:

"Eminem Gets Burned. Weeks before the official release in stores of Eminem's new album, The Eminem Show, Net bootlegs were so prevalent that the disc was the week's second most played CD (on PCs) in the world, according to the charts on Gracenote [gracenote.com]. It went on to hit No. 1 on retail charts, too ..."

So first, how can an unreleased album appear on the Internet, if there's no "inside cooperation" going on at one of the companies involved? Second, the album and song hit No. 1 on the charts - could that be attributed to the fact people have been able to listen to the songs before, or simply because most of the CD buyers like Eminem? Given the discussions some "reputed" columnists had about Eminem, the later seems not to apply in full.

Nonetheless, does that mean I condone bootlegs? No, not if you're going to keep the bootlegged version and don't buy the retail version. But that's just a personal opinion which may not agree with someone elses (so let's leave that out if anyone decides to reply)