NEIL YOUNG Shares His Thoughts on Piracy in the Music Business

During a media conference in Southern California, Young sounded off on the decreasing quality in digital music files. He said that he would have had an ally in the late Steve Jobs, saying his goal would be to have vinyl quality sound transfer to digital; Plus his intriguing take on music piracy.

Neil Young spoke at the D: Dive Into Media conference in Southern California and revealed that he's trying to preserve the sound quality of rock music recordings. "We live in the digital age and, unfortunately, it's degrading our music, not improving it," said Young. "Steve Jobs [was] a pioneer of digital music, and his legacy is tremendous. But when he went home, he listened to vinyl. And you've got to believe that if he'd lived long enough, he would have done what I'm trying to do."

"It's not that digital is bad or inferior, it's that the way it's being used isn't doing justice to the art . . . The convenience of the digital age has forced people to choose between quality and convenience, but they shouldn't have to make that choice."

Despite Young being against the sound quality of music files making their way around the internet, he also revealed that he has no beef with pirated music. "Piracy is the new radio," he said. "That's how music gets around."