Reply #11: A couple of things. [View All]

1) It's payback. Many, many times, I've paid $20+ for one song on a 10-song CD when there was no other choice. Things have a way of evening out.

2) I usually download stuff that is simply no longer available commercially, or stuff that I'm sincerely interested in finding out more about, i.e. if I like it enough I'll buy it.

3) I don't know what they're doing in the USA, but in Canada they charge a fee for each recordable media you buy. Something like 4% or whatever. Doesn't matter if you buy CD-ROMs to back up your office files, you have to pay. This money goes into a fund with which they pay the artists. Don't ask me how they figure out who gets what, but if our government's taken it upon themselves to do this, I'm downloading as I please.

4) Even if I downloaded every song available at the highest possible bitrate, I can listen to only so much. And a lot doesn't get heard at all. Lame attempt at metaphor: If an mp3 is downloaded from the forest, and no one listens to it, does it make a sound requiring payment to the author?

ON EDIT: I answered 'yes,' but after reflecting on #3, I don't think that's right.