> but I am more concerned about the artists than the industry.
Fair point. But the Industry needs the artists so it will have to find other ways of paying the artists therefore other ways of generating revenue to continue making money. Setup a download site, give away the tracks but sell me something else is a possibility I have heard mentioned.
Also here's an example of how it works for me:
I have never heard of Prince Alla so what do I do now? I type his name into Soulseek and download some, probably, low bit rate mp3. I like it but it wont go on my iPod* unless it's "whole" and at least 128kbps. But if his album appears on eMusic.com (or had have appeared on karmadownload.com) then I buy. Without Soulseek he would have got nothing from me.
Somebody else downloads it, likes it, has no intention of buying it and, if it wasn't available by other means, wouldn't buy it anyway.
A lot of my friends like music but they dont buy it. The constantly copy or borrow. They probably would download but they have enough trouble sending an email. They dont spend money on music.
Music lovers buy music. I buy more than I steal. In fact I barely steal anything as it's so tedious. low bit rate, films that purport to be LOTR but are actually gay porn (just make sure I got that the right way round!) and incomplete albums. Yuck. Where I tend to frequent the p2p underworld is for stuff that cant be bought. Unlreleased tracks, tracks from daysgoneby, old Eminem MC battles. In short things I would buy but can't.
Amazons
new DRM free downloads could be interesting but as a consumer I want high bit rate non DRM and possibly a choice of file format. Allofmp3 is an example of what I want but unfortunately the selection of music is crap. I would happily buy illegal music from allofmp3 as they give me what I want as a consumer. Pay a few pence for a low quality mp3 or a few quid for CDA and plenty of options inbetween.
I am a paid up subscriber to eMusic.com for much the same reason. Quality music, good bit rates, cheap. Plus unlike the tragedy that is the iTunes store if I lose my Music or am simply on another PC and want a copy of an album I have purchased I just download it again.
Boomkat are a bit short on mp3 releases but again offer the high level of service.
Finally, Napster led me to eMule, eMule led me to Grime, Grime led me to Dubstep. P2P and the way that it vastly increases your awareness of music has a direct correlation to my increase on spending on vinyl, CD and mp3 in the last two years.
Whatever your opinion downloading copyright material is against the law. But so was nicking StayPress trousers from Millets when I was 13. Hey ho!
* I am not proud I own an iPod and previously I owned a sonically superior iAudio X5 but iTunes (the music management not the store) is what is behind the success of Apple not the iPod in my opinion. It is certainly the reason I now own an iPod and the reason that I would not consoder switching. You get some decent mp3 players, iRiver, Sony, etc but the music management software is rubbish. Sony's SonicStage is even worse than Rubbish! Why dont the manufacturers see this? If they concentrated on a replacement for iTunes they wouldn't need to try and make pretty iPod clones. IMHO etc. Sorry, but it winds me up!!