...and I do this too. But, miserable as the royalties are to artists this way, at least they get SOMETHING out of the deal.

I am 100% with Erkka on this. Musicians have been getting raped by digital theft for far too long and consumers continue to consume without any thought as to how it might affect those who produce it. They just see "corporate" and think it's OK. I'm not arguing the music business was perfect before the good ol' internet, nor that getting a mate to copy an album on a cassette tape didn't happen before either, but the sheer scale of illegal file sharing means that more bands are getting NOTHING for their hard work compared with, probably not much - but it was SOMETHING.

Would you work for nothing? How would you pay the bills then?

The articles Erkka has posted are very thought provoking; I am looking forward though to the solutions. 'Cause that's what we need.