Using Mello.as.Hello's library analogy, I would not pay for every book I've ever taken from a library. I checked those books out because they looked interesting but that doesn't mean that I would have bought them had I seen them in a bookstore. I'm not depriving anybody of any potential profit if I wouldn't have bought anything from them anyways but decided to download one of their songs for personal enjoyment.

The musicians need to face the fact that the Information Superhighway has made information as property obsolete. Successful multi-million dollar bands aren't going to starve if they have to rely on their concerts for income. Maybe then people would listen to bands because they sound good and not because the record companies are paying boatloads to convince us modern music doesn't suck. This open letter from Metallica, where they pretty much admit that they suck and that a lot of money goes to manipulating people into thinking otherwise, is pretty telling of the mindset behind these "intellectual property rights" advocates.