Quote Originally Posted by tokinggreg
True, but that was not what I was referring to exactly. You are stealing from those who produced the album, from the artist, etc. They are losing profits because of your actions so it is legitimately stealing. So there IS a loss.

if your steal a cd, your NOT stealing from the artist. The store you stole it from has already paid for those cd's so the band has already got its cut(typically $1-$3 a record, depending on the band). Downloading, on the other had, there is no medium to initially pay for the material, so in that case the artist is losing money.