Perhaps they can setup a free download which times out after so many uses, or sets up a nag to purchase the item like shareware does. I’ve no problem paying for what I want butprefer to make sure that the software is useful to me, or that I enjoy the band, like the movie enough to want to buy it.
IMHO

The artists you claim to speak up for, or represent? They’ve become slaves to the labels, and the RIAA is just another parasite on their backs. Artists have lost sight in the purpose behind their work, which is not to turn a profit or to fill their stomachs. Many of the best artists lived in poverty, and made hardly a dime off of their pieces, because art is a hobby, a life-joy; being an artist IS NOT a job, it’s a luxury.

Music, art, and literature are meant to be shared with everyone, to enhance culture and to diversify our people. Forcibly charging people to view, listen, or observe these expressions should be the real crime. Media piracy hurts no-one but the leaches on artist’s backs (AKA the labels/RIAA).

You cannot liken music to something like an automobile or a TV, such things are material objects. You pay to have them constructed, and to use them for specific tasks. Music, literature, and art are more often than not immaterial, and are merely perceived. They serve as a passive muse to people, and to charge for these things is akin to unjust taxation. Do you pay for every song you hear on a radio? Do you fork over a fee to view any billboard, or ambient, scenic artwork you happen to stumble upon?

The “moral high ground” claimed to exist in this argument is only the byproduct of years of misdirection that’s been bred into the world’s culture by the greedy, pulling the wool over today’s artist’s eyes, and condemning their only REAL supporters with costly lawsuits, backed with TRULY illegal activities to back these falsified accusations.

* though I usually use theatres to see movies that aren’t under the MPAA’s control because they’re foreign films

The simple fact of the matter is that pirating music is illegal. I hate it when people get all defensive about this issue…”oh, the artist doesn’t get any of the money that I would pay for a CD or on iTunes…blah blah blah.” Okay…so stealing the songs somehow give the artists more money? Right.
Further, the artists are the ones who signed the contracts with the labels. It’s not my problem that they do or do not get paid what they should…they agreed to it in the fist place.
Someone earlier said that the prices on iTunes were extortionate…I have to disagree. You can buy a full album at Best Buy for $15. You can buy the same album on iTunes for $9.99. Extortion? Hardly.

As to the original news story…I hope this lady wins here case too. The RIAA has a legal right to protects it’s intellectual property, but I don’t entirely agree with their methodology in doing so.

If the band doesn’t have a large following, I’ll generally wait until I can afford to order it online (case in point. I’m ordering Pretty Balanced’s “Icicle Bicycle” soon.) I’ve only let that one thing slide once for Nevea Tears’ “Run with the hunted”, and that’s the only album I can honestly say that I’ve ever felt guilty about downloading, not because it’s incredible – which it isn’t – but because they’re a tiny little Californian band.

I don’t have a problem with people telling me that downloading isn’t right and so on, and when it’s outside of those 3 criterion I mentioned above, I usually won’t (exception to the rule being that damned Nevea Tears album), Nor do I have a problem with artists speaking out against downloading (say, again, Metallica, or Tool.) But when the structure of the music industry is so biased AGAINST those who are the lifeblood of it – that being the artists – that ARTISTS are speaking out, directly (in the case of Courtney Love and Thursday, both fairly well selling artists) or somewhat more implicitly (Radiohead and NIN moving to independent distribution etc. is a pretty damning take on labels in my view.) I can’t honestly put my hand in my pocket with a clean conscience knowing that the artists will get next to nothing from the albums being sold

I try and offset any “loss” that I make the artists make by going to as many shows as I can possibly afford, and when possible, buying Merch or CDs if they’re selling them at the merch stall (Example: Reel Big Fish tee and Streetlight Manifesto’s 3rd album when I went to see them both in February*).

I stick to this so much that it’s nearly got me in trouble at a couple of the shows (Fightstar in June, Argument with bouncer because I’d waited in a huge queue for the merch stall to be told that “the merch stall was closed” despite the fact there were still a ton of people queuing. not even the guys on the stall could believe it) but nonetheless I stick to it. My personal take on the matter is that if you download, at least go to shows and buy merch to put the money where it should really go.

Secondly. and this is the thing that really gets me, and I alluded to it in the first point. If it’s hurting the artists in the pocket, why isn’t it the ARTISTS who are stepping up to the plate with the legal battles etc. Answer? because it isn’t. People who download are only really hittting the record companies in the pocket, who have been screwing the artists – who, without which remember, they wouldn’t exist – out of money for YEARS. The RIAA make money out of these settlements under the pretense of the Artists’ intellectual rights being infringed, but pass on this money to the companies, not the artists. The whole Music industry is rotten to its core.

So, in short. If you download, don’t make excuses for it, you do it – simple as. But don’t call yourself a fan unless your at their show, queuing up for that merch stand, willing to put the money into the pockets of those who deserve it.

* N.B. Interestingly enough, in February, I got talking to Aaron Barrett about this after the show, and he said that under their old contract, they made more from touring and merch than they would have done even if they’d sold 2 times as many albums, such were the terms of it.