Just to add to what Scicky said, even if he'd been forced to buy music because there was no alternative, he likely wouldn't purchased nearly as many songs as he presently has. Why should so many consumers have to suffer when there is a cheaper, more efficient way to acquire the same thing, without causing any real loss.
Artists need to work on providing something to get money from consumers. For instance, I'm about to purchase
this shirt from a band, as well as a $5 poster. If the design was slightly better, I'd be willing to pay $25 or maybe even more for a band shirt, as I am quite a fan of Giant Drag. Now, they have
another shirt out that I am much more fond of, but it's not sold through their band merchandise page that is linked to on their website, and I question if they even receive compensation for sales of this shirt. Also, I can't seem to find that shirt in my size anywhere (I'm not a particularly odd size, either, a bit smaller than the average guy, but I've only been able to find extremely large men's or various women's sizes).
Rather than huffing and puffing about piracy, artists should move away from these greedy cretins and work on doing honest, intelligent business. They're also going to need to accept that piracy is just the way business goes now.
Edit: It's my lucky day, when I was getting the image for the second shirt, I was lazy in the search terms I used, which brought up a site that seems to have it in my size (I didn't even notice until after I wrote the post). Maybe they just added the shirt, as it's been about a month since I looked... And the shirt is $36, oy vey, but I like this band so much that I am actually considering it. While this situation has had it's hitches, this is mostly the way things should be and will likely end up being in the future.
