i normally only download tv shows

But stealing is stealing really; I don't think there's degrees involved with it.

Yes, it's nice to see new music out there on the internet but for every new discovery people make, do you think they'll go out and buy their cd or attend their gigs? I'm not so sure.

If you want to think stealing all the cash and jewelery from a pensioner living alone and stealing a rock from Richard Branson's prized chest of rocks is the same thing, without degrees, because of some bollocks pseudo moral 'stealing is stealing' mentality then sure, shoot for the stars.

I am. Record sales may be down, but live gig attendances went through the roof this decade. That's a fact.

For every negative of illegal downloading there is a lot of positives. When record prices are nosediving in years to come, be sure to send us hooligans a letter of thanks!

File sharing is driving a knife right through the corporate underbelly of the music industry. Fucking celebrate.

The live gigs are by and large for the bands that people like Branson and the like produce and yes, stealing is stealing. I find it highly unlikely that people who download relatively unknown bands for free will suddenly have a mad desire to find an original copy and buy it or travel over to Finland or Russia or wherever to see them perform live. And the stealing is stealing is in reference to your assertions involving the music business, not with regard to all forms of stealing.

I find it highly unlikely that the situation is always as exaggerated as you portray it to be.

Also, they would have more of a chance of been seen live than if the person never downloaded the music in the first place. Music should be the number one priority for any real artist. I for one would be delighted if thousands more got to hear my music through illegal download for free.

Plus your ignoring the fact, again, that the channels many of these bands have been found through in the first place have been ... you guessed it ... the INTERNET!

And it's not all small artists. There is so much of this you are ignoring. In their conceptual stages Lilly Allen, Arcade Fire, The Arctic Monkey's and more have all started out as viral internet phenomena.

So stealing actually isn't stealing? Or is it stealing within the music business is all the same? Either way, it's a riddiculous theory your putting forward. Just substitute Richard Branson for Britney Spears and Pensioner for Rubak Schtanziey - Russia's finest folktronica quartet.

No no, you've stated that it's ok to steal off some bands and not off others but I don't believe people are guided by such principles when they download off the internet. And they're not principles in the first place really because, as I said before I don't believe that many go out and buy an original copy after downloading a pirated one. People don't work that way in life, as we've already seen from some of the comments posted on this thread.

Yes, I do believe it is okay to 'steal' from some artists and not others. That's my personal opinion. Well, actually, it's more a fact, but at the risk of sounding pretentious, god forbid, I will leave it in the opinion basket.

'Stealing' an album from an artist who is overpaid and who is underworked, studio wise, and 'stealing' an album from a band struggling to make ends meet who put effort into creating genuinely interesting, unique soundscapes are two very, very different things.

I don't really see where you are coming from, to be honest. Your just running off on tangents instead of confronting the arguments I have posted. I don't see why you are using TiBB of all places as the template for gauging what illegal downloaders do. Your argument has no real statistical merit and merely boils down to ''well I reckon most people download artists and never buy them''.

Your probably right, the majority probably don't buy all of what they 'steal', but people are different. They, like this issue, can't be generalised into such daft concepts as 'good' and 'evil'.

Again, I show you the upsides of this 'crime' : Increasing live ticket sales, exposure for new bands, new channels of media for pre existing bands, slashing long overpriced record sales, wider consumer choice, easier access to otherwise rare and experimental material, a greater shift to independent labels where artists have both more of a say and more of the profits, a return to genuinely trying to create records the public will want to buy because it's not the same old shit, a D.I.Y approach to being able to create and share - bedroom production - the very thing that kick started both Punk and the 90's dance explosion.

I could go on...

That's not that bad actually. In other countries you can get fined thousand of dollars plus jail time.

Yeah cos Ugly Betty is real quality TV.

I do download, but if I really love an album and it's rereleased then I'll go buy the rereleased on physical. If it's a new artist then i'll buy on iTunes. But when it's someone like Britney or Leona, I personally don;t think they a) deserve the money when they have **** all to do with the making of it and b) will miss the money seeing as they're loaded as it is. And if it's an artist I support til I like die - so really only Christina Aguilera - then i always buy what she does physically.

I might download a movie the odd time and I go through phases of downloading TV shows but atm Glee is the only one I download every week.

It is what comes with the net really. If people see something for free they will take it. Human greed.

Youtube Converter is quality for getting the tunes.

Yeah but the audio quality from YouTube is terrible in most cases, and in all cases never up to the scratch of more conventional methods of listening.

I'm not too fussy about the quality so I don't really mind.

I used to download through Limewire but stopped doing that.

Aye I used to use it constantly years ago but it's washing up less and less gems these days.

YT sound quality is so bad! Try buying an album and listening to it on a cd player(hi-fi whatever) and you'll see the difference.

Oh and I argee with Stu on the whole some artists deserve to be 'stole' off more than others. Although the ones who 'deserve' it aren't really artists at all.

yuck YouTube rips sounds awful. Limewire is too risky for my liking, I rely on direct download links.

I can get good quality songs, jsut the odd song which is really bad its like noooo! Haha, then I use Itunes for that.

You sort of mix and match, use free downloads if possible (if theyre available + half decent quality) and cost downloads if not.

God, you go on a bit. I never said it was good or evil and don't accuse me of having daft concepts; I'm talking about what's right and wrong and how this thread illustrates how people view the internet as a tool for accessing other peoples creative endeavours for free, with free and illegal being the important issues here.

You can go on and on about the advantages of having an outlet to promote a more expansive and wide ranging range of music and creativity (which in part I agree with) until you're blue in the face, but the reality is that most people are motivated by greed and how much they can get for nothing - they wont go out and buy the cd after getting it for free online.

Of course I go on a bit. I am coming from an intelligent discussion angle here predicating the strengths and weaknesses of illegal downloading. Not making statements like ''I reckon most people steal it den not buy it coz thats what most people do''.

Also, I was not specifically accusing you of daft concepts, merely illustrating that it's not a simple black versus white issue. Simple.

The reality is everything positive I have listed, also. You can't speak for everyone on these little AutoSurvey aspects of your arguments. Some would say forking out for physical albums when you can get them for free is being greedy considering digital downloads are worthless in the material sense.

And what you were saying was stealing any music is the same equal crime of stealing. I explained to you how this is not the case. Now I can't see what your point is. Again, there is no black or white right and wrong.

I download shitloads, but then try to buy what I like out of that. I wouldn't have bought The Cure/Jimi Hendrix's CDs yesterday if I hadn't got them illegally first.

Of course there is.... I accept that it's stealing and I'm not particularly happy whenever I download the odd sneaky album because it's reflects poorly on me and on the pockets of the artists. I'm not particularly proud of any that I've gotten for free and I don't think anyone really should be.

My point again is, is it legal? Well, is it? Why don't you do it the old fashioned way and listen to snippets of the songs on allmusic and then if you like what you hear buy it? Don't sugarcoat what we're all doing here by saying it's taking it away from the mainstream.

I love how going on to a website and digitally listening to snippets of songs is now considered 'the old fashioned way'.

Lol, well it is isn't it? Most people just download them now like they're switching channels on tv.

Yes but stealing an album is not just stealing an album. I have already made this clear. Depends on such a large variety of factors.

I don't quiet think the word 'poorly' and the pockets of Jay-Z can co-exist in the same universe, but if it's bugging your conscious that much, don't do it.

That's not a point, it's a question. A question that has nothing to do with this argument. Try and argue the ethics of it from your own educated point of view without bringing legality into it.

Because I like to listen to full albums of artists work, then later buy the albums if I like them, like I already explained. Your old fashioned way does not suffice for all, sorry.

But alot of it is. Likewise, don't sugarcoat it all as being evil stealing, even after I continue to list to you the beneficial effects of file sharing you persist in ignoring my arguments seemingly to try and drag us all to the same moral guilt trip pedestal your on.

Thousands of today's artists would not have even got a record deal, never mind a record sale, if it had not been for filesharing. That's a fact. When families are struggling to put food on the table, hotwiring a Leona Lewis album when everyone involved in that album is raking it in is probably not going to turn too many heads. Rightly so.

The old fashioned way is called vinyl....