No.
Look, what they are doing is illegal. And if we chortle at the thought of the big, bad record companies losing out then remember that the artists are losing out too.
There was a similar discussion on GFSA recently, and the point was made that the record companies are part of the problem here - they charge too much for CDs aimed at the popular market, and the purchaser gets maybe 2 or 3 songs that they want for whatever reason and 10 tracks of banal filler that nobody wants. So the youngsters are resentful and will got to lengths to get only the bits they want at only the price they want to pay. That quickly devolves into downloading the whole album for free and expunging the filler tracks from your I-pod.
What does concern me is the "get it for free" mentality that I see more and more of. People I work with download and then "give" each other entire films. Why go see them or rent a DVD? They download music with no thought about legality, ethics, copyright or who is getting paid. I think the justification is that "they" have loads of money already (through the generosity of the fools that don't download).
Well they don't always. And if we carry on like this they'll have less and less.
I think there's other problems around this. When you get stuff for free, just because you can, do you value it as much? How much do the people that you "give" it too value it? Value is good. You should have things that you value and appreciate and treasure - but I see less of that with things that are downloaded or pirated.
