Originally posted by Masherbrum
The Beastie Boys, Dr Dre, and MANY other artists PROMOTE and ENCOURAGE the use of P2P software.
Artists that promote and encourage P2P should abandon publishers and release their stuff only on the internet. That's putting your money where your mouth is. Look up "Harvey Danger" to find out what I'm talking about. Anyone that "promotes or encourages" but still uses major record labels is two faced.
MiniD, I have about 78GB of mp3's on my Home HD. About a quarter of them I have downloaded off of P2P. Of that 25%, I have bought about 50 CD's that I NEVER would have bought had I not been able to hear it first.
So? Did you need to download it and put it on your mp3 player to evaluate that? This does not seem to be what the "debate" is about. It's odd how everyone wants to try to make it about this instead of pointing out there's also alot of music they download, keep and don't buy because they don't like the rest of the album, don't like this or don't like that.... yet, they still keep the stolen product.
When you're speeding is it because the state is over controlling and you don't subscribe to the bs laws that govern you or is it just that you want to go faster and are willing to risk it? One is justifying breaking the law and the other is simply doing it.
Prior to P2P's, my brother taped the entire Pink Floyd Catalog (to the Final Cut), alot of Queen, and other's. Back then "that was a no-no". I have both CD catalogs now. I'm sure that they'd "side with you" that they hate P2P's. 
Did you know that the RIAA made money off of that duplicate? Did you also know that the quality of that duplicate was greatly reduced from a record? The issue at hand seems to be that perfect duplicates are now readily available. Hell, most of Vista's new DRM applies to HD only yet it's the end of the world.
Your argument holds NO WATER. There are MILLIONS like me. Wait, you're Holier than thou. I got it now. In the meantime, set the watermelon shovel down, you look tired.
I'm holier than thou? No. I'm just not pretending that stealing isn't really stealing. I'm not pretending that attempts at DRM are purely a result of the evil RIAA and have nothing to do with piracy. I'm not pretending that there's so much good that comes from stolen software/music/movies that it should be allowed and even encouraged/promoted.
I find it odd that, lately, Steve Jobs has been championed as an opponent of DRM. This is the same steve jobs that has controled the very hardware used on his computer components before he left as CEO of apple and as soon as he came back. This is the same Steve Jobs that would be more than happy with DRM if every portable music device were apple and every song were sold by iTunes. This is the same Steve Jobs that is realizing that a proprietary DRM controlled by Apple will mean a different DRM is created that everyone else uses (or they succumb to apple's demands) that makes it apple vs the world (yet again) or they go with something non-proprietary and Apple risks their producer status and revenue by abandoning iTunes in favor of someone who specializes or controls the music rather than a computer company.
I also find it odd that when discussing DRM, piracy is always defended. Very odd, given that DRM is not about piracy but rather control.
