raptorific:

The artists endorse the site, and don’t mind that their songs are being pirated (because they don’t really get money from album sales, and it gets their work out there, creating more fans who buy concert tickets, which is where they get most of their revenue), however, the site was taken down because the record labels don’t like it. 

People are led to believe that music piracy really hurts the musical artists, but if they’re popular enough that their songs are being pirated, they’re not the ones getting hurt. In reality, the only people it even comes close to hurting are record executives, and it barely hurts them. 

Downloading an album is no more piracy than borrowing a friend’s CD and importing it to your iPod. Downloading a TV show is no more piracy than using a DVR. 

And I don’t know about everyone else, but all the downloaders I know have every intention of buying that product later. People who download music are more likely to discover a new favorite band and buy concert tickets. People who download movies have usually seen the movie already in theaters and have every intention of purchasing the DVD as soon as it’s available. People who download ebooks probably either already own a paper copy or, if they’ve discovered a new author will buy their next book. 

Neil Gaiman, on the subject of internet piracy, once asked a crowd of people whether or not they had a favorite author, someone whose works they would purchase by simply because it was written by them. Almost everyone raised their hands. He then asked whether or not they had discovered this person by going into the store and buying something they had written. Almost no one raised their hand. Neil Gaiman views internet piracy as “borrowing.”