I think downloading online music is a good opportunity to obtain rare or obscure stuff that I'd never have a chance to hear. I used it to discover a great band called Ekova, I then went to the effort of buying the album from Amazon in the UK for a heap of money, couldn't get it anywhere else (or much of it online).
I also bought the new Sting CD on Monday, but the Australian version is missing a track that everyone else gets. I'll be downloading that missing song.
I've also downloaded songs which I'd never have bothered to pay money for, where I liked only one song but wouldn't buy a whole album. In that situation, yes, I should be like Cleo and pay the $1 (although I did this quite a few months ago, before that option was available)
I really don't listen to new music anymore, mostly because the stuff that comes out is absolute crap... and this is due to the record companies sticking with "safe bets" all the time. If mp3s can shake that up a bit, and give more freedom and money back to the bands, I think they're a good thing.
So perhaps my view is, if I could download music and pay only the bands/musicians for it, then I'd do that.
I suspect I'm justifying wrongdoing here... oh well. Then again, as MML says, it's free on the radio...
By the way, we went to the effort of buying the new Metallica album, and now we wish we'd just downloaded it.
