[Fliko]

I think it is important to be wary of who piracy actually hurts though. I very strongly believe that piracy does hurt someone in the music industry, not the artist, but rather the major record labels.

I remember seeing stats 4 years ago that the income of a musician is actually going up pretty drastically because musicians are starting to go independent (book their own shows, record and release their own records, get their own shirts made to sell).

It takes a lot more work, and a lot of musicians just want to be in the music industry for the music, but they have to (and are starting to) accept that taking part in the business side of the industry will help put more food on their plates and give them nice places to live.

The major record labels will probably stay around for a long time thanks to highly commercial pop/rap artists, but it currently looks like they are attacking everything around them in a desperate attempt to keep all these artists going independent, and to keep the (relatively small) amount of revenue lost from piracy.

It is absolutely nuts that musicians used to get 5 cents for a record sale, and it is an absolute blessing that independent artists are getting most of the money from their record sales!

For purposes of what I posted I think it's good to consider artists who sell music via Topspin, Tunecore etc. as independent artists.