[Choo-ChooAKA]

Artists make 99% of their money from tours, etc., as someone already stated. The points they get on the CD are inconsequential. As you know, record companies are the ones with the problem with downloading at this point, however, THEY ARE GOING TO MAKE THEIR MONEY ONE WAY OR ANOTHER; that's why they're in the business. Their plans is to start to dip into the lone bastion that the artists have historically had for themselves; their tours.

They will receive points from tours, t-shirts, etc. - all of the venues the artists have had total control over in the pastn - in return for giving them more points on each CD (BIG DEAL AT THIS POINT). So, the artists you love and new artists coming along will eventually feel the pinch of your downloading. You say you're tired of paying so much for CD's with one or two good songs on them; well, pretty soon, you will be paying a MINT to see a concert!! If you stop going to concerts because they're so expensive and keep downloading music because it's so expensive, there will be no more music industry. Art IS expensive. Be selective: support the artists you really think are worth it by buying their CD's and going to their concerts.

I download nothing. My husband is a song/writer and producer and once had a lucrative publishing deal (which record companies are now very slow to give and quick to cancel). If I don't like an artist's music enough to buy their stuff, then forget it; I'm not going to steal it.

NOTHING is free. You will always pay for it in one way or another.