I've done my share of music piracy and a pretty big one. I don't feel too bad about it. I wasn't earning money and couldn't afford to buy this music back then.

The other reason that came up later is the modern mastering quality. It is quite poor (because of things like compression and noise-reduction). For older records (which I listen to a lot) you're much better snatching some 1980s CD or even better an original vinyl copy. The audio quality will simply be much better. The prices of these ones can be astronomically high, where you can find quality vinyl rips (vinyl recordings converted to digital formats) on the web for free. Of course, when downloading such free versions, you could still purchase any original copy to support the artists.

For big labels artists most (I'm not sure but I read somewhere that it can even get up to 90%) of the money goes to the recording company, not the artist himself. Your money supports not exactly what you'll want it to. And so I feel it's more the industry that would benefit from stoping piracy than the artists themselves.

I've had really great experiences on the pirating sites I've participated in (most notably what.cd). They were great communities that are not about money. They're full of music lovers - people who rip obscure CDs, vinyls, discuss them with passion. They have nothing to earn, people just share music there out of love, because they want it to be heard.

And don't you think that the artists' main intention should be to just reach the audience no matter if it's through a pirated or a legal copy? I understand he must also earn money, but being an artist is not a regular job that one take just to make a living.