[Bella_Bru]

Many of the songs I have downloaded are either no longer in print or I already purchased on vinyl and then again on cassette.

I also have actually gone put and bought the CD of a group when I have dloaded a couple of songs and discovered that I liked them a lot.

[P-Marlowe]

Most of the stuff on the internet is poorly recorded or poorly compressed. It really isn't worth the effort to download. I only download stuff that I have purchased in the past and then only for the purpose of picking up chord and lead patterns for practice.

They can shut down all the file transfer stuff they want. No big loss. If you want a high quality MP3, then go to the library and check out the CD. I won't advise you on what you do when you get it home, but a 16 speed CDR can solve all your file sharing woes in a hurry.

[TommyDale]

The sinister motivation isn't to really protect the copyrighted materials. Your example shows how the system works, because you liked the sample, then bought it.
The REAL goal here is to completely stop free exchange of art, music and even the news. The goal is to shut down the extremely conservative internet.