I don't really have much patience for the "they got ripped off by record companies anyway" argument.

It's the first thing serial downloaders always say. Fact is, however bad their deals were, they got *some* money out of it.

You mention Peter Bellamy "bootlegging himself". Well quite right too - fair play to him. But the crucial point is he got some money out of it.

What I find is really depressing about the rampant download sites is they way they spew out all this self-righteous cant about 'championing lost figures' but that they never put their money where their mouth is. All too often it's self-serving sophistry anyway - these people are rarely so 'lost' that they can't be found with about 3 clicks of a mouse.

There are so many possibilities with the Internet for re-instituting the kind of convivial, "face-to-face", direct-from-the-maker kind of trade.

Imagine how surprised and pleased one of makers of the albums mentioned above would be to receive an unsolicited payment for an album downloaded without his/her knowledge.

If it happened more often, it would totally alter the antagonistic nature of musicians versus downloaders.

But it would never occur to serial downloaders, who have forgotten there is any people on the end of the abstracted product to consume: just more names on an impossibly hyperinflated iTunes library that would take 20 lifetimes to properly engage with.