True. But those sort of downloads can't be anything like the majority : the number's just don't add up. The point being that if the majority of illegal downloads really were just "curiosity/see what it sounds like" downloads, the record industry quite simply wouldn't have noticed. It wouldn't have even registered as a blip. Instead, it's taken a massive hit.

There's also something slightly spurious about that "road-testing" argument. At what point do you decide that, actually yes, this is an album you quite like and might have bought. A week later? 6 weeks later? a year later? 6 years later? There's a lot of imponderables there.

(and at least with libraries, there's a little loans royalty. it's titchy sure, but at least it's some kind of kickback to the artist)