"when it was suggested in a comment to the blogger that he could direct his readership to a legal download site for this album his response was that he didn't think he "could go THAT far"

That's enough to show where he's coming from. Any high pretence of high minded well-wishing or generosity is thus demolished.

BTW I've already mentioned on this thread that I offered a whole album for free download for a while. 4 years later I've met exactly one person who actually downloaded it and burnt a CD from it, and I'm not aware of any promotional benefits from it. We have got booking as a result of short sound clips available on the site.

Anahata