"He maybe treading on dicey legal ground by encouraging larceny"
There's no maybe about it, Richard Gibbs is treading on very dodgy ground with this stunt of his.
We alrady know how illegal downloading is.
There are artists, and Billy Bragg comes to mind here, who don't mind a person downloading their work, as long as it's not used for commercial purposes. THough it's always seemed to me that it's the corporate record companies (the majors) who do most of the screaming and yelling.