My earlier attempt at posting didn't get through either.
I can't think of any other art genre that would look happily at people who have no part in creating a piece of copyrighted material distributing it indiscriminately with no regard to the opinions or financial rights of the owners of the copyright.
The facts are (and this is not my opinion) there is a law of copyright and illegitimate downloads are illegal. People have been prosecuted for it and fined heavily. It is one thing to lend someone else your copy of a recording and entirely something else to upload it to a site where there are no restrictions as to who will download it. Not that long ago there was small print on albums to remind the purchaser that buying a copy of the CD did not confer broadcast, distribution or commercial rights. It still doesn't. I know there is a huge sub-culture with today's kids whereby copying music is a normal part of what they do - it still doesn't make it legal, however, or fair, or right.
I am, like others on this thread, very disappointed that there are Mudcatters who haven't worked out that publicising blogs like THTM is not a way to support musicians working in a minority genre who need all the financial boosts they can get.