Don't try and justify it, theres too many people here who will tell you "It's wrong" regardless of circumstance.

Fact is, it's illegal regardless of your financial situation.

Fact is I've been known to download music or rip other peoples cds, so you won't find judgement from me.

However, for small bands and those I truly wish to support, I do buy their CDs. Without that and concert tickets, they cannot afford to keep making the music I like.

Not to turn this into a thread on pirating music, but the reasons behind why I do it, and why I feel that it's NOT hurting the music/movie/video game industry nearly as bad as they scream it is, is that for myself, and I'd imagine a vast majority of everyone else who downloads music/movies/games, if I wanted it I'd have bought it. There's not a single song, video game, or movie I've downloaded that I'd have bought if it weren't available for download. I may have rented the movie (and I do, in fact, with Netflix), might have borrowed the game if I knew someone who had it, or woulda just listened to the radio for the songs. I downloaded it because it was convienent, NOT because I wanted it badly enough that I'd have paid for it but it was free here instead. My mom offered to let me rip her Tartan Terrors CDs from the PA Ren Faire, but I bought copies anyway, because I wanted to support them, and because it's something I'd have bought. I've downloaded misc celtic music online just to give it a listen. Most has been deleted, and if I couldnt have downloaded it, I wouldn't have bought it regardless.

But thats just me.

Sorry for derailing this off-topic, but I figured it was already derailed when I hopped on