Bruce wrote:
A recent survey showed that 19 out of 20 music tracks being listened to
on MP3 players were illegal copies or illegal downloads. That
represents a huge amount of revenue that is being denied to musicians
and composers.

If a high proportion of people respected copyright, prices could be
lower. The trouble is that prices stay high because only a small
proportion of music is being paid for.

You can't expect people to spend 10,000 quid to fill an iPod with music.
Compare this with a typical collection of 100 CDs which are worth
perhaps 1000 quid.

No doubt you will suggest that, if the prices were lower, more people
would buy legal copies. Well, I very much doubt that, because once the
principle of copyright theft is as well established as it is now, the
same people will still steal the music for nothing, and musicians and
composers will get even less.

You are mistaking a CD sales crisis for a music crisis. Concert and
festival attendances are booming. The percentage of people's incomes
spent on music hasn't changed radically. Musicians (and composers) stand
to make much more money than before with the use of the internet to
promote themselves - it just doesn't need to support the recording
industry behemoth companies we needed in the past.