Why couldn't I have spent the $20 supporting a real musician who needs the sales figures to pay rent and keep from getting dropped by their label?

That's a great question. Why don't you? Interesting that you don't actually address the part of the equation here that requires some integrity. I hope you at least pay the artists for what you're taking from them - either by paying for crappy mp3s from Itunes or by writing a check out and mailing it off to the artists in question.

I'm still stunned that people keep falling for the mp3 thing. All the money people spend on expensive home stereos and theater systems and then they go and play throught it something that's got less fidelity than a friggin' cassette tape. One of these days all of you people who've bought into the mp3 thing are going to wake up and realize that you've got a worthless bunch of crap - and nothing "real" to go back to because, if you ever had real CDs to begin with, you've sold it all off.

Maybe because most people couldn't tell the difference between 160 kbps and 192?

Also, most iTMS users probably don't have expensive stereo systems? But rather, like the author (and me), use computers, or car speakers, or even (shock!) iPods, to listen to music

Don't get too worked up, Adam. Tom has spent quite a lot of time attacking MP3s, and sadly, people keep falling for that scam. Something about digitally compressed music on CD sounding slightly more digitally compressed just doesn't get too many people very excited.

Except Tom, whose ears are finely tuned instruments. :-)

I keep most of the CDs despite listening to iTunes or my iPod 80 to 85 percent of the time. I am a music lover. That is not necessarily synonymous with being an audiophile. I believe that is where people like Tom and people like me part company in regard to this issue. I am satisfied with the adequate quality of the best ACC setting in iTunes. He is not. I believe there are more music lovers like me than there are like him. That explains the popularity of MP3s.

I never get worked up over whether the artists are losing money because I download music for free, mainly because I still buy CDs. I look at it the way I do books from the library -- those authors, theoretically, don't make a dime off of me either, but there's always a chance that if you read a book by an author for free you'll wind up buying his books too. Same goes for music, at least in my case.

Well, Tom
I do support the music industry. Between Cds and concerts... that is the bulk of my discretionary income. Also, I don't like how music is being distributed. I think it is obsolete. I mean, going to a record store should be a choice. So should going to the artists web site and downloading the whole thing for $5 (plenty of profit, no packaging, no warehousing, no distribution). Take a look at how Jimmy Buffet or Pearl Jam or Ani DiFranco or Prince do their business. The industry refuses to change, so we'll go on without them.

if I see one more post about checking out the site with on-line casinos-----
it will be enough to drive me to gambling.....

I remember in college once, when someone thought I was stuck up because when she asked me what I was listening to on my WALKMAN, I said Traffic. she thought I was being flip.