An interesting report here refuting the Recording Industry's exaggerated claims of losses to themselves and artists.
http://torrentfreak.com/why-most-artists-profit-from-piracy/Piracy is not all that bad for musicians. In fact, research has shown that less popular artists actually profit from piracy.
Several studies have shown that most artists actually profit from unauthorized sharing of files. They sell more albums because people have the opportunity to download songs and entire albums for free. A study by Blackburn (2004), a PhD student from Harvard, found that the 75% of the artist actually profit from piracy. Blackburn reports that the most popular artist (top 25%) sell less records. However, the remaining 75% of all artists actually profit from filesharing.
Please take time to read this as much of it supports the view of ourselves in how folks having access to more music benefits artists and consumers whilst diverting much of the revenue previously paid to "middleman" back to the artist, something we are all more happy with.
