Ok I have to word this carefully to avoid moderator wrath....
With movies and videogames the only experience is the product so piracy is technically removing the chance of income and therefor it can be argued that piracy is a moral wrong.
However where music differs is in the distribution and consumption. When purchasing an album the money goes to the record company who then keeps between 88 and 95 percent of the money, the remainder is used toward paying for the advance, recording, promotion, manufacturing, distribution etc, which means that the artist/band only start receiving royalties once they have sold quite a high volume usually in the Millions.
It then becomes arguable that if you were to download the bands entire back catalogue instead of purchasing and subsequently attend one concert, even if the ticket price is the same as one album, you would be contributing more to the artist than someone who had purchased every album as the artist receives 100 percent of the ticket (minus venue hire etc)
It is a very tricky subject to discuss on the escapist as they are quite keen to suspend for even mentioning piracy in a positive light, but let me leave you with this, if (and granted it is a large if) all artists started releasing their recorded works for free, would the artists be making the same amount of money they do now and would they still feel the need to make music for a specific demographic or would it liberate the artists from chasing sales to sustain their fan base?
