&gt;<i>So in a sense everybody is committing a crime</i><p>What is or isn&#x27;t a crime evolves with society.<p>&gt;<i>harming the artist</i><p>No, harming a specific type of artist who insists on maintaining a 30, 40, 50 year old business model.<p>The biggest stars on the planet have their music on YouTube for free, and I&#x27;m sure their music is downloaded proportionately more as well.  I&#x27;m talking about the Adeles, the Taylor Swifts, the Justin Biebers, the Drakes, the Wiz Khalifas.  They are hardly harmed.  They&#x27;ve &quot;grown up&quot; in the digital world, and have built their careers around it.<p>And it isn&#x27;t the &quot;middle class&quot; being harmed, either.  I can have an album up on iTunes, or any other number of platforms, by tomorrow.  At what point in history have independent artists have access to that sort of global reach and distribution?  This is a great time to be a musician.