RIAA doesn't pay out to infringed artists, pockets money instead.

I'm shocked. SHOCKED.

This is why I continue to promote artists that offer up their music directly to consumers. I paid for my Radiohead album, and I support NIN, and a lot of others that have done similar things.

Yes, the record labels deserve to recoup their marketing and investment costs, but not to the extent of shutting out the artists. That's just blatantly wrong.

Also, numerous studies have shown that people don't steal rather than purchase. People steal only when they never had the intention of purchasing. Either because they don't think the product is that good (the elephant in the room), or because they don't have the discretionary income.

The fact is, if the music/movie/whatever is good, it generally doesn't get pirated to the extent that other media does. But then, that's not the media that companies need to recoup losses for since they tend to make money hand over fist on the "good" stuff. No, instead they want to go after all the red necks that illegally downloaded shitty Metallica music since it's maybe the only way they'll get much return.