On Wed, 10 Sep 2008 16:27:30 +0000 (UTC), Stanis?aw Halik
wrote:

Technically "possession" is not illegal. It is illegal to copy
without license, to seek an unlawful copy, and to profit from an
unlawful copy. But should you simply find an unlawful copy or one be
gifted to you without solicitation, then you've done nothing wrong.

FWIW, prior to internet radio, I had occasions to download free music.
I could rationalize it because there are far more one-hit-wonders than
consistently good musicians, radio would only play the one track the
label paid them to play and I was (still am) unwilling to buy an album
with many tracks of noise to get one good song.

If I found I liked an album or an artist generally, I always purchased
the CD(s) and created my own MP3s tailored to the music. I've tried
several of the internet music services and have been pretty uniformly
dissatisfied even when paying extra for supposed "high quality"
versions. I play with the MP3 settings and frequently make several
attempts before I get a version I think is close enough to the track
on the CD - there's always some difference to be heard but I can't
always figure out what setting(s) to tweak.

If a song is a one-hit and there is no CD single to be had, I try to
find the best MP3 version to purchase individually. This happens more
often than I would like - upon hearing more from a new artist I
frequently find I prefer some track other than the one being hyped.
But there is such wide variation in fidelity among the various service
that I've concluded that most everyone using internet music services
is tone deaf and the people making the MP3s for them don't care how
anything sounds.

George