Personally, I think Piracy should stay illegal, if anything the penalties should get worse. why? a relative of mine works in anti-piracy, and said relative told me that there is a fairly large amount of organised crime involved in pirating. luckily, he hasn't had to deal with any recently, but not long ago, he was nearly stabbed. it was only his quick thinking that stopped him from being stabbed. that is the kind of people who are involved in selling counterfeit music. still seem like an excellent idea?
as for the artists, yes, some do earn a lot, but do you think they started earning that much? very few get instant stardom. also, how do you think they earned so much? as people are prepared to buy their music. for heaven's sake, if you don't want to buy a CD, you could always sue a store like Itunes ( as an example), where each track is less than a pound, and the money doesn't go towards criminals.
oh, and yes, it is CRIMINALS that pirate music. sure, copying a track or tow isn't ( I've copied music from CDs onto my computer using Itunes before) a big deal, but it is when people buy from pirates. relative of mine could have been killed a few short weeks ago, and the criminal got his money from people buying pirated music from the bastard. how would you feel if that bastard was the person you bought pirated music from because you couldn't be bothered to spend a couple of pounds to buy an album legally. ( on Itunes, most tracks cots 79p/99cents bought separately, each album being around 5 quid last time I checked. not exactly much, and you can listen to 30 seconds of the track before you buy to see if it's a good one.) some people disgust me.
