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What part of "Seller sets the price" don't they get ?

"In fact, he says, he doesn't see it as theft. "This is exactly like going to the library. Do I have to pay to check out a book? I'm just listening to the song, not selling it."
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doesnt the library have late fees? try returning an mp3, i dare ya.

I can see part of the file-swapping argument from the perspective that high taxes create a black market. Only in this situation it's not a government levying a tax, but record companies demanding nearly $20 for one or two decent songs and 9 other tracks of crap. If therecord companies had embraced online music distribution, they could have actually made a lot more money than they are getting from these lawsuits and strongarm tactics that are only encouraging more downloading on file sharing systems.

Q. How can a vendor make money selling merchandise that can be identically duplicated at will?

A. He or she cannot.

Conclusion: The advent of cheap, perfect digital duplication (MP3s) and distribution (the internet) has destroyed the material-based marketing paradigm basic to the music industry.

Digital-age technology has made obsolete the machine-age idea of "music" as a physical object (record, tape, CD, etc.) From now on, recorded music is free -- and the musicians who make should spend their time and efforts thinking of ways to profit in an environment that reflects that fact. Those that fail to do so will vanish.

And there's no stopping this trend. The genie is out of the bottle. From this point on, musicians (and other performing artists) can no longer consider themselves in the business of selling recordings of their works; because the cost of reproducing such recordings is effectively zero, the market value of physical recordings themselves is zero. In the future, musicians will make money either on a service basis (by performing their works in person) or a royalty basis (licensing official merchandise related to their works -- books, t-shirts, dolls, toys, etc.). The days of an artist and his/her label getting rich from the proceeds of a million-seller are fast drawing to a close; nothing "sells" anymore (all the merchandise is free) , and anybody can own a "label" (a distribution website).

The bad news is that this will destroy the music industry as we know it.
The good news is that this will destroy the music industry as we know it.

Artists and industries who fight this trend may win in the short term, but will lose in the long term. The RIAA is a modern-day association of buggywhip manufacturers; nothing they do will stop consumers from downloading files, burning disks, and swapping music with their friends. In a world where every house has its own digital milk-cow, the dealer in livestock is sure to disappear.

And later, when computers as we know them are replaced by "e-paper" (paper-thin sheets of printed circuitry capable of displaying moving or still color images downloaded from the internet), the print industry will face a similar Ragnarok.

(Note: I myself am a professional artist and do not download MP3 files containing music, patronize swapping sites, or burn copies of CDs for other people.)