Thanks. And yes, you are right.

A lawyer is something that can be factored in to the advance and the record company pays for your lawyer - just make sure it's one that doesn't work for the label! Too many bands have done that mistake with both labels and managers and years later screaming they got scr*w*d.

Anyway - the point I was trying to make is that very few new artists will stand a chance making a living on their music with the illegal downloading. If they can't get a deal with a label who does the backing and marketing what can they do? And labels will be less keen to sign new artists if they can't sell them.

The illegal downloading isn't affecting the wealth of those who already made their fortunes before downloading turned in to a problem.

Oh - and how come CDs turn up on P2P networks long before they are released? Most often it's the journalists on the mailinglists. SOmetimes it's even the record company execs who have trusted a friend with a copy, who trusted another friend, who trusted another friend... and so on.

Or it's the courrier who pulled the CD and ripped it while he was taking it to the record company.

Or it's the recording studio who runs an FTP they never change the password on and who's had it hacked or who use them same access codes for all their clients, because they couldn't be bothered getting a sysadmin in to set up a VPN.

Or it's the band who haven't worked out that yousendit.com and similar is NOT a good idea to use when shipping files between eachother.

Sheer stupidity is most often the reason why a CD ends up on P2P before it's released. And a hefty portion of "lack of respect for other peoples intellectual property"

/E