To the OP:

I was very much like you before I began to experiment with putting together a nice stereo/surround sound system. Once I began to hear the difference between a Lossy format vs a Lossless format, the mp3 format began to sound distasteful to me. Sure, I don't mind listening to an mp3 format; however, listening to anything below 320kbps makes me wonder how much sound I'm missing out on. FLAC is my new favorite music format, and paying for great music no longer seems absurd. I can get more stimulation from a song than many games I played today. Music has become sweet candy for my ears and soul; it can push my body better than an energy drink, it can bring forth nostalgia and past forgotten memories, and pretty much make my day at work. (Well worth the sticker price of $10-30 dollars to me).

I would argue that the term "stealing" doesn't entirely fit the situation. When a person pirates media, he is only costing the distributor a potential sale--even then, there's no guarantee that they would have made the money that his piracy "cost" them, or that he would have bought it at all, had piracy not been an option. When you steal a videogame, movie, or album from a store, you not only deprived them a sale, but you also deprived the shop of the physical, tangible worth of that disc. I don't know if I'm stating this correctly. Basically, if a store has a $10 album, and I steal that physical album, they've lost $10. It's gone. Whereas if I pirate a $10 album, the "source" for that revenue remains, and, technically, the distributor has lost nothing.

Don't get me wrong, though, I'm not trying to say that piracy is okay, just that the unique nature of digital media makes this a somewhat morally grey area. Personally, I do my fair share of pirating, but I also buy as much as I can afford, because if everyone pirated everything, no one would earn anything, and we can't have that.

Patent law would disagree with your reasoning. Stealing a copyrighted intangible that has value is legally still stealing. I would argue that the lost revenue attributed to sheer amount of theft by piracy trumps theft by taking related to media (movies, music).

Well, I only download good qualtiy music. Not sure I'm on your level, but if it sounds exactly likes the itunes sample songs, then the donwloads seem okay to me :D

Oh, it is most certainly against the law, but laws don't stop many people from publically smoking weed, or speeding. If you can get away with a crime, while at the same time abiding by whatever moral code you live by, why not break the law? I think piracy is similar, in a way. It's easy to placate your conscience when you can tell yourself, "What are the chances that I'll get caught" or, "I'm not hurting anyone--at least, not directly, so is what I'm doing really wrong?" There's also the fact that losses associated with piracy are extremely difficult to estimate. The erroneous claims that 27,000 jobs and billions of dollars in the entertainment industry have been "lost to piracy" don't help either.

I'm sure it's not as bad as the record industry would say, but there's no doubt that jobs have been lost in the industry due to piracy. Placating one's conscience does not make something right, which is why I don't pirate music.

If there is just one or two song that I want, I will probably download it. But if I like the entire album, or enough of it, then I will buy the album. I like to show support to the artist/band, and my purchase counts towards the sales figures.

writing, performing, and developing an album or even a song costs resources to produce. There's no reason that I should be able to get for free what others pay for.

It's already free on youtube/radio/tv/clubs/shoppingmalls.

So I just download it for free!

No say it is already paid by advertisement blah blah blah....
I'm advertising their stuff in my car to my friends.

I agree that it doesn't make it right, but it makes it feel, and eventually, in the mind, become "not wrong." Piracy isn't as plainly destructive as, say, breaking in someone's window and stealing their most prized and precious possessions--I'd need a pretty damn good excuse to justify directly traumatizing another human being in such a manner. Downloading copyrighted media for free, on the other hand, is directly beneficial to me, and I don't see what effect my actions are having on others. Also, because I don't bear sole responsibility for whatever results from my actions, it would be relatively easy to absolve myself of the blame should, say, my neighbor lose his house as a direct result of thousands of people downloading his music for free.

Once you've been a pirate for long enough, you find all kinds of ways to justify what you're doing, and after a while you forget what was wrong about it in the first place. I think it would be better if everyone had the same attitude towards it as you do, but, unfortunately, not many people do. 

I'd look at it this way. You wouldn't like it done to yourself. Ignoring all the asshole companies and their rules they make up that make the consumer lives worse, and just look at it from the creator/honest company perspective. If everyone in the world would have that mentality of "free" everything. Those companies wouldn't exists anymore. And you'd lose what you like. They do these kind of services to make a living. Like any other person. Except their material they produce is easier to steal.