Pirating does not cost money however... any company.  Atleast not in any country where it's illegal, because the large majority of people 99% or so, who do so would never buy said products in the first place and that's why they go through the trouble of downloading said stuff.  It's actually something that has statistics behind it.

The amount of money lost by pirating in places where it's illegal(well the US) is statistically incomparable from zero.  I know, it doesn't make sense to you but it's true.  It's one of those more complicated issues of the market but it generally has to do with who's doing the pirating, who's pirating what, and some of the other effects pirating can have that are positive for those same game,record,music industries.

I don't pirate music by the way.  I just know these things because of my choice of majors.  So i'm not "justifying" anything.  I just know the general facts behind the matter.

QF lots and lots of T. 

Also, the small-time artists who you and a few others say are hurt most, benkenobi, are mostly in FAVOR of opening up more songs to be freely downloaded, to spread the word about their music.  I know that there are several artists I never would have heard of if not for (illegally, I suppose) downloading their songs -- and I have bought a couple of their albums.  My brother is the same way, only he has bought LOTS of albums that way; he's much more into music than I am.   

Hypothetically speaking:

If pirating was impossible - if downloading mp3s, movies, games, whatever was completely impossible for every person in the world - there would be an increase in music, movies, and games sales.

You say you download something because you wouldn't buy it anyway. That may be...but if you had absolutely no access to certain music...and your only option is to buy it...would you? I'm certain many people would buy more music because they couldn't just quick download it for free instead.

If piracy is significantly reduced, I'm sure you'd see an increase in media sales.

Final Fan and stof, you've got me on the small artists thing. I understand and agree.

I'm mainly just trying to make a general point...and playing the devil's advocate here, since I also download and listen to plenty of music. The more music is spread, the better, yes. It's just the principle of the thing I suppose. If it's made free, then of course there's no problem. But when it's meant to cost a certain amount, and when the makers don't really want it to be pirated...that's obviously different.

I rarely download music, and when I do I don't feel guilty, 'cause I haven't bought a CD since... hell, ever. Last time I bought music is was cassette tape. I don't buy music. Just listen to it on the radio, but if there's something that I really like more than it's getting radio played, I might download it.

If there was no internet, I'd have recorded it off the radio like I use to. Know what? That wasn't illegal. What's the difference really?

As for movies, I do download every movie I won't pay to see, usually when it's out on dvd for a good quality. If I end up liking the movie, I go and buy it. If not, then I'm glad I didn't pay.

Without internet I may have rented it or waited for it to come out on tv. And then recorded it. Hmmm.... that's not illegal either, but same result.

For PC games, I totally agree. I shamefully admit to doing it to (although it's not illegal here in Canada) when I couldn't afford to buy the game. I do try to get the game later though when I can afford it. They definitely lose some money though because I end up paying 1/2 or 1/4 the price it was when I played it.

What's FAR, FAR worse for the gaming industry though is buying used games. It's directly taking money away from the game publishers and studios. Only the store profits. My city outlawed this, but it was overturned by the courts. Why is this legal when downloading is not? Of course, you buy used books, furniture etc.....

Ultimately downloading is only bad if you don't support the artists/films/games you love. Otherwise imho it's no different than recording music, movies or buying used versions of movies/games. None of which is illegal although it can cost the studios far more money.

No.  Because I wouldn't have heard of half the songs that I've heard my friends download who's CDs i've bought.  A lot of my friends buy CDS of people they'd of never heard of if not for file sharing.  If in my younger days when i emulated, had I not bought Tactics Ogre I would have never bought it for the SNES, nor would I have ever bought Disgaea, La Pucelle Tacitcs, Final Fantasy Tactics, Hoshigamai Ruining Blue Earth, Phantom Brave, Front Mission 3, Gladius, Future Tactics Suikoden Tactics, Sukioden 4 (so i knew what the heck tactics was about) and a number of other countless tactics games.

There are plenty of factors and studies that show infact if pirating was nearly impossible sales would not increase statistically and might even decrease, but once again it would not be by a statistically measurable margin.  That pirating in countries where it is illegal, the benfits and negatives outway each other.  The above example just being one of the many examples of piracy.

In countries like China where it's pretty much illegal yes sales would increase... but even then by a far lesser margin then you would think, because people have limited incomes as it is.

So you may think it so that media sales would increase, but in countries like the USA, you would be dead wrong.

Is it wrong morals wise?  Yeah sure.  Does it actually hurt someone financially.  Not in the US.  That doesn't matter too much however, since the morale reasons should be enough one way or another.

The difference is that you can make a good copy.  While your radio quality copy is going to suck.

Really the only reason music companies make a big deal about piracy is because it gives them a barganing chip against bands who arn't that smart and haven't done research in the matter and don't know that piracy doesn't actually hurt the big companies so much as legal song downloading does because it lets bands get around bigger developers.

Record companies make a big deal out of it so they can go to people like metallica and get a bigger cut of their tour profits.  Piracy in a round about way actually makes record company more money and costs artists money.  Not because of the pirates but because the companies are smart enough to use it as a bargaining trick. 

 The issue in regard to the 'I wouldn't buy it anyway' argument isn't usually about whether sales would increase or not, it is in argument to the ridiculous numbers that are produced in regards to losses. This is really evident in the software industry when you have applications like photoshop, which are priced far out of what most people would consider reasonable, espically given they only use it to do simple tasks that other cheaper/free software could do anyway. If photoshop was suddenly unpirateable tomorrow, I can assure you that while sales would most likely increase, they would be no where near the amount of pirated copies that there are today.

If anyone listens to obscure music and gets pissed because their favourite band misses playing any where close to them, you can thank yourself and everyone not purchasing CDs in your area. Tours are made based on areas where their CD sales are strong. Artists make most of their money on tours, but they won't touch areas where their sales are piss poor because they can't track where their albums are being illegally downloaded, they can only track actual sales.