[lowbit]

I'd feel a lot clearer about the issue of downloading if it weren't for situations like the one we currently face, where I've paid for the album, people are able to walk into a store in Japan and buy it (with an extra track, no less!), and I still don't have it. Releasing it early in Japan with an extra track is purely manipulative, forcing fans (like most of us here -- the ones who, by the way, often work hard to promote the artist's work to others) to shell out a lot of extra cash if they want to hear all of the music.

I don't like the idea of people downloading my favorite artists' work for nothing, but I'm also bloody sick of shelling out extra hard-earned dough on a regular basis for "maxi-singles" and Japanese and Australian versions with tracks not available in my country. Yeah, it's been going on so long that we're used to it, but that doesn't make it any less arbitrary and exploitive. It's ridiculous.