Von Lohmann [of the EFF] has little sympathy for an industry that's been complaining about free downloading for almost a decade now:

Von Lohmann: Get out there and do the work, right? Bottled water competes with free every day, private schools compete with free every day, lots of industries compete with free by delivering a better product, a more convenient product.

He says the attraction of file-sharing sites isn't just that they're free -- they offer a far better selection than any pay site, he says, with no restrictions on how files can be copied or played.

Von Lohmann: You've got to give fans what they want. They want the whole catalog, they want it conveniently and, you know, I think they'd be willing to pay a few dollars for it. But oftentimes, you can't really get all the songs -- even on iTunes, even if you want to pay for them.

[...]