I don't consider it stealing

I help myself to music online. For free. I don't have a problem with doing it either. Yet, I pay for my DVDs. I pay for my iPhone and iPad apps. Some people ask why.

The answer is quite simple. I don't mind paying for stuff that is good value for the money. A $20 DVD usually contains at least 100 minutes of storytelling, with extras like bloopers, how it was made and in many cases, you get more than one format. This is grand, because I can keep the Blu-Ray copy for myself and give the regular DVD to my daughter. Good value for the money.

My apps cost at most $4 but are usually in the ballpark of $1 each and I can share them between my iPhone and my iPad. I get much more than 100 minutes of use out of them too. Great value for the money.

Meanwhile, I own a CD collection that I easily paid $12,000 for never mind the albums and 45s format collection I used to own that I also paid around $15,000 for. But never mind that. An album on CD offers maybe 45 minutes of music, arguably only good for a few great songs. No extras. No bloopers. No multi-format. For $20. Not exactly good value for the money. An album in my mind, as a comparative piece of entertainment is worth maybe $5. So according to my calculations, the music industry owes me about $20,000 worth of music I've already paid for.