Downloading or Buying Music?  

It is normal in this day and age, as it seems to be an accepted paradigm of society these days. However it does detract from an artist's livelihood.

We do pay the telecommunication company for our Internet but that in no way is related to the media we listen to, nor advocates us the right to download music. The telecommunication company does not own the music nor advocate the sharing of aforementioned media, it is the users that started this trend of downloading music and ISP's have actually banned users from their service for copyright infringement and downloading of music and movies.

Music companies do ask for people to pay but people keep downloading regardless and are sometimes, in rare cases, even persecuted for it and faced with copyright infringement charges.

You do hold interesting views on this topic though, thank-you for sharing!

Haha, there are some pretty awesome metal bands from the United States! Depends which sub-genre you are talking about though I guess.

Australia used to be bad in terms of metal but the scene is really starting to take off now and we have some awesome up and coming bands.

Yeah, that's a fair enough to reason to download. I think that is primarily the reason a lot of people download albums. Because of the lack of ability to physically buy the album due to none in stock in their country.

Yes, lack of funds also does play a large degree in downloading vs. buying the album. If I had the funds, I would love to be able to support and buy every album but because I don't have those funds unfortunately, often times I will have to download it.

What kind of metal bands do you like? Who knows, I may be able to recommend some good Australian bands to you.

There are way too many metal bands and so there is so much to explore. I am more into melodic metal. I listen to all but industrial and black metal bands. I like Kamelot, Mushroomhead, Dark Lunacy, Dark tranquillity, Nightwish (when tarja was there) and so on. What recommendation do you have for me?

Ah cool, yes there are so many sub-genres of metal it is terribly hard to keep track of all of them. Variety is awesome though. :)

I haven't listened to much melodic metal before unfortunately so I won't be able to give any recommendations there sorry. I tend to listen to the "newer" sub-genres such as metalcore, post-hardcore and so on. Bands like House vs. Hurricane, Misery Signals, It Prevails, etc.

Dark Tranquility is cool though, I used to listen to them when I was younger. Sorry I couldn't recommend any but I would have no idea where to start with melodic metal. :)

If everyone had that attitude, then artists would make no money from record sales and only money from playing shows.

People buy the music to support the artist. Trying to make a living from music is an extremely hard thing to do. It requires diligence and a lot of touring away from home.

A lot of energy and effort goes into writing music so I like to contribute to a band by buying their music if I enjoy it enough to want to continue listening to it.

Imagine putting yourself in the artists shoes, it's a hard life to live and I am sure they would like to get paid just like any other normal working person does. It is their job after all and they rely on the public to keep them alive theoretically. They do make money from the record labels but every little bit from the public helps an enormous amount!

That's what I have tendency to do as well!That's one of the great things the Internet allows us to do - "try before you buy."

Good on you for supporting artists by eventually buying the albums if you like it! :)