@Kirk Bannister: Let's go Live
"If anyone has any idea how we can reconcile the appeitite for free music and musicians rights i think all of us but the record companies would like to hear from you :)"
Well, what about moving away from the whole recorded music sphere, and paying to go and see a band play live. Seeing a half-decent band play - especially one you haven't seen before can often be incredibly satisfying and moving, and give you much more musical 'payback' than listening to the best produced recording from a plastic band from the corporations.
The financial transaction is a nice local one, the experience is a personal one and everybody's happy.
It needs some of the bands/stars to spend less time promoting themselves on telly/radio etc, and more time actually singing and playing there instruments to people...and at smaller venues where the punter doesn't have to fork out £80+ for a ticket plus the train fare to the nearest big city.
Let's get it back to basics.
I'm as guilty as the next man of not seeing as much live music as I used to, but for me that's because there's a huge empty space between your pub-blues-band and your Wembley-Crusty-Reunion gig....and that empty space is where the sort of gigs I want to see should be happening.