I'm ducking already!

Okay, we've covered the ground on MP3 downloading. We've had countless debates on our ideas on what's right and wrong and what the recording industry and everyone should and shouldn't do. It's also pretty obvious that downloading full movies isn't good and has some ethical problems. Personally, I don't download MP3's. Since my freshman year of college I've downloaded maybe 100 songs. That's about .3% of the amount of most people I know. Plus, I've went out and bought CDs for much of what I've downloaded.

But what about stuff you can't buy?

This is one area where I have a pretty firm stance. I say if I have no means of paying someone for their property, why shouldn't I get it for free? My prime example would be music videos. I'm not afraid to say that I have downloaded over 200 videos totalling nearly 8GB. Most of these are impossible to buy. I've looked. Yes, I have most of Alice In Chains' videos on file, but I also own the Music Bank DVD. That shows that I have the desire to buy these, but if I can't, I see no wrong in downloading them.

For example, I have 9 from Stone Temple Pilots, 10 from Soundgarden, 10 from Nirvana, and 7 from the band that in my opinion has the best videos, Radiohead. Don't all these names sound like groups that would have a video collection out there? But no, they don't (AFAIK).

Believe me, I'd far rather buy these videos. Many of them were encoded badly (hey, it can happen for video too), and most of the authors have decided that their genius in capturing video must be acknowledged by a clever (read: annoying) clip at the end of the video. I would think it would be a simple task to simply throw all the videos on a DVD and ship it out.

So what are your opinions on this? (ducking again)