> I ask again: so what?
>> And I'm telling you that nobody gives a shit, because they just want to listen to music.
Sure, you Just Want to listen to music, but that doesn't mean musicians/producers/record-companies should then just give it to you for free. This is what you're still missing.
I Want to have sex with hot women, but that doesn't mean they should then just automatically stop and spread their legs at me where ever I go.
> Musicians don't need producers--in fact, this has been a role only recently filled in the 20th century. They don't need them to perform, they don't need them to record, they don't need them to make money. In fact, you can very easily find examples of producers doing more hard than good...just ask any fan of Streetlight Manifesto.
Sure, traditional record companies are increasingly unnecessary, but people still need to somehow become aware of an artist's music - otherwise no one will buy it. In other words, there's still a need for "awareness middlemen" and/or advertising, even if home studios have made record companies unnecessary on the production side.
But see, when you declare that you just Want Stuff For Free, you're not making a distinction between those evil record companies and their poor abused slaves, the artists.
You can download the shit out of an independent artist's music, but he too wants you to pay for it. Gracing someone's music with the attention of your ears doesn't actually put food on his table.
There are songs available for purchase. If you want a particular song, you should pay for it, because the song has value to you. If you download it for free, you get something of value, but the music producer gets nothing. That's simply not a fair trade. To be more exact, it's not even a trade. It's you by-passing the trade.