I liked the point about lower quality data. That is a completely baseless argument these days, since full lossless audio (FLAC) can be downloaded. If the lawyers can't understand lossless compression, they lose.

My collection in amarok is anything BUT messy. I have most every song rated from 1-5 stars. I can quickly access any song I want in seconds.

As far as artist revenues, all artists should sign onto something like AmieStreet as soon as possible, or distribute their music through Amazon.com's MP3 service. The artists will make more, no one will have to sue anyone, and the only loser will be the record label.

Many great things in history have started off on the wrong side of the law. Yet, that's simply how things work, and the market can embrace that beautifully. Again, look at AmieStreet and TheSixtyOne. They are both great ways for artists to get their songs to paying customers (provided they don't suck ;))