Years ago, just prior to the onset of CD's, there was a push to impose a tax on all blank cassette tapes, the revenue was to be divided amongst the record producers.
Interestingly, in this case it was *only the country music producers*, because they were the ones bringing the bill to congress.
Either way, even if it were to be divied up between all musicians, it was obvious that the bill was ridiculous--it assumed that either each and every tape sold would be used for copying, or some known percentage would be, and that it was then fair to tax everyone for *possible* lost income on a crime that *might* be comitted.
Personally, I buy most of my music song-by-song from either Real Rhapsody music store, but I resample it because Real has it in .rax format, which is protected, and I want to be able to make a CD or put it in an MP3 player--I have that right and I don't feel I'm breaking the law doing so. I don't publish any of it on any site, though I have been known to give my wife or friends a cd with a mixed playlist I created.
Since most cd's have only 2 or 3 songs I want anyway, paying .99 per song means an effective cost of $3 per cd, as opposed to ~ $15.00 per CD. If the CD isn't available track-by-track, the entire CD is usually ~$8 to download, and that to me is better than the pain of trying to find it all on some napster-like illegal site, with the security/spyware risks, prosecution risks, etc.
I haven't bought a real CD in over a year, but I've legally purchased hundreds of songs in that time. In time I think all new music will be available online as the primary sales outlet, and I think that physical CD's in "record" stores, maybe even record stores themselves will be obsolete soon.
--Jim