No, internet downloads will not kill music

But if we're very lucky, they might kill the music industry as we know it.

I'll admit that I'm not very fond of major labels. I certainly don't think organisations like the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry have artists' best interests at heart - they're all about protecting an industry that makes most of its money by exploiting musicians.

The argument that every illegally downloaded track would otherwise be a legitimate sale is blatantly fallacious – many people would rather download a track than bother to tune in a radio and wait for it to come on, but that doesn’t mean they’ll necessarily listen to it more than once or for any longer than it takes them to decide they don’t like it. Convenience is a big part of the appeal of illegal downloads.

If the music is good and its fans dedicated, they will pay for it, whether they've already downloaded it or not. I know bands who have released their entire catalogue for free online - they make their money, like most musicians, from live ticket sales, merchandising and, yes, from album sales, often to people who've already downloaded and fallen in love with the music. People like to own the CD or LP, the physical artefact that proves their allegiance to the band.

Most of the musicians I know want to be heard. I would never have discovered half my favourite bands if not for illegal copies, whether they were dodgy mix tapes made by my school friends or files copied from my mates' MP3 players. The music I liked, I bought. If I wasn't impressed, the files were deleted or the tape relegated to the back of a drawer.

P. Emerson Williams of US bands Choronzon and Veil of Thorns says that "the fact that the case against the Pirate Bay was brought in the first place smells of desperation. The major label system and the copyright laws they have manipulated over the last couple decades are already dead.

"This time is the best possible opportunity for true artists to get creative with ways to make a living. Under the old label system, it was mainly the few, the malleable, the aspirational among artists who benefited. The RIAA argument that piracy hinders artists from making a living is b*******s. Music has always been a hard gig, it's just that now the majority are on the treadmill of writing, production, release and touring for themselves instead of a group of suits who lend them cash in return for the artists' indenture."

Over a decade ago, many of my favourite independent labels allowed fans to download large chunks of their catalogues as free MP3 files. Legendary punk label Alternative Tentacles is still doing it. These days, I discover most of my new music via services like last.fm and Spotify, magazine cover CDs or recommendations from friends that point me at a band's MySpace page.

I go to several gigs every month, where I not only pay my entry fee but buy t-shirts, CDs, badges, monogrammed toast racks and whatever other shiny promotional objects take my fancy. I reward the artists I like by buying their products. Most music fans will pay to keep the artists they love in business, even if they did first hear them by downloading an album illegally.