I've said this many times before but I download as a tool to explore what music is out there and find bands that I would have never have even heard of. Listening to one song from an album hardly does anything to convince me to buy the album. If anything, downloading only increases my awareness and opens me up to new bands so therefore I am actually buying more cds in the process. 95% of the music I listen to I've discovered on my own through downloading. The only bands lose on my part are bands that I am only a casual fan of - without downloading I might have purchased their new album but at this point I don't care enough to so a downloaded copy is as much as I need. I really only care to buy albums that I really like, or from bands that I really enjoy. The albums I often want to buy are quite overpriced and almost impossible to obtain. I love collecting cds but if metal cds were cheaper and easy to obtain, I'd be buying a lot more.