1) Copying music and sharing it to someone else is like taking a newspaper from a magazine stand without paying / it's like trying out a candy bar to see if it's worth buying

No. It's not quite like that. A newspaper and a candy bar are much more physically tangible than copied data. Also, Copied Data does not directly take money away from retail, actually stealing the CD from the shelf does. How I'm about to explain this, I don't mean to insult anyones intelligence on "how stuff works" but if we're going to compare Copied Data to Physical Items, then I feel that we aren't taking a few things into consideration.

Retail stores buy items from their Vendors in Bulk at a wholesale price. They then later resell the item at a higher price to collect profit for selling the item they had bought in bulk. When you steal a candy bar, you are costing the retail store money. When you buy a CD and you Copy Data, well, the retail store collects profit. When you share your Copied Data, does the Retail Store lose money? No. There is still a copy for sale at the store waiting for some sucker to buy it, overpriced. Did you know that when you steal from a retail store, the store has to sell the same item 13 times in order to bring profit back to that item? One Copied CD dually prevents and influences sales, depending upon how the interested parties feel.

But, if we're going to compare File Sharing to Five Finger Discounts, then I'm going to compare File Sharing to a few other things too. If File Sharing is indeed a crime, then so is allowing people to borrow things that they give back. Test driving should be illegal, why should someone try out a car and drive miles on it to decide if it's good or not? Used Music Stores should be illegal because they are PROFITING on Music that has already been sold at Whole Sale to someone else to resell the first time.

2) Support the Artist, buy their CD
Our, you could not buy the CD, goto their Concerts, Buy their merchandise while at the Concert, buy their CD there and never set foot into a Record Store ever again. Unless Artists are under an agreement that they do not have license to sell their own music, this is much more beneficial to the Musicians than buying their CD at a Record Store and Watching their BuzzClip on MTV. This is why sometimes artists sell their CDs on tour for much cheap and sometimes add in goodies like Free Remix CD or "Tour Edition" or even Autograph the Booklet. Musicians only receive a fraction of the profit from a CD sold in stores, and in some cases, the actual COST of the Album is more than the profit they get per CD. I can put links here later if nobody believes this.

3) CD's Suck

I'm not going to pay more than 8 dollars for something that easily scratches and needs to be replaced, especially if I do not have the right to make a copy of this media just in case that were to happen. Hell, it's a good idea to copy your media so that you can preserve your original copy efficiently. I'll pay more than 8 dollars for a CD under these conditions
A. The Album comes with a CDR that has an identical album label
B. The Album comes with goodies such as but not always needing, Collectable Pog/Token, Trading Card, Manufactures Coupon for their other CDs, Booklet, Self Address Postage for Free Monthly Catalog, Link or CD featuring more music from either the artists themselves or from the record label, a certificate of purchase and consumer license (what the consumer is allowed to do with the CD), I can think of more but I'm running out of ideas
C. The Album spans over 60 Minutes.
D. Come with Protective Snap-on Film like "d_skin" to protect your CD from scratches without disabling the CD's playback.

4) "CD prices too high? Do you have any idea how much it costs to produce a record, shoot several videos for it, and then advertise and promote it worldwide? Hey, I think $23 is alot to pay for a new book (which costs much less than a CD to actually produce), but are people robbing bookstores left and right to fight the publishers? No, because obviously it's not as easy to get away with that... it's the ease of the crime that makes the difference here, so that argumet doesn't fly"

Yes. The Price is High. Are you asking how much does it cost to produce an ALBUM which later gets put on CDs or the production of a single CD? Well, let's see here.
ULINE offers Unassembled Jewel Cases, 200 for 48 dollars.
around 24 Cents per Jewel Case.
ULINE offers White Inkjet Label BLANK CDR's, 100 for 45 dollars.
around 45 Cents per Blank CD with Inkjet ready label, we haven't even got up to 1 dollar yet and all that's left is ink on the CD and printing Booklets, Inserts and other goodies, all of these vary depending on the vendor or method of doing so.
One of the methods is.. you buy a machine that does an all in one job of printing Booklets and CD Label, and Copying CD. I've seen one that uses PDF files for the images and ISO files for the CD. These machines can cost over 2000 dollars but under 5000, but this is only a one time cost and if you sell 100 CD's for 20 dollars, I think you've made profit.
I doubt that Ink and Paper will make the CD's production over 5 dollars.

I can hear a hundred times from Professional Musicians saying how much it costs to make an album like theres but, me myself as a musician, I don't ever plan on spending thousands of dollars to get people to do my work for me (advertising, booking, manufacturing, art work, "engineering", you know the list).

5) How do you hear new music if you "can't find it any other way?" I don't know, word of mouth, satellite radio, checking out bands' websites - the last I checked most artists' websites have samples you can download, obviously legally.

Word of Mouth, Free
Satellite Radio, Expensive and all music featured is under contract
Band Websites, very rarely are people ever stumbled upon them or invited to go look at them without knowing about the band before hand.
Samples - They can keep their 30 second Low Frequency samples to themselves.

6) People need to have a little integrity and stop using the P2P's that are looting the music industry. Go ahead support your favorite bands, even make copies for your friends, but don't be sharing with the whole world what isn't rightfully yours to share.

This is a very untrue thing to say about the Music Industry in General. There are more Band Profile services out there than I can care to remember. Ones that I can remember off the top of my head that are now defunct or still operating: myspace, bandspace, purevolume, wegotnext, soundclick, garageband, mp3.com, iuma,

Net Labels which over free music all the time: spoomusic, 8bitpeoples, dramacore, north american hardcore,

Profit Record Labels who ENCOURAGE people to share their music: positron records, posimoto records, magnatunes, soulseek records, open music

This is all at the top of my head, there are much more out there. What was said only applies to those who do not wish to be shared.

NguyenWin adds some really pertinent ideas to this subject, however i think he is way to critical of file sharing...
For most people it has now become a habit to simply download any song, video, game or program that they like without having to pay anything at all (if you forget the price of the computer and the high speed internet connection).
This may sound like nothing but its a major revolution in all our forms of communication.
There now is a massive information network were everyone can learn and enjoy everything they like for free.
Thanks to this people have developed a vast musical (and cultural) knowledge, that constantly pulls humanity higher, people can share ideas in the fastest and most effective way ever created.
Internet is the ultimate human tool for communication and file sharing its most developed expression.
Just imagine all the possibilities, this is the perfect tool for our freedom of expression, all our ideas and thoughts can be shared without borders, only our different languages limit this liberty.
People may say that this is bad for artists that do not get rewarded for their art. But at the contrary this represents the best way to preserve artistic expression and spread all its forms all around the planet.
Thanks to internet, artists can get known by their public, but for living, artists would do what they live for, perform in public....
People actually go to concerts more and more often these days and the musical industry could survive entirely from that, using the internet as a mean to attract their public and keeping file sharing free...
Not only is this better for the flow of ideas, vital for the well functioning of a democracy but it will also reduce all the crap commercial music that is bound to huge marketing campaigns get anyone to buy their (*)(*)(*)(*)...

The bold is critical, and the response below the bold is my actual feeling. I wrote that months ago and most if not all of that still stands but here is some more.

CDs are very impractical and I believe CDs are on their way out. SD Card releases or downloading should take it's place.

The RIAA's fight against FileSharing is their refusal to listen to the Market which is telling them what they are doing wrong by participating in file sharing. Your new Music Market is much more economical for the consumer, the company and the musician, as there is no longer a middle man and a cycle of production, manufacturing, wholesale, marketing and retail. The Internet and a community that welcomes innovation and practices open licensing do not need the glitz of a big time Record Label. The Market has evolved, and is still Evolving and the RIAA hates it. When you look at the RIAA's attitude, they aren't suing you for copyright infringement, they are suing you for being a part of a market revolution that would otherwise force the RIAA to change their old business model and could also very well render them out of business unless they sue everyone, extend contracts and continue to have a hold on the media.

People say if you really like the band, you should support them by buying their CDs. Well, you will not be supporting them if you buy their CD a year later if the platinum and gold rush is over, as it is very likely that the wholesaler will not restock their warehouses with new CDs. You are paying for what is already payed for. You support a band by buying directly from them any merchandise or attending a concerts. CDs are minuscule, especially after the big promotion when they aren't consistently going platinum.

Copyright enforcement seems to be the FBI's number-one priority nowadays. Honestly, with terrorists and murderers out there, I can't think of any better purpose for the FBI than arresting teenagers who download songs off the internet.
(excuse the sarcasm)

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The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either -Benjamin Franklin

I dont blame on nothing.
All is free in the world .. in the days of today you can rip everything.

Lots of websites out there that allow you to download the chart/tune/song in a variety of formats for an individual price anywhere from 15 to 99 cents per download.

its a stress/anxiety free way....

That is so true; I download alot of music that to me is ok but that i would never pay for. If i really like an artist and i think they deserve my money, then i buy the CD.

In Canada it is not illegal to download.

__________________
America's Enemies Are Not Mine

All wars represent a failure of diplomacy

“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” - Stephen Roberts.

I do that all the time.

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The grass is always green.

I agree with you 100%. It is the theft of an artist's intellectual property. However, the RIAA is not innocent in all of this either. Its heavy-handed methods, which by the way, are illegal, just got them on the losing end of a half million dollar lawsuit.