I buy mp3 where possible. Failing that I'll try and buy on vinyl. Failing that I'll go on ebay or gemm and pay over the odds, or hunt about for obscure compilation cds. Failing that I'll soulseek an mp3 copy, which is invariably at a shitty bitrate and isn't really suitable for playing out. Few people have cottoned on the the 192k-320k sound quality gap, so soulseek is really a last resort.

Like mark said - got to be a bit smart about it. If you just steal music you are going to miss out. And to be honest, if you limit yourself to only buying vinyl you are going to miss out as well. Some records can't be sourced for love nor money, and unless you grab a copy from the interweb you are never going to get it.

I've downloaded tons of stuff that I'll listen to once and then delete, but thats turned me on to loads of artists whose records I've then tracked down and bought. Without the free download option I never would have come across them.

Same points come up time and again, and you guessed right - this argument has been done a lot before.
The main point is that its not clear cut, there are pros and cons to file sharing.
But I think a lot of blame has been unfairly laid upon filesharing for the problems in the industry. A lot of the problems were due the music industry failing the meet a consumer demand for music in mp3 format, and they were scuppered by their own reluctance to adopt new distribution models.

The soaring growth in legal and paid downloads is testimony to the fact that people are more than happy to pay for music if it is easy, affordable and convienient. The ipod generation want digital files. Tapes, CDs and minidiscs are becoming obselete.

Digital has made the costs to entry much lower for producers and digital labels. Digital distribution costs are minimal. What this will mean is that the market will start to become flooded with new producers and labels, and the importance of trusted channels and trusted content providers will increase.

Basically labels, shops and djs will become more important as it will be their responsibility to wade through the crap, filter it out and promote and sell decent music to a spectrum of niche audiences.

Exciting times whichever way you look at it. The people complaining are the people stuck in the last century who seem to think that music and the world owe them a living, and despite the fact that they have failed to moderninse its everyones fault that they are going out business.