Most people don't care. Thats why the russian sites selling albums for a dollar do so well, and why allofmp3 was until recently the third biggest source of uk net traffic.

Inside communities of artists I can see why people should care - support each other etc. But then I'd expect most artists to be able to sell direct as well, and do business that way. Nothing stopping them if they're under non-exclusive contracts.

From a consumer point of view - how are they to know that beatport rapes the artist harder than trackitdown? Just looks like poor pricing to most people.

Factor in the truth that plenty of people (outside the west) don't have the dosh to spend on paying an extra dollar a track in the hope that more of it goes to the artist. I'm quite impressed that people buy tracks here at all.

Still waiting for a russian style mp3 aggregator to spring up, that just pays all artists directly minus hosting costs. A sort of "artists direct" collective distribution/sales point. If I had the brains or the finance I'd do it myself...