Ok, so now repeat after me: murder is not good or bad. Murder simply is; a natural outcome given human preferences.

I'm obviously being flippant: being a 'natural outcome given human preferences' does not render piracy immune from judgement as good or bad. As I'm sure you'll agree, murder is one perfectly natural activity (as evidenced by its prominence in regions of the world where the rule of law is weak) which is undeniably bad.

And I think piracy is bad. To those that think it is ok, I meekly and politely suggest that you make an effort to empathize with an indie game programmer whose work is pirated many times in excess of sales, leaving said programmer without the requisite resources for follow-ups or improvements -- to say nothing of personal compensation. The pirate (or filesharer) derives enjoyment out of the programmer's work, and yet the programmer has not been compensated, nor has he consented to the pirate's use. This is unjust. To claim that e.g. filesharing, where the activity is 'non-commercial', is not theft (and therefore not unjust) simply because the file is duplicated rather than moved is just as specious as to claim that an employee at Google should be allowed to take Google's proprietary source code and algorithms, leave the company, and to publish them on github or elsewhere, because 'sharing is caring', and because, hey, the original is still on Google's servers, right? -- without fear that they will be punished by the law.

Or put yourself in the shoes of a musician, like me (shameless plug: www.myspace.com/martindifeo), who after spending considerable time and energy and financial resources into his music, is faced with people telling him, with no apparent irony, on the one hand that they love music and respect musicians, and on the other that he (and other digital content creators) must simply accept that his music will be pirated. (The OP may not explicitly say it, but this statement is actually somewhat timid. For those who hold the view that music piracy is unavoidable, and therefore simply to be incorporated into the 'business model' or 'economic model', typically couple this view with a vehement opposition to the introduction of any legal or technological instrument to actually enforce digital rights, be it DRM, deep-packet inspection, graduated response, etc., thereby encouraging and, in effect, lobbying for the very conditions he claims are unavoidable.)

The OP proposes instead that the musician engage, in effect, in a PR campaign to win over the 'hearts and minds' of fans, in order to induce them to pay some 'token gesture' fee for the music even though, let's be honest, it's totally unnecessary as the OP himself states. I, for one, would like to think that my (ok...I'm being optimistic here) fans aren't idiots, and I certainly wouldn't relish the prospect of having to guilt-trip or otherwise trick them into pitying me enough to send me a few coppers. I'm not destitute, I wasn't e.g. born in the slums of Rio de Janeiro... I can't play the pity card very well. I don't want to take on causes, no matter how noble, simply to curry favour.

Call me crazy, but I think that the normal and correct way for transactions to occur in a modern, civilized, capitalist economy calls for the producer of the good to set the price -- without fear that his product can be appropriated unlawfully. If that price is too high, then consumers are free not to purchase, or, more pertinently, to purchase from a lower-priced competitor. And, no, by competitor, I don't mean to say TPB or the like, I mean another musicians who offers his music for free or at lower cost.

I challenge anyone to name a single instance in history in which widespread and systematic violation of property rights -- real or intellectual -- have led to anything other than net impoverishment. To believe that, simply because it is coupled to the technological marvel that is the internet, piracy and filesharing are ok and to be tolerated, is akin to saying that fusion bombs are 'ok' because, after all, they employ such exquisite quantum physics. Technological advances can be used to encourage good, civil behaviour, and for bad, disrespectful behaviour, like filesharing and piracy, where one minority constituency (the musicians and associated lines of work) are violated and left impoverished for the benefit of the majority (the consumers). AK47s can be purchased for a mere few hundred dollars in many regions, such is the wonder of modern manufacturing. Should we therefore all expect, to use a topical phrase, a bullet in the (mother*$%^ing) head? ;)

Just the thoughts of a concerned musician and onetime hacker...