Whouda thunk that Prince would write so well on the subject. His take, that p2p is the end result of the industry's relentless commercialization of their product, draining it of artistic merit, is quite compelling.
Music used to be a much more social and (democratic is maybe the word I want) thing. People used to get most of their music by participating themselves, in churches, in their own families. People used to sit around and sing and play with each other, instruments used to be a big thing to sell to families. And of course elites would play in salons with each other. That's why it's, you know, *folk* music. And there is also the live music tradition, which meant people actually went and listened to performers.
The notion that music is something you have to buy is a fairly recent one, and while it certainly has its good points (mass exposure of black music in the US being a great example), it's also led to massive standardization, commercialization, and, as Prince points out, it's more a thing to be consumed than appreciated. Major acts, that is major acts with commercial distribution, tend to come and go quickly. And, quite frankly, these days if music is big enough to make it to major distribution and promotion, it's largely crap (yes, there are exceptions). For the most part, music is following the movie model, where one success leads the majors to try and exploit the success through countless repetition of the formula.
Meanwhile, just as in movies, the best things are going on on a local scene. And there's hope for even more. The music that you can make with a <$500 PC is pretty dope these days. I would like to see the p2p scene evolve into a new kind of radio. New artists could have their music broadcast without any sort of major label payola, etc. (perhaps this could happen with blogs - corndog radio anyone?) If a listener likes what they hear, then they can go to an artist's website and buy the record. Sure, the product may be less "professional," but it'd be a helluva lot more personal. The individual artist would have complete control of the artwork, trax, etc.
Such a thing wouldn't be terrible for the majors, either. They could easily market their out of print back catalog this way. For example, I'm currently listening to Fairport Convention, a band with a zillion LPs, most of which are out of print. If A&M, their label, put their songs out on mp3 networks, they could create a whole revenue stream just by offering to burn off individual discs for people. It would be free promotion. This is what Janis Ian talks about in her article, which is linked from the above. Anyway, this is a great link - it is an extremely comprehensive argument for p2p. The Courtney Love article linked at the bottom of the piece is definitely worth reading as well.