I have never done this, but I know a lot of people who do.

I agree. You are taking something that isn't yours, and it's copyrighted.

It belongs to the artist and their company.
Like you said, many people don't think of it as stealing because you aren't doing something tangible like taking a DVD/CD from store.

actually i do download of the internet a lot as i can't rip a lot of cds to put them on to my mp3
if i have already bought the cd then i ain't gona pay for the song again
ignoring that, and i'm not saying that i agree or disagree with this next point i'm just giving you another view
what about say teenagers that can't afford to buy new cds every week and so download most of their msic, however it does not actually harm these multi million companies because the teenager wouldn't of had the money to buy the cd in the first place
so technically the company loses nothing and a kid has new inspiring music
another reason why people often favor downloading is sometimes you can get stuff (special recordings, live concerts, uncensored material) that they wouldn't actually be able to buy

i used to do this but have stopped and now i buy all my music from itunes to be honest i dont think its wrong its just easier to get stuff from itunes much quicker and better quality when paid for

Debs, I think your point about the inability of some people to buy music is a valid one...however, that doesn't mean that it is not also theft if the person does not then pay for the product. Me, I think that a try-before-you-buy approach to digital media distribution could greatly help the content producers in the long run, as they would have an increased chance of getting consumers exposed to their product(s). I wouldn't expect people to pay for the products that they don't like - which they wouldn't keep beyond a certain time. But the fly in the ointment is convincing people to pay for the stuff that they do like. In the amazondebs example, the kids are getting new inspiring music and not providing any remuneration to the artists or the industry that supports the artist, and that's just wrong...IMMORAL, to put it in the terms of the original question. But there should be a happy middle ground between freewheeling piracy where every teenager (in the amazondebs example) somehow self-justifies being an outlaw and a world in which teens must save some of their disposable income and spend it on unknown music which may or may not please.

Thankfully, we have that middle ground in the real world: most web sites will allow you to preview music tracks before purchase. If that isn't enough, then you can come to Fanpop and watch link for songs that have official music videos, and the link spot for fan-made videos of songs that either don't have official music videos or for which there are alternative fan creations. If you don't want to be tainted by the vision of the video auteurs, you can also go to your local library, all of which loan out CDs of most music. Finally, and most obviously, you can also talk to your peers and find out what they like, and even borrow CDs from them for a test run before you buy. These are all ways in which the teens in amazondebs' hypothetical case can discover new music without ripping off the artists actually producing the music.

But there is absolutely no justification for downloading and keeping music for which you have not paid the asking price to the artist.

(Edited to fix a dangling preposition)

Please post pic of dangling preposition

(Hey man... you're the one who left that huge opening....)

To try to get back on topic... yeah. I agree with Harold on this one.

ok I am going to play Devil's advocate hear, these young ones hear wont understand this but what is the difference between them downloading music off the net and when we were young and taped the stuff off the radio or borrowed someones and made a duplicate besides, it is better quality, but that never stopped us as kids I know this because my sisters boyfriends use to try to get in good with me and give me duplicates all the time, so it is the same, but we used tapes instead off cd's

If you guys never did this then shame on me but just wondering?

Are you saying you didn't then buy the music that you liked? My music collection is the gargantuan monstrosity it is exactly for this reason. The music that I don't own a legally purchased copy of is either:

a) stuff I didn't like, or
b) link I listened to a lot of link, underground stations and stations which played a lot of import tracks when I was a teen, and while the online database of music is improving (five years ago you could find NO lyrics online), it's still grossly lacking in the majority of music produced throughout history. It's a problem with a voluntary system - a bit like ratings on Fanpop, actually - you can't force people to rate or to upload lyrics to songs, so the only things that get rated and the only lyrics to get uploaded are the really popular ones (for the most part). I can't buy the music if I can't figure out what it is.

I have several "Holy Grail" of music search items that are missing from my purchased collection, because they're impossible to identify, or they're impossible to find a copy to purchase (try finding a physical copy of Maurice and the Clichés' "Soft Core" someday, you'll know what I mean - I've been looking for that for over 20 years)

That said, I must admit that I have very little sympathy for casual music listeners - that is, people who aren't passionate about the music that they like. I can see that such people might balk at paying for music, but if one is passionate about music, I don't see how one could be comfortable without the artist receiving some recompense.