Aside from that stuntperson who's up before the trailers at every movie theatre, preaching about the woes of piracy, what do artists really think about filesharing? After all, the shrill cry we hear from the music and film industry again and again is "the artists! what about the artists!!!"

PEW Internet & American Life Project seeks to answer that question in a survey entitled "Artists, Musicians and the Internet". Here's a couple of quick highlights...
43% of artists agree that, “file-sharing services aren’t really bad for artists, since they help to promote and distribute an artist’s work to a broad audience.” 60% of musicians believe that the Recording Industry Association of America's lawsuits agains individuals accused of sharing files online will not benefit the artists Only 28% of artists believe file-sharing is a major threat Half of all artists say that copyright regulations generally benefit purveyors of art work more than the original creators.
So the next time you hear the cry "piracy is destroying the industry - what about the artists?" remember that it's really a cry of "what about the producers, the middlemen and the industry bloat?"