On File Sharing

When a movie is released, you can go see it in the theater. If you miss it, you can wait a few months and rent it. If you really like it, chances are you can buy the movie.
Distribution of music works differently. We have to rely on radio for the majority of our new music experiences. Yes, there are other outlets; streaming on-line radio, good libraries that have CDs you can borrow, and so forth, but if your tastes fall a bit outside of the mainstream, it becomes difficult to find the music that suits you.
I don't see any CD rental places popping up. There is no Netflix equivalent for music.
Why should I pay for something that I haven't heard? Yes, I'll probably buy my favorite established artists without hearing more than a single off the new album, but that represents a tiny fraction of the quality music available in the world.
And a dollar per track? Even 80 cents is too much in some cases. If I want to do an on-line purchase of the new Kanye West album, do I get a discount for the silly skit tracks? Nope, it's all valued the same. In fact, the only on-line music service I subscribe to presently is emusic, because the cost to me breaks down to about 40 cents per track. I'll pay that because it's fair; I get no artwork or other amenities, just the songs in what is widely admitted to be a somewhat inferior medium, mp3.
I don't mind paying that amount for artists that I know, or have heard enough good things about to take a chance on. So what about music that I am not familiar with? How do I get to hear it and decide if I like it enough to go buy the CD?
In an ideal world, that is what file sharing would do. Now, I know that plenty of people take advantage, and buy nothing but blank CDs, and burn ten copies for their friends, and so on. Yes, that hurts the industry. But the industry gets so bent out of shape over people like that that they miss the potential inherent in file sharing. A music distributor's number one priority is to get an artist's work heard by as many people as possible. That leads to sales. But the industry seems to have it backwards; the idea seems to be that selling more copies means more people hear the music. Why is it, then, that when I go to a used CD store, there are more discarded copies of Hootie and the Blowfish and Celine Dion, etcetera, than anyone else? Didn't the people who bought those CDs without hearing more than a track or two absolutely love those artists, and would never think of getting rid of their copy of such a spectacular album? Or were they just hoodwinked, caught up in a moment of popular fervor, only to realize that what they had in their hands was uninspired garbage? What is more important, sales, or customers happy with the product? Yes, I know, sales are more important. Blind loyalty is the desired effect.
Plenty of people use file sharing to be exposed to music they would not hear otherwise. And many go out and pay for an album based on that experience. Then they recommend it to their friends, and maybe they go out and buy it, too. File sharing encourages an underground radio of sorts, where artists can be lifted from obscurity without the mechanism of an advertising department behind them. The sooner the music industry recognizes the upside of getting the product out to as many ears as possible, the sooner they will crawl back from the sales slump that causes them to continually lash out at forces that are beyond their control.