The free music pirates whine again....
I'm amazed this has took so long. Any decent news server carrying the binary groups is absolutely bloated with MP3s (along with DVDs, warez, etc). The same principles apply to NNTP as they do to P2P; artificial arguments about having some kind of imaginary "right" to post other peoples' material is utterly fatuous.
The other argument "Just because you have equipment which *enables* you to do something, does that mean your a criminal?" is the same kind of rubbish. If you are stopped by the Police carrying knives, lock picking equipment, crow-bars, push daggers, certain aerosols and solvents, you can be arrested under suspicion of being equipped to commit an offence, they don't even have to be restricted items like firearms. The law can really only say that it's reasonable you're going to use this for breaking the law in the same way that most of the alt.binaries groups really only have an illegitimate purpose. Of course they can be used lawfully but to be honest I've never seen an MP3-based binary newsgroup that had any legally distributable music in it whatsoever. It's really on how probable it is you're going to commit an offence, most men aren't going to rape anyone in the same most women aren't prostitutes (the fact anyone even cited that as an example is pretty fucking warped anyway).
The idea that we're going to stop buying music because these illegitimate sources are going to be closed down is entirely dishonest. There are dozens of legal sources where you can preview music before purchase whether it's TV, radio, from listening points in record stores where scanning the bar-code from any CD will let you listen to the whole album, from previews on Amazon, iTunes and record company web sites. I would imagine the numbers of illegal downloads that translate into actual CD sales are tiny; anyone that's ever downloaded music will tell you how few CDs they buy. The "I need downloads so I know what CDs to buy" is a dishonest and untruthful scam - who's going to buy the cow when you already get the milk for free?
There is no doubt the music industry is rotten from the inside-out and needs huge reform. The problem is belligerently breaking the law will not advance this process at all. Expecting your music to be free, the implicit demand of every downloader, is also utterly ridiculous. People have completely lost their way in thinking this should be free because they accept it as normal.