Believe me, I've heard all of the rationalizations for theft arguments about how downloading is helping artists before. It's not true, and it won't be true, no matter how many times you say it is.
And now I'm done with this, because I know it's a waste of time.
Edit: THIS DUDE really articulates my position on this issue better than I ever could.
You know, you're not right about this just because you say you are.
Yes, piracy has possibly had a negative effect on Top 40 acts that were working on a faulty business model anyway. At this point though, being able to stream on legal services, or being able to buy single tracks on iTunes, is far more damaging to those types.
File sharing and just the internet in general has been extremely beneficial to a LOT of artists. Heck, look at Dream Theater's album sales. In the decade of 2000-2009, when piracy was at its peak, their albums were selling more and more copies with each release. They're not the exception here either.
On a semi-related note, one of the biggest factors that has caused a decline in record sales in the mainstream is increased competition. Say there's a certain span of time in which I'd typically buy 10 albums. Back in the 80s, I would only be exposed to so many acts, all of which would have their album sales tracked by the RIAA. In their eyes, that's 10 sales. Now, fast forward to the present. Say I'm buying just as many albums. Some may be from independent bands. Some may be directly from the source (like Burning Shed for Porcupine Tree). Some may be from foreign countries that aren't tracked by my country's industry. In all of these cases, I'm buying albums, which I probably wouldn't have heard of pre-internet, and which aren't counted by the RIAA. In this hypothetical, I just bought 10 albums, with money going to the artists, but the RIAA counts it as zero because they didn't get their cut.