MP3's are the devil?

All my life, I've been taught that any form of music sharing is illegal. Borrowing a CD from your friends, getting music from KaZaA, searching Google for (illegally) free songs, or even using the RealPlayer Downloader to rip flash video files from Pandora... All of these violate copyright infringement laws in some fashion. With this in mind, today marked the first time I've read an article that almost supports mp3 stealing. But here is where my story departs from the mp3-blogging norm. What fascinated me most was not the encouragement to steal (Orson Scott Card isn't exactly the most conservative writer, and I'm sure there are a million more left-wing articles supporting his stance) but our class's changed opinion about stealing. Everyone had licked their chops and devoured this "new" idea so thoroughly you could almost see Brother Card on their "evil record company"-smelling breath. It's something I've been thinking about a lot lately. How much are we influenced by what we read, listen to or view? And how often are we really in control?