If the music industry shut down tomorrow you'd have a lot less quality music to listen to. Artists who rely on selling music, licensing it, playing live shows, etc. would have to get day jobs to support themselves, hence have less time to make good music.
Why would you download a song from bittorrent if you have no interest in buying it? Are you just interested in collecting music you don't like?
I don't see much difference between stealing physical goods and intellectual properties. I wonder why you, a music producer, would take the time to defend people who steal music?
I'd be surprised if the percentage of poor quality fiction, and SF writing is higher compering to the percentage in other areas, such as music, movies, theater, etc. There's lots of good stuff, but a ton of DRECK.
Not sure about the percentage, but I agree, a good portion of it feels like a waste of time, which is similar to how I felt about time spent at school and college.