We all know that music piracy is evil. Just as any self-respecting, delicately-fragranced member of polite society would never dream of pinching a handbag or slipping the odd Twix into their underwear at the cornershop, so, too, would they dissolve into fits of terror and revulsion when confronted with a ‘Download’ button, knowing what havoc its clicking would wreak upon the life of an unsuspecting proto-rockstar.

So, when it emerged last week that Google had deleted numerous prominent music blogs on the grounds of multiple copyright claims made by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, the world rejoiced.

Except, it didn’t. Despite the attempted smear campaigns of a handful of record companies, most people don’t actually believe that music piracy is all that bad. The majority of us came to the conclusion some time ago that enjoying one of infinite potential copies of something you wouldn’t have paid for anyway doesn’t really qualify as theft, and that many of the organizations involved in tackling filesharing have motivations which are, at best, questionable.

The deletion of those blogs was particularly dubious; most of the popular websites involved operated entirely above board. For some time, record labels, promoters and musicians have been supplying them with MP3s of their latest material. In other words, they don’t need to pirate anything. Blogs are good for music, and they are good for the industry.

These websites work so well because they are written by hobbyists and music-lovers; the bloggers who have become successful have because they use their enthusiasm (and good taste) to inspire a similar excitement in their readership. Even when the law is not on their side, it’s not so much a case of piracy as of music-sharing, carried out with only charming intentions.

The result is a new journalism, preoccupied with any song that makes its hair stand on end and its feet twitch. Where it excels is in discovering unknown artists and nurturing them; the genius of the music blog is to give you what you don’t even know you want yet.

The blogosphere has proven an invaluable resource in its short life so far, offering independent artists like Vampire Weekend an alternative path to success and helping to bring bands like Justice and Animal Collective into the limelight. Along with more obviously piratical branches of the filesharing world, it has also brought about an explosion in remixing which continues to bring a welcome influx of creativity into the music world.

More and more, the industry is coming to embrace this new medium. Unfortunately, there still exists a cadre of cave-dwelling suit-wearers who remain mired in the paranoid belief that they are waging a war against a public of thieves and incapable of recognising the blogs for what they are: an invaluable PR resource – an opportunity to foster a loyal fan base of gig attendees free of charge.

They will continue to mar this universally beneficial resource, as they have in the Google case, until someone achieves the impressive feat of convincing them of their own short-sighted stupidity. Still, look on the bright side: they all have to die off eventually.

Check out the Varsity music blog here.