Love not guilt
If you want to support the musicians you love, the best way to begin is by downloading the song for free on a filesharing network. Then send them what you want to give, no middleman. 14 cents. 99 cents. 10 dollars. A site like musiclink.com, though still rudimentary, makes this a little easier and is a step in the right direction. Weed (weedshare.com) is an ingenious new system where songs can be distributed on p2p networks but must be paid for after 3 plays. Instead of pursuing dead-ends like iTunes, we can develop p2p and direct contribution systems into a full-fledged music economy that sustains many more musicians than the current one. If downloading and contributing is made just as easy as iTunes, it could work and it would work. After all, iTunes is already voluntary.