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It's OK, I'm not going to tell anyone.

In fact, if you'll forgive me going out on a limb for a second...I'm 100% sure that EVERYONE who loves music has, at some point or another, made a copy or mp3s of a friend's CD, or signed up to some illegal file-sharing account or other, or borrowed a CD from the library and ripped it into their PC, or made a mixtape using a friend's dad's records, or taped a song off the radio...or done SOMETHING which gets a song into their possession without having to part with any money for the privilege. And I include 100% of people who are musicians themselves and 100% of people who work in record companies, and 100% of lawyers who have been hired to represent the copyright interests of musicians and record companies in this.

It's just what you do when music is that big a part of your life. It's not nice to the people who made it, but what can you do about it?

Well, actually, now there IS something you can do. Whether you choose to or not is up to you.

is a website which has been set up with the express intention of encouraging people to alleviate their guilt at making shifty with copyrighted material by writing the artist in question a nice letter, and sending them $5 to say sorry.

It's not about doing the right thing legally, it's more a moral issue, as the site is quick to point out:

"We don't feel guilty about shafting the record company, but what about the musicians themselves?"

And, to be fair, the chance to write a letter to someone whose music has enriched your life (especially if you can make it a funny letter) is worth the money, right?

For some reason, writing a letter with a pen, and scanning it into your computer and putting it up on the web automatically makes what you have to say ten million times funnier. used to do some amazing Open Letters to pop stars in this fashion. I remember the one to Rooster like it was yesterday (unless I have got some of the details wrong).

It read something like: "Dear Rooster, congratulations on your recent chart success.

I expect you're feeling pretty pleased with yourselves.

Well we've heard your album, and we're STILL not impressed.

Love, Popjustice".

Trust me, scanned and handwritten, that is comedy GOLD. And it's this kind of thing that you can find on Dear Rockers. There's even a request for Slash, former Guns 'N' Roses guitarist, to play a guitar solo in "a tiny church on a cliff", complete with a small down-payment to try and seal the deal.

So, in honour of this wonderful idea, here's the letter I was going to write to Siobhan Donaghy towards the middle of last year, when it first became clear that her album 'Ghosts' (which is still available in the shops, people) might not be giving Amy Winehouse sleepless nights in the sales stakes. Not that Amy Winehouse needs help with her sleepless nights, you understand, she's doing that all on her own.

Having said all of this it's clearly entirely up to you what you choose to do with your money. After all, it's not like there's a website you can go to when you HAVE paid for a song, or an album, and it turns out to be rubbish. You don't see Stephen Gately writing to each and every Boyzone obsessive who bought his album and offering them a fiver each because it's clearly just a rubbish cash-in on his second-in-command status within Boyzone, brought about by a terrible, breathy first verse in their version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's 'No Matter What', do you?

And that's before you consider that nasty business where a band releases an album, then they have a song with some success, and then they re-release the exact same album, only with a couple of extra tracks on it, just so it gets stocked somewhere prominent in the shops. You probably won't see them offering to buy the less well-stocked version back off you, in part exchange, it's fair to say.

Unless someone wants to set that site up? And then post me a fiver for the idea? No? OK then...