Come on, they have to do much much more than that!

You're right. They have to spend millions trying to sue people because they're not making as much money as they want because they didn't move with the times years ago.

I think the best way to support a band is to go see them live. Some local bands ticket prices are less than cd's and they provide amazing shows.

And if you take your phone you can record it, .torrent it and share it with the world!

The problem with that is that most of the time you end up having to sit through some diabolical support act. I have yet to go to a gig where the support act have even been tolerable, let alone actually worth listening to. The trouble is, it's very hard to find out when the support act are going to finish / the main act start.

Next week I'm going to see John Mayer, a guitarist of simply extraordinary ability. The support act is the 'up-and-coming' Ellie Goulding. I've had a listen to her most recent album on spotify and it's unbelievably crap in every regard. The lyrics are poor, musically it's almost non-existent, the production and recording are incredibly flat; it has literally no redeeming features. She's fairly pretty, but if you aren't in the first 10 rows at a concert then that's a pretty irrelevant point.

I've been to a few shows were the support are the main attraction for me. One example is Coldplay at Wembley, were Jay-Z was the support.

It's normally straight-forward to get the running times - the venue normally publish it on their website, although often on the same day as the performance.

Placebo had amazing supports before,
I'm more talking about small bands which participate in gig days. But yeah, support acts can be a pain

The 2 of the last 3 concerts I went to had good support acts.

At Jethro Tull, he was supported by The Young Dubliners, they were great and got to chat to them for a while afterwards, brilliant guys.

The other was a while back at Wembley, the "support" acts were Inxs, the Alarm and Status Quo...

Yes but that is why the business model does not work It is making the artists underpaid serfs. Spotify does not benefit the artist much unless it encourages CD sales. Though it might do that to some extent. Only time will tell.