MP3 Blogging Etiquette

So I made the newbie mistake of what is referred to on the intraweb as "hot linking". As a long time Internet user and newer blogger, I have not fully understood all of "the rules" that the blogger nation have bestowed upon themselves.

I accidentally "hot-linked" to cat dirt's exclusive mp3 post. To which I was corrected. I guess I don't quite get why this is bad. As someone who is a musician and involved in promoting music, it would seem that this is advantageous to the band. As long as credit was given to where the link goes there should not be any issue. Especially if you are posting it on a free website (ie. blogger.com). I completely understand if you have a dedicated server you don't want people leaching off of your bandwidth, but other than that, what is the big deal?

But per the discussion over at Stereogum about this same topic there are opinions split down the middle, and I guess it really depends on who is doing the linking. So I will state now for the record, my site is run on a dedicated server to which I pay monthly. If anyone wishes to hot link files that I post on here, feel free. When I feel like people have had more fun with my server than I feel like granting, I will remove all said links and implement a technical solution to stop all of you dirty leaches out there.

Until then, leach away.

/v