There has been a little controversy on Music Row over Keith Urban's comment during his acceptance speech at The People's Choice Awards where he stated, "I don't even care if you guys download my music illegally. I really don't care." Keith was just happy people were hearing his music. CMT Insider recently asked Toby Keith how he felt about what Urban said, and Toby made it clear he does care about illegally downloading music. He shared that songwriters need to be able to protect their copyrights and offers this example: "So, you come to this town and you write. For 20 years, you work at Spaghetti Warehouse and you bus tables, and all of the sudden you're 38 years old, and you've been here 18 years, and all the sudden you write a song and Keith Urban goes and records it. And it's a smash. You get paid on that. If everybody downloads it for free, you don't get paid on that. So all you become is unpaid." 

Toby continues, "You've offered a treasure, a piece of history to the public and they're using it to fill their dancehalls and fill their dance floors and listen to the music in their car. Put it on their iPods and all that. And if it is all for free, this guy is still at Spaghetti Warehouse. He gets nothing for it. Keith Urban gets paid. The guy at the bar that plays his music to pack the dance floor gets paid. So artists get paid because they go work and sell the t-shirts, but that songwriter won't get paid. That's the guy you have to protect."

Well said Toby.  If you missed Keith's acceptance speech, click the link in the story above for the video.  ~Vanessa