Indeed it was, and there was pushback even then. I was more referencing the tacit approval of piracy rather than active distribution.
The game will always keep evolving. The labels/publishers no longer have much of their previous gatekeeper status but now a new challenge of clearing the signal to noise ratio and having anyone take note amongst the multitudes of options is out there.
The reliability/archivist aspect is a beautiful thing that helps prevent the masking of the past. I keep a number of digital artifacts just to keep them preserved myself. There are a lot of bits of culture only existing today because someone once made a tape off the TV/Radio.