I agree with you, Patrick. “Creating a context” is a thing an artist can bring to the music, in place of the curious PR job done in some cases so well and in some cases so badly by traditional labels. A “container” is a part of the equstion, as well as the metaphoric “container” of the narrative quality of the artist’s “intention”.

I think you’re right–we are moving beyond sharing mp3s into sharing culture in a context.
This is why, I think, I rarely download a free mp3 from soundclick (unless I know the artist in another context), but often download a netlabel release from a label I reapect (or an ad on the yahoo message group that “gets it” into a context I understand).