Music should not be downloaded for free. Artists nationwide put their valuable time and money into producing songs and albums, so why should we, the consumers, be able to get these for free? Some may argue that upcoming artists who are not known should put their music online in hopes that people will get to know and like them, and I’m not saying this is wrong, but I personally think it’s ridiculous. Bands like Radiohead have changed the online download industry by “allowing their fans to decide what they were willing to pay for their latest album,” and bands nationwide are starting to follow the trend. The music industry is a business. Every artist should be able to make the money he/she deserves. Music industry analyst Phil Tripp said “In order to give away a commodity on one side of the equation, you have to pick up the costs on the other.” By this, he means that by giving away free downloads, artists will make up for the lost revenue by increasing ticket and merchandise prices. As a consumer, I don’t want to be paying over $100 a ticket when back in the day, ticket prices were much cheaper. I agree that there are a number of different ways that we could handle free music downloads- both legal and illegal. The most effective way, I think, is to have consumers “pay a flat fee, so that fans can access a library of almost any recording.” Instead of increasing the costs per songs on ITunes, rather charge like $20 a month and have the user be able to download as many songs as he/she likes.

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