Photo: aarongervais.com
Photo: aarongervais.com

With the rise of music sharing sites, like Limewire, music lovers have been more inclined to get their favorite music for free than to actually pay for it. Sure, it’s nice for the consumer. But, it presents a bit of a problem for the artists and the music industry as a whole. Artists – in any artistic field – are typically valued less in our society than, say, in the financial industry.

That’s not the way it should be. Art brings incredible value to our lives. So, why don’t we want to pay for it? Or better yet, why is it ok to pay little or nothing for art while accepting that the finance guys (or practically any other industry) can expect and receive as much as they want?

You can argue the pros and cons of that one till you’re blue in the face. So, I’m going to throw in a complicating question, a monkey wrench, if you will.

The internet allows us to “steal” music because it’s free. It brings the cost of producing and distributing music down to almost $0. We don’t have to pay for a vinyl record to be made. We don’t have to pay for the middlemen who own record stores. Consuming music is almost entirely free. So, why should we want to pay for any of it?

The artist.

Right, the artist who created that art deserves to be paid for their creativity. That’s why we should make an effort to buy what we want to listen to.

But, I offer you this consideration. That argument isn’t going to last long in this free internet age. Everything has to change. We need to come up with a new way of compensating people for their skills. Any ideas?

Read more here.