I mean that's an interesting question, but I don't necessarily think so. I don't think any successful artist will just all of a sudden start releasing everything they release for free...maybe an album or two, but not everything. Artist A and Artist B are selling two different products, it doesn't really matter if Artist A wants to put theirs out for free.

Artists can make money other ways, but songwriters, producers, studio musicians, engineers, mixers etc can't. It's their sole source of income.

So well said You can go and view a piece in a museum for public viewing just like you can listen to a song on the radio when it plays, but you should purchase it if you want to own it and do what you want with it.

I agree with this.

I think in a perfect world, music wouldn't be free. It's art, and should be appreciated, and really shouldn't have a financial price attached to it, and a musician would likely be recording music and expressing their creatively regardless of whether they're making a profit or now. At the same time, in reality, it is time consuming to put together a piece of music and people need to make a living and need to be able to have the resources and free time to be able to create it and record it, so financial compensation is almost necessary to allow for professional musicians that can really devote their time and energy to just making and playing music.

I think musicians should be supported financially because of this, but I also think that if an album is too expensive, it has the potential to price someone out of listening, which shouldn't be the case, so...

tl;dr, I agree with Brando. Music should cost money, but not too much.

Artists of all types deserve to be rewarded for their work.

All art should become public domain after a certain amount of time. However, physical releases would be extremely valuable. It's like paintings or sculptures: you can easily view old art online for free, but the physical copies are ridiculously valuable.

Artists should be free to do whatever they want with their creations. But ultimately, art has value regardless of whether money can be made off of it and it definitely has no less intrinsic value if it can't be or if their creators choose not to do put it up for sale. If anything, by commercializing their work, craftsmen are actually reducing it to a mere monetary value.

That's like going to work everyday and not getting paid for it

Well for one, free music affects the music industry in many ways than just not "generating enough revenue". Labels want to spend as little money as possible during the recording phase because they aren't as rich as they used to be, so they just hire quick and easy producers to come up with "beats" on Logic Pro/Pro Tools. Real instruments will continue to die out not because they're not "trendy", but because they cost more to use in production, usually because you have to pay someone to play them. So, if your favorite genre is one that tends to utilize tangible instruments (rock, country, etc.) you're gonna find a lot less artists in this genre because it's cheaper to manufacture artists that sing cheap and more cost-friendly music, like electro/synth pop, trap, hip-hop/rap. The main reason why these three genres are more popular than ever is because they don't require a lot of $$ to make. You can produce a song like "Teenage Dream", "Work", or "In da Club" in your bedroom if you really wanted to, all you need is a midi keyboard and software.

If people actually paid for music, the quality of albums would definitely be a lot better. The amount of filler and "bonus tracks" that are clear afterthoughts that are stuffed onto an album just for the sake of calling it in "album" is so frustrating and as a consumer, it's obvious to me why so many people have stopped buying them. It's not just the price, it's the fact that most of the time, most albums, especially in pop, only contain 3-5 decent songs, if that. Also, a digital album should not be $12.99 You're not actually owning anything but a file on your computer, which many have already discovered by now, you can easily pirate for via various methods. I think the price of the physical albums are fair though, they haven't really gone up in price compared to 15 years ago. Also, a digital song should cost no more than 50 cents.... Again, it's just a file on your computer.

But all in all, music is art, and most recording artists are usually not the best songwriters, so they have to rely on people who are experienced in writing/producing to give them material. There's nothing wrong with that, but the problem with music being free is that the songwriters/engineers/producers aren't going to be making money off the songs/albums, which is their only source of income. That doesn't look very appealing to those who might be thinking of pursuing those jobs, what's the incentive for them?

If music is free, all in all, it pretty much means less professionally promoted music, which we've already started to experience. Sure, there's a lot of independent stuff out there you can discover on the internet, but think of all the material that mainstream, label-backed music had even 10 years ago compared to now. We wonder why the Grammy's start to look more like the Billboard Music Awards each year, there's just a whole lot less to pick from.

Hope this helped

So many ridiculous responses I don't know here to start.

You all use something that is free. Free libraries, free art galleries, perhaps you posted your post to this thread using free wifi.

Perhaps you used your Android phone with it's (mostly) free open source operating system, or perhaps you used your Mac or iPhone. The core of OS X and iOS is based on open source BSD code,. You don't think Apple paid developers to write it all from scratch do you?

Maybe you posted your post using the free Chrome or Firefox browser.

Yes, creative people should be able to make a living and the developers of free software are creatives too. I've contributed to some of the open source software projects that I use, have you?

I must admit I'm not an ATRL contributor and neither are most of the people posting the "no one is going to give their product away for free" posts.

But people do create free content for the web. Taylor Swift spends hundreds of thousands of dollars if not millions, making music videos for Youtube, so people can watch them for free.

All the pop girls people you stan for are making plenty of money.
Even Halsey is part of the one percent.

If Kanye really is 53 m in debt, it's due to spending, not because he isn't being paid.

Most of the clothes that you see your fave wearing is given to them for free and the more wealthy they are, they more free stuff they get. You can bet that Taylor never has to pay for her iPhone or Macbook. It's only the gullible peasants that pay full price for everything.

I haven't purchased much music this year, but I did purchase a somewhat expensive ticket to a music festival even though I could listen to the artists on Spotify. The music festival even created a Spotify playlist of all the artist performing. Is it bad that I heard them for free and wanted to see them live?

One way or another, artists will get paid unless they really suck playing live.

cuz to drag each other faves we need the receiptz

Because it costs money to make. It's as simple as that. I pirate, but even I understand that ethically it is wrong and I do my best to stream one supported platforms when I can.

Music is Art, therefore it is ultimately a product. As a Musician, I can't even begin to explain how many hours and late nights go into the creation of music.

Nobody can even use the "CD's are too expensive" excuse anymore and you can literally pay pennies to stream music on a monthly basis. If people are happy to pay the best part of 10 pounds for junk food, or spend loads of money on drinks on nights out, how is it unreasonable to pay for your music?

Because it's a service, just like theatre, cinema or whatever entertainment is out there. It's like buying video games and newspapers or magazines, it's literally the same.

This is how the capitalist economy works.

Is music ever priced in accordance with its perceived artistic value, though? A critically acclaimed record costs the same as one that is panned. I guess what's really being bought and sold is the process and resources that went into producing the music, if that makes any sense.