I haven't been closely following this thread, and bottom line of the whole subject for me is that I either accept that things have changed, or lose... but that doesn't mean that I believe music should be free.
I remember being able to play a gig with the hope that we could walk out of the gig with a couple of hundred more than the gig paid, if we wow-ed them enough with our performance. I played with a woman who sold her cds for $20, and just about every wed night she'd sell at least 10 cds in a french restaurant we had a steady gig at. The Nerve used to walk away sometimes with nothing, but often times with an extra $60 - $150. That extra $$$ goes a long way on tours. CD release parties we'd make a lot. Alas, them days are gone.
People argue you shouldn't have to pay for music without hearing it. People used to hear it at the gigs. Then buy it if they liked it. And they're forgetting that it was much, MUCH easier to get people to buy your original music, than it is to get a club to pay decently for an original band. Been in the game a long time, and played all over the world, in some pretty happening groups and places too. To walk out of an original gig with more than $75 per person in yer pocket takes more time, work, and investment than any other job I could possibly imagine. And it in fact rarely even happens.
No thanks to all the musicians who support file sharing. So much easier to sell music, than have to support ourselves through these other means.
But I accept that those days are gone, and realize that to sit around insisting that people pay for my music is a losing battle. I've come to start accepting the music I make on a spiritual sort of level. I have enough money to do all I need to do in life, and most of what I want. Pretty content here. I will keep working, producing music, putting it out to the world, and let the powers that be decide the rest. I'm finding myself happiest like this.
