Last week, legendary hip-hop group De La Soul shocked the music world when they made their entire catalog free for 25 hours. What made it so interesting was how they chose to do it: by releasing it through a Russian music site. Essentially, they pirated their own music. One can safely assume this wasn't looked upon to kindly by their record label.
But while De La Soul's method of giving away their music was novel, the concept of free music really isn't. On Spotify, it's basically a fact of life: you can go online, and listen to just about any song by any band (save for a few holdouts) whenever you want. Essentially, the record labels have conceded the war against free music. They fought the Napster with iTunes, and of course, making Napster a paid site, but it didn't work. As long as you have internet access you can listen to pretty much anything you want without it costing you a dime.
This might seem like a radical, troubling concept, but really, it's no different from how we've treated literature for years. A library is essentially a place that allows you to gain the knowledge contained in a book without spending any money. This process isn't that much different from downloading music or watching a movie for free. And yet, the library is a completely accepted and admired concept, which it should be.
But why do we think of books so differently than we think of music? Why is getting to read a book for free great, but listening to an album for free is somehow bad? It could be because of where music and literature are viewed with regard to their place in culture. We see reading as fundamental and necessary, while listening to music is viewed more as frivolous entertainment. The problem with this is that neither art form is definitively serious, or definitely frivolous. You can start with a Shakespeare/Justin Bieber comparison, and I can fire back with a Beatles/Stephanie Meyer comparison.
So, the availability of music for free on everyone's computer basically puts music on the same plane, where anyone can experience it free of charge (admittedly, you still need to own a computer, but we are getting closer). Now, this tends to frighten some people because of the idea that if we can just have music, no one will want to buy it. I disagree with this logic because if you can listen to something ahead of time, you can decide ahead of time if you want to buy it - it's more of an important decision.
But more importantly, it allows us to experience music without necessarily having to support the artists who make it. If you're curious about R. Kelly's new record, but don't want to support him because of his well-documented history of sexual abuse, you can listen to it without giving him any money. You may still have anxiety about listening to his music at all, but at the very least, you aren't actively supporting him.
While we've essentially made music free via the internet, we're still making progress with movies. Yes, you can find any film under the sun on the internet, but not in a protected, legal realm like with Spotify. Which is a shame, because there are a lot of controversial movies that are difficult to make up your mind about without paying money to see them beforehand. When The Help came out in 2011, it was extremely divisive. Some saw it as a whitewashed history of racism designed to make white people feel good, while others saw it as genuinely heartwarming. I wanted to see the movie for myself and make up my own mind, but what if I ended up agreeing with the former group? I had already given the studio my money! I would walk out of the theater feeling dirty about supporting them.
This leads to the obvious case for free art: we can appreciate the work of loathsome individuals without making them richer, and we can make up our minds about controversial art without having already paid for it beforehand. We've reached a point where free books, and free music are essentially readily available at all times. This hasn't caused people to stop buying either one, but it does allow them to make a more informed decision about who they want to support, and it makes it easier to avoid supporting the wrong people. The studios and record labels will bristle, but it's hard to see how this is anything other than a good thing.
dude, i think you've missed the point here. go look in a library, there's barely any new releases in there. it's ancient text, old shit, shakespeare, chaucer shit. those artists are dead and gone and the question of how they'll survive economically while their work is freely dolled out from a library doesn't come in to play. you keep referring to labels as the ones that are scoffing and whining and dragging their feet about this free market music economy but maybe you completely missed the whole Radiohead (and a slew of other artists) vs. spotify debate. You can't just wave the free music flag without talking about how it effects the artists who make it.