I think that downloading an album for free really is not killing the industry. What is however killing the industry is downloading an album for free then making copies of it and selling it to make your own profit off of someone else's work.

I believe so. Everyone downloads music for free. Not many people buy albums or CD's anymore. Why buy something that you can get for free on the Internet ? Unless you really like that artist music and would like to have the CD any way or someone would want a album for DJaying at parties.

Yeah it is killing the music industry because they are not making any money for their hard work.

The artists make a ton of money from promotions and sales of radio stations and everybody listening to it. The sales of the albums contribute a lot, but as long as some people buy it, it'll be fine. People have been pirating since the day of the vinyl.

Of course it is people would rather get free music rather then pay for it I know I would rather get get free music rather then music that cost money

I do believe that downloading music for free is stealing and is killing the music industry. However, I think that sites you can get free music from that you must pay for a membership to are ok. I do buy albums and songs, rather than getting it free. I feel that if I like the artist enough to listen to his/her music, you can support them with 10 bucks once in a while.

thudricholee: I felt the same about downloading music, so I just buy an album from iTunes or the store when I really appreciate an album.

Nah they make billions and who really pays for music, I mean everyone has there own was they just don't say what.

I've seen this same discussion about downloading anime or games without paying.

In all honest, the people who download for free really aren't your customers in the first place. If they couldn't download it for free, at least 90% of them wouldn't buy it anyway. So what does this mean? The artist didn't stand to make any money anyway. I don't think the practice alone is killing the industry... it's only when people who were otherwise able to and content with purchasing music legitimately decide to pirate stuff that suddenly the industry is suffering.

I personally am of the philosophy of "try before I buy". I don't have a lot of money to be wasting on stuff I don't end up liking. I don't want to purchase a whole album for 1-2 good songs. That's a waste of money. So I want to hear the song first and if I like it buy THAT specific song. Or before this was a thing that was doable, I would have to download the album and assess whether or not it overall was worth the money it asked. If it was, I'd buy it afterwards to show support/appreciation. If it wasn't, I'd just keep my free songs and delete the ones I didn't like.

But as I said, now that you can buy songs individually, I don't actually have any need to download free. I can hear a song in full on something like youtube and if I like it, find an online site to pay for a download.

I hope so.

Hey, I wouldnt mind if we would go back to this Skyrim option of music that there would be this one loser in the corner of a tavern playing the same song with lyrics depending how the political climate is at the time. Plus one extra song or two. And some flute. A bit of drums.

Would teach some humility to these milionaire recordindustry lapdogs and show these Idols realityshow wannabees where they would likely end up. Hehe...

Not really. Basically, for every person that pirates the CD of a band or specific singer, there is one person (Or more) that ends up actually buying the CD, helping support said band or singer, at least the way I think of it. I'll be honest, I download music all the time if I don't have it already, but there are some exceptions where I will actually buy the CD instead, just because I like the band enough to want to support them and get more music from them (For example, Van Halen), Nya~.

To be completely honest, I don't think it does. Mainly because I believe if you are a true musician you should be happy that people want to hear your music whether they pay for it or not. In fact Trent Reznor released an album for free on the NIN website when his record company wouldn't release it, at the time he was all about free music. I mean if I found out that someone was downloading my music I would just feel honored instead of getting all angry like Metallica did, I mean that is just ridiculous either way it is not going to stop. Besides it is always because of the record company that the money even comes in, I think a real musician shouldn't worry that much about money. You are playing music, make that your first love not money. But that is just personal opinion really.

  I don't think its killing the industry I think it promotes the artist and gets the artist music out there and heard by the fans. And besides you know why no artist has come out and said they hate that there music is being downloaded for free is because there is more of a chance of there music being heard if its free than if you have to pay for it.And the more people who hear the music the more the artist gets known and the more the artist gets known the more advertising company 's pay them to advertise there products.

I personally think if people keep downloading the music for free illegally, it will kill the music industry. They aren't getting any money for their work.