No musician has to sign with a label, they choose to. It doesn't matter why they choose to, it could be for money, women, power, etc. The point is, they call their own shots, there is no gun to their head. That being said, labels and musicians have something the other wants. Labels have infrastructure and musicians have material.

Now that the internet has come along, it certainly has changed the business model, but only superficially. The cost of recording the music is not affected by the internet. The value of the songs themselves have not changed due to the internet. The real change now is the overhead costs of distribution and packaging are gone. As a result the cost of an album has gone down.

Obviously this diminishes the need of the record label a bit, so many musicians have abandoned them, and record from a freelance studio. This does not affect the cost of the album one bit. Whether its independent or from a label it still costs 99 cents a song.

Before I do so, however, let me state a few things that may or may not be obvious already. I'm sure you've heard about and/or looked at those statistics that claim to know how many pirates pirated certain products, how many pirates there are, or how many sales were "lost" to pirates. Those are very likely incorrect. Why? It would be an impossible task to scour every torrent and website in existence in an attempt to count how many pirates there truly are. It's simply not plausable due to the sheer amount of websites and torrents. I'm also sure that you've probably heard of and/or come across something known as DRM (digital rights management). You're probably already aware that it was designed to stop (or at least reduce) piracy. What some fail to realize, however, is that it fails to do even that, and instead, it just causes harm to the actual customers themselves due to the fact that the DRM limits what the customers can do with their legally acquired product while the pirates crack or remove the DRM from the product, and, consequently, can use it restriction free. This makes DRM effectively useless against piracy, and ultimately only harms the buying customer.

One very small reason that piracy doesn't actually harm anyone is the fact that you can't consider every instance where something is pirated as a lost sale. It's simply not logical to do so, as you have no idea if the pirate would have bought the product if they had been unable to pirate it. It is more likely to assume that they would not have bought the product. Reasons for which include: the company which made the product has bad policies or treats its customers badly, the pirate lacks the money needed to buy the product, the product contains DRM, or the pirate simply felt that he/she would rather spend his/her money on more important things. Assuming that every instance of piracy is a lost sale (as many people seem to do) is simply illogical.

Next, you have to ask yourself what it is that pirates are actually stealing. Are they stealing the product itself? That can't be true, as they are simply making a copy of it. To steal something means to take something away, and the pirates aren't doing that. So, what are they stealing, then? The next conclusion that would likely be drawn is that the pirates are stealing future/potential profit. However, logically, this holds no ground for a few reasons.

First of all, if stealing future/potential profit was illegal, then competition in general would also be illegal. Why? If a customer decided to buy a product from one business instead of buying it from another business, under the "potential profit" rule, that would mean that the first business actually stole future/potential profit away from the second business.

Secondly, if stealing future/potential profit was illegal, then warning people about a company/product would also be illegal. Why? The people who were informed not to buy the product/buy from the company might be scared away from future purchases, which, under the "potential profit" rule, would mean that the informant actually stole future/potential profit away from said company.

Finally, there's really not much difference between a person who pirated a product and a person who just didn't buy the product at all (yet also didn't pirate it), except for the fact that one is enjoying a product for free while the other is not. Neither of them granted the creator of the product any profit at all, so under the "potential profit" rule, that would mean that they actually somehow stole potential profit from the creator(s) of the product for not granting them their money. There are many, many more examples of how the "potential profit" argument is illogical and holds no actual ground. That was but a few.

Despite there logically being no negative aspects to piracy, there are some positive aspects to it. The pirate could eventually grant the author(s) money if they liked the product, they could inform people who are not pirates of the product if it is good (resulting in free word of mouth advertising), and, though it doesn't directly benefit the author, it will save the pirate money for use on more important things (food, water, and shelter).

"But, what about the artists? If everyone pirated everything, there would be no one to create anything good!"

If you read the above with an open mind, you will see that this is not actually the fault of the pirate itself, but the fault of the capitalistic ways of our society. The flaws of which are becoming more and more apparent as each day passes. It is highly unfortunate that many good artists will likely have to suffer due to our capitalistic practices until they are changed. It is not the fault of piracy.

2. I don't even know why Musicians/Bands don't just do internet only downloads anyways..I mean tell me that the BLANK CD's aren't for music ?? THEN Geniuses tell me what they are for?? (Expensive Coasters? Frisbee? Make-up Mirror?) Companies like SONY are probably showing a killing in sales on Blank CD's. It's not like they are going to step in to save against the piracy.

4. If you don't want your CD copied,how about trying to do piracy Encoding on the CD..like they do on most DVD at least try to make it a little more difficult to copy/burn. (I bet that the fines don't go to improving against piracy and it goes straight in to the Old Hip National Bank). For those who don't know what that means, it is pure pocketing money.

5. You tube and other sites host Songs that have Videos. Either it be the original Video or the posters variation to said Video/Song. I don't see the Label Companies Jumping all over the hosting sites(since they allow them to be posted) which can still lead to more piracy. Oh yes, lets cry the people are downloading my music for free but not the site that allowed placement of said song/video to begin with.

6. Last but not least, arguing about this hilarious. There are countless people in the world that are going to do what they want or find a way around to do it anyways. I like the reference to the Boston Tea Party…Its been years since that happened and you know what, we haven't changed much.

PAY for it or DON'T its a choice. I personally rather just listen to the radio so I don't have to hear the same redundant music on a CD play over and over again.

Let the HATE Replies Commence!!!

1. There is no need to travel (potentially) miles away to pick up a CD that probably won't even be in the badly stocked music store (or you won't be able to find it due to the terrible 'genre' categorizing method they employ)

2. Here in England they go for £15 AS STANDARD. If they are going for £9.99 is because of some "sale" that is on.

3. You get collected playlists from users which introduces you to new music.

4. The albums are great quality 98% of time. I don't know what retard said they are bad quality.

5. Discographys – 'Nuff said

6. Most albums have about three 1 minute insignificant tracks that are really not worth paying for whatsoever. Itunes charge the same price for these usually occurring nubbins of ****.

7. Bands get paid enough for gigs. If they are well liked and don't take the piss, I (along with anyone else that has a brain) will go out an make a concerted effort to buy their new album.

8. IT'S FREE!!! MUAAAAHHHAHAHAHAAAAAA

1. i dont know of anybody who wants to buy 3 albums a month. not that much new music comes out (except for bullcrap like miley sirus and jonas brothers, who deserve to be stolen from)

2. saying another's data is false is a useless arguement, as anybody can come up with a statistic, or turn a number into something they want. everyone does it, including this article, where it says the auto company is the cause of 40,000 layoffs, where in the same article it says that ford recently got rid of 54,000 employees. (not to mention the economic fall out from those job losses (i live near detroit, it's pretty bad here)

3. yes, itunes is easier and better quality than file sharing. although there are many high quality files out there, there is also alot of crap that i've downloaded. and viruses are always possible.

4. the arguement that bands should be in it solely for the music is stupid. if millions of people are going to enjoy something that they made, they damn well better get good money out of it. and the only bands making money on tours are the ones charging $100 a ticket. plus your argument is like saying hookers should be in their business for the sex.

5. this is on the internet. people can say whatever they want on here, just take a look at wikipedia. i also feel sorry for anyone who gripes on a blog under the illusion that people actually care what they think.

i'm not trying to preach, just trying to expose bullcrap for what it is.

(ps the huge fines for getting caught pirating music are there because of how many people dont get caught)