Yeah, it's true :) My point is, easier distribution is good for the creators and the customers. Lots of musicians make a living by putting all their music online for free. Podcasters obviously do fine in the face of massive "piracy" of their free shows. It's not that hard to make money when people are sharing your stuff, even on a commercial scale. Every Blu-ray movie is available as a torrent. But millions of people still buy them.

> Lots of musicians make a living by putting all their music online for free

No they don't. They make a living doing something else. Putting the music online for free is advertising.

No really, all pronobozo's music is available from torrents that he puts on his website. People who want to give him money can buy the exact same music on Amazon or iTunes.

http://www.pronobozo.com/music *If you download the music for free, at least do me a favor of telling a few of your friends to come to the site as well. If you can afford it please make the 5 minute effort to purchase the album, it’s very much appreciated and lets me know you want to fuel the art. -pronobozo"

http://www.pronobozo.com/cred

He makes money by selling his music on Amazon or iTunes, then.

He generates buzz and advertises his product by giving it out for free.

It's not advertising. It's the same product. He makes the product, then you can choose to give him money if you want to. "Piracy" doesn't hurt his business model.

He does not make money from a free product.

He makes money from the product for sale, even if it's the same one.

If this is not clear, you can try a thought experiment: how much money would he make if he discontinued selling the product for some amount of money (and did not substitute it with donations or something else)? How much money would he make if he stopped giving it away for free? Arguable less, but > 0, no?

I guess I don't understand. He puts the music on his website for free. People give him money for this music, using the button on his website that says "PAY ANYTHING" http://www.pronobozo.com/music/ So... he puts out his music for free, and people pay him for it.

How much money would he make if he stopped giving it away for free? About the same, since his music is CC licensed and allows free distribution anyway. If he stopped licensing it that way, he would lose a lot of money because a lot of his supporters are pro-free culture types. It would be a different business model than the one he's using now.

The point is that he is not "making money by giving away his music for free". He is making money by selling it / and or asking for donations.

If he were not asking for donations, but still gave the music away for free, he would make no money.

Free == no money, in and of itself, you have to get the money elsewhere. Sometimes that works, sometimes it does not.