The emerging wisdom on file sharing of music is that successful musical artists don’t gain anything in terms of publicity, since they are already well known, and they lose in terms of album sales. While many citizens will happily pay a dollar to download a song, plenty will prefer free.
The benefit of file sharing to society, so it is argued, is that it allows unknown artists to become known without the backing of big corporate money. The musicians can then leverage that fame into lucrative live performances.
That’s the theory. How’s it working out?
What live musical performance have you attended in the past year because you heard the band’s music for free on the Internet?
How many musical performances have you attended in the past year that featured musicians who got famous the old-fashioned way?