The internet has… changed people. People on the web expect everything to be free, while the thought of paying for something is near blasphemy. Even I at times have seriously questioned what is the need for me to pay for anything on the web? Then I remember this funny concept, a business needs to make money.

Today labels are in a tough spot. The web is allowing for extreme ease of sharing music content through bit torrents, playlists and even email. Downloading an illegal track of Katy Perry’s can be as simple as a google search. This is effectively loss revenue for labels. In effect your stealing, but that is ok?

Michael Arrington seems to think so, even going as far as to say he should be paid to illegally download and distribute music. Michael suffers from what I like to call the “free” syndrome. For years people have bought music in a hard copy format. But as we become more dependent on the web and our expectation is that everything should be free has spilled over to music. So now labels are expected to make something out of nothing, even though there …

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