Why should you give away free music on the internet? One obvious reason is that people don't need to pay. People I mean by teenagers and generation Y and beyond. Those are the audiences who don't understand life without the internet. You probably can find a free copy of any given song on the internet if you dig far enough.
The latest proof to this is that big record labels are teaming up with the social networking sites to promote and distribute music. This is the marketing niche where independent musicians have had since the beginning of the internet usage. So how much impact will the indie musicians feel? Big. The social networking communities have been independent musicians' marketing channel, the entry of big players will certainly push the small bands to the back burner. For independent musicians to achieve any form of success on the Internet, they have to take radical steps that big labels won't take such as giving away music for free. At this point we don't know how the record label/social networking music alliance will work out, but one thing for certain is that the music won’t be all for free downloading.
