a lot of todays music are free

You can get free mp3 downloads from east and from west, but is it good to download music for free ? well, the artists often think so as they are getting a lot of promotion for their band or their music that way. Ok, but why do they need promotion if they dont have anything more to sell ? I mean, all is already given away. Could it be that by giving access to free mp3 downloads they will get more gigs ? Yes, could well be, but that would then be their only oncome. I belive that a bands or an artists total income should be a mix between income from gigs and income from recordings. Its not really to much to ask the artists fans to pay for the recordings is it ? Well, I promote free mp3d ownloads on this site, but is it good ?