I’m being serious here – and the specific art I am talking about is music. I think it’s safe to say that most people who consume music no longer feel it’s necessary to pay for it. I’m not making judgments here, just being real. It is what it is. The web both giveth and taketh away. And boy, did it take – recorded music went from being the most profitable segment of the entertainment industry to being virtually worthless almost overnight. That ship sailed a long, long time ago. Books could be written about the circumstances that caused this to happen; I’m not really interested in exploring that subject here. What does interest me though is this: if recorded music is worthless, and yet artists still feel compelled to create in this medium, it seems to put them a somewhat uncomfortable position. Are they expected to just give it away? Should they just give it away? And if they don’t, then what? Is it just for them to create and then disappear into the void? Is the process itself the whole point for the individual, and the final artifact disposable? Is creating art serving some compulsive need for self expression that has been part of humanity from the beginning, and the idea that is was “worth” something just a modern construct?