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have money deducted from their royalty statements for \"breakage\" of records en route to stores -- and these deductions are also levied against digital sales through the iTunes Store!). 
But, thanks to the web, artists have more options than ever. The Internet\'s most popular video podcasts aren\'t associated with TV networks (with all the terrible, one-sided deals that would entail), rather, they\'re independent programs like RocketBoom, Homestar Runner, or the late, lamented Ze Frank Show. These creators -- along with all the musicians, writers, and other artists using the net to earn their living -- were able to write their own ticket. Today, major artists like Radiohead and Madonna are leaving the record labels behind and trying novel, net-based ways of promoting their work. 
And it\'s not just the indies who benefit: the existence of successful independent artists creates fantastic leverage for artists who negotiate with the majors. More and more, the big media companies\' \"like it or leave it\" bargaining stance is being undermined by the possibility that the next big star will shrug, turn on her heel, and make her fortune without the big companies\' help. This has humbled the bigs, making their deals better and more artist-friendly. 
Bargaining leverage is just for starters. The greatest threat that art faces is suppression. Historically, artists have struggled just to make themselves heard, just to safeguard the right to express themselves. Censorship is history\'s greatest enemy of art. A limited-liability Web is a Web where anyone can post anything and reach *everyone*. 
What\'s more, this privilege isn\'t limited to artists. All manner of communication, from the personal introspection in public \"diaries\" to social chatter on MySpace and Facebook, are now possible. Some artists have taken the bizarre stance that this \"trivial\" matter is unimportant and thus a poor excuse for allowing hosted services to exist in the first place. This is pretty arrogant: a society where only artists are allowed to impart \"important\" messages and where the rest of us are supposed to shut up about our loves, hopes, aspirations, jokes, family and wants is hardly a democratic paradise. 
Artists are in the free expression business, and technology that helps free expression helps artists. When lowering the cost of copyright enforcement raises the cost of free speech, every artist has a duty to speak out. Our ability to make our art is inextricably linked with the billions of Internet users who use the network to talk about their lives. 
 
$$$$ 
 
Giving it Away 
 
(Originally published in Forbes.com, December 2006) 
 
I\'ve been giving away my books ever since my first novel came out, and boy has it ever made me a bunch of money. 
 
When my first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, was published by Tor Books in January 2003, I also put the entire electronic text of the novel on the Internet under a Creative Commons License that encouraged my readers to copy it far and wide. Within a day, there were 30,000 downloads from my site (and those downloaders were in turn free to make more copies). Three years and six printings later, more than 700,000 copies of the book have been downloaded from my site. The book\'s been translated into more languages than I can keep track of, key concepts from it have been adopted for software projects and there are two competing fan audio adaptations online. 
 
Most people who download the book don\'t end up buying it, but they wouldn\'t have bought it in any event, so I haven\'t lost any sales, I\'ve just won an audience. A tiny minority of downloaders treat the free e-book as a substitute for the printed book--those are the lost sales. But a much larger minority treat the e-book as an enticement to buy the printed book. They\'re gained sales. As long as gained sales outnumber lost sales, I\'m ahead of the game. After all, distributing nearly a million copies of
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