The RIAA vs. the World

Like others, the fact that I'm making a living at all at music -- unlike the overwhelming majority of musicians ­ is largely attributable to the internet, and specifically to free downloads.
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Every year, over 100,000 songs are downloaded for free from my website, and many more from many other websites where they are hosted in one form or another. This represents many times what CD sales could possibly have been for me without a major record contract, previous to the internet. My conclusion is that the free download phenomenon behaves more like radio airplay that I never would have had otherwise. And it's international airplay that has led me to tours in countries around the world and gigs in remote corners of the US that resulted directly from someone telling someone else about songs of mine they could find online for free.