Richie Havens Quotes

I think music sharing of any kind is great.

Free downloads is something that I like to do its just not as publicised and it is the future of music.

You have an entire generation of kids who grew up with the idea that music is something that you can download for free.

File sharing is our radio; that's the way people hear our stuff.

If you can use a search engine, you can find any piece of music that's been recorded for free. I'm not saying that's right, but it's a fact, and I'm surprised that more people don't accept or acknowledge that and try to adapt in some way.

Music is now becoming 'free,' and it's very difficult for new artists to start.

I think that Napster is the greatest invention since sliced bread. Napster, to me, is liberation and freedom for artists.

I think eventually all music will be free.

I usually kind of can't wait until my records leak. Back in the day, you could give people tapes, but you can't do that anymore, because it would be available to everyone on the planet within an hour.

In the past, people were going to record stores and buying albums or CDs. And the label was exposing their artist as much as possible and maybe getting them picked up by a major. Now I tell people to cut a good tune and have it up in the marketplace the next day. You better be prepared to give it away, and people will come pay to see you.

Internet is radio for a lot of people. It's a place to get music and hear music, and no amount of clamping down will change that.

The fact that file sharing goes on, and is as popular as it is, is an incredibly positive thing for the music industry. The fact is that music is so popular that people are willing to break the law to get it.

I started with a website, Jasonmraz.com, pre-YouTube. You could e-mail me directly, and I would send you a CD.

We live in a connected world now. Some find that frightening. If people are downloading our music, they're listening to it. The internet is like radio for us.

There's no doubt that the ready availability of music online has created a thousand more opportunities than it's destroyed.

Records aren't selling anymore; people are burning music.

It used to be that if you had a pretty good record, you could stop by a station in Little Rock or Atlanta and let the DJ listen to it. No way something like that can happen now.

Kids don't go out and buy CDs, they make their own, they download them from the Internet.

I think that people will always want music; I think that the form that they will get it in, or distributed to them from, and the price they pay for it is what's up in question.

I'm into it, I'm into MP3's; I think there's no way you're ever going to be able to legislate people having to buy a record in order to listen to it. You have to look at it as a means of promotion, and if the music is good enough, promotion is a good thing.

With Napster and the sharing of music, of course, there are going to be people who exploit it. Greed has no end. But there's a lot of good that could happen. We shouldn't let the economic concerns of the major labels infringe on our freedom to share music.

I do not believe that people should steal music, but I think that fans need a better alternative, hence why I am such a fan of Apple, where you can simply buy a song for $0.99; it is very easy, it is a value-packed service... and this is a result of the shakeup... something has to happen in the music industry.

When I think about music in the future, I don't make a distinction between what's radio, what used to be the music library, and so on.

Music files and downloading have indeed changed the currency of music to a great degree.

We are passionate about making it so that users enjoy the music that they want to enjoy but at the same time fairly compensates artists. That's not the same as saving the music industry.