Tonight, in the main branch of the New York Public Library, the long-running conversation about artist copyright, piracy in the digital age, changing (and disappearing) artist revenue streams, and illegal downloading continues with two people who’ve added much to that discourse of late: Talking Heads vocalist and all-around interesting fella David Byrne, who recently penned How Music Works — a wide-ranging treatise on how music is crafted, distributed, monetized, listened to, and regarded — and Chris Ruen, the 31-year-old author of the fascinating new book Freeloading: How Our Insatiable Hunger For Free Content Starves Creativity, which, as you can tell by the title, argues that illegal downloading not only hurts the artist’s bottom line, but ultimately threatens to choke off the supply of great music that, for many of us, helps make life worth living.

Read the full article on The Village Voice