p2p and long live the free

Wired reports about Slim Moon and the Decemberists' decision to legally release their "Sixteen Military Housewives"video on BitTorrent in efforts to gain a larger audience. While I haven't been madly following the paid-content/p2p debate as closely as I had in the past, SXSW snapped me out of the mid-revolution complacency. In 2002, when Napster got shut down, I would have laughed my head off if you told me the iTunes/Rhapsody/Emusic models would gain a healthy buzz and business. Now it's happening, slowly, and the desire for more passive-listener based streaming/download audio demands a continuing of this. But how do emerging bands get heard in all this, how do smaller bands get bigger, what about that mp3 file no one is downloading? I fully support the free online trade of artist-donated music and video content (who wouldn't) and really wish this aspect of the debate held more currency when thinking about p2p. Just because you can make profit from online sales doesn't me you HAVE to or even, have to want to. Sometimes, information just wants to be free.