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" Taylor Swift has written an article for the Wall Street Journal, in which she declared that &amp;quot;music should not be free&amp;quot;. The singer used the piece to discuss the future of the music industry and argued against musicians who have promoted illegal downloading and file sharing.     \u00A9 Getty Images   &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s my opinion that music should not be free, and my prediction is that individual artists and their labels will someday decide what an album&amp;#039;s price point is,&amp;quot; she wrote. &amp;quot;In my opinion, the value of an album is, and will continue to be, based on the amount of heart and soul an artist has bled into a body of work, and the financial value that artists (and their labels) place on their music when it goes out into the marketplace. &amp;quot;Piracy, file sharing and streaming have shrunk the numbers of paid album sales drastically, and every artist has handled this blow differently.&amp;quot; Swift singled out &amp;quot;major recording artists who have decided to practically give their music away, for this promotion or that exclusive deal&amp;quot; and added: &amp;quot;My hope for the future, not just in the music industry, but in every young girl I meet... is that they all realize their worth and ask for it.&amp;quot;     \u00A9 Getty Images / Gareth Cattermole/TAS   The star also spoke about people&amp;#039;s obsession with musicians&amp;#039; private lives and added that this &amp;quot;will never change&amp;quot;. &amp;quot;There will always be an increasing fixation on the private lives of musicians, especially the younger ones,&amp;quot; she wrote. &amp;quot;Artists who were at their commercial peak in the &amp;#039;70s, &amp;#039;80s and &amp;#039;90s tell me, &amp;#039;It was never this crazy for us back then!&amp;#039;  &amp;quot;And I suspect I&amp;#039;ll be saying that same thing to younger artists someday (God help them).  &amp;quot;There continues to be a bad girl vs. good girl/clean-cut vs. sexy debate, and for as long as those labels exist, I just hope there will be contenders on both sides. Everyone needs someone to relate to.&amp;quot;        "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.marieclaire.com/celebrity/music/news/a10014/taylor-swift-writes-opinion-piece-music-should-not-be-free/>