Generation Free: "they might just kill the goose that lays the golden eggs" (McArdle, 2010). In the article "The Freeloaders" by Megan McArdle, she explores the topic of illegal free downloading, diminishing the profits of the music industry. Younger generations expect music and, recently, videos to be free online, and this is killing the music industry. He shares his opinion on the current generation of file-sharing and how they are ruining the future of entertainment. In McArdle's "The Freeloaders," the current generation and those that follow are destroying the music industry by relying on illegal free downloading. McArdle makes it very clear at the beginning of the article that income from digital sales is decreasing, but not as fast as money spent on traditional sales is decreasing. First, high-quality copies of music and movies have become easier than ever. For centuries, people around the world have successfully pirated intellectual property, although over time the process has become problem-free. Generation Y (free generation) is responsible for declining revenues in the music industry due to a lax attitude towards file sharing. They also don't see any harm and believe that because it's so easy, everyone can do it. Especially teenagers between 12 and 17 years old say that it is not practical and it would be ridiculous for anyone not to use free downloads. However, these 'moochers' don't realize what they are doing to the music industry. Over the last ten years, money spent in the music industry has decreased because everyone isn't buying as much as they used to. However, this problem does not only concern the music industry, but also the publishing and film industries. There still has to be a solution…half of the paper…student.' No matter what the circumstance, this article made me realize the effect illegal downloading has. Reading the first sentence of the article “industry revenues have been declining for the past 10 years”, I realized the negative impact everyone was creating on films and music (McArdle, 2010). As I stated before, college students “don't see a problem with this” and teenagers think that “it's unrealistic to expect people not to do this” (McArdle, 2010). This is why today's young generation is considered "free generation" (McArdle, 2010). Illegal downloading is slowly destroying the music, film and publishing industries. McArdle made it clear through his article that the "freeloaders" do not recognize the effect they are creating. Either greater awareness of this problem is needed, otherwise industries will be able to make it more difficult to reproduce their products.