"The best things in life are FREE" - a solution to the "piracy problem"

During my Computer Science undergrad, one of my professors taught a beginner-level web-design course using W3Schools.com which had the motto "The best things in life are FREE". It fascinated me that such content was available for free!
Later on, we studied Linux and its GNU licensing, and how it helped companies such as RedHat and Ubuntu not only make money but also scare the almighty Microsoft!
The latest "free thing" is wikipedia with over a million views per day! The site sustains itself on just donations! Did you know that the wikipedia donations reached over 1.5 Million?

You get the idea about the first part of my blog title; now, lets dwell into the copyright infringement and piracy issue. I continually read too many articles about how MPAA, RIAA and a gazillion other corporations are catching citizens and suing them for "damages". There may only be a handful of artists that actually care about copyright infringement and actually want the law-suit money. A young garage-band wouldn't get noticed if it weren't for file sharing but lets rest the ethical issue with file sharing for a moment.

Rather than combat piracy, what if the artists gave away the content for free? And then the solution would be for the artists to setup a website to collect donations like wikipedia! If people like the work, they may pay more than a buck for it!! It will increase the artist popularity and may sell out their shows!!

Will the MPAA or RIAA sue the artists for leaving them? You bet!!