As college students, we are contractually obligated to love and covet free things. Most of the time, this isn’t a problem – no one gets hurt when apartment dwellers solicit meal swipes from their friends now and then, or when people attend cultural events for the food.

But we also like getting our music for free, and that’s usually illegal.

These are terrible times on the industry side – album sales are down, and both labels and artists are struggling to make money.

Look at it this way, though: Thanks in large part to all this rampant file-sharing, young consumers have access to astronomically more music than ever before. Piracy, you could say, is making us cultured.

If you ask your parents, they’ll tell you about the time they saved up money for the new Led Zeppelin record, or how jealous they were when the kid down the street flaunted his copy of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall.” If it wasn’t on the radio, they had to buy it to hear it.

These days, the concept of music being out of reach seems entirely foreign. You may have to wait if you want a physical copy of an album, but in the meantime you can download it illegally, burn a copy from a friend or stream it online. At the very least, you can check out the singles on YouTube.

The older generations say we’ve lost the ability to be patient, to slow down for a moment and savor things. That’s true, and it’s a shame. This impatience is also a problem because it spawns into knee-jerk reactions to news and politics.

But we’ve also gained the ability to expand our musical horizons until they circle the world and come back around and to cultivate iTunes libraries that would take weeks to listen to. We can check out new artists we’ve never heard of and explore genres we’ve never considered, without worrying about paying for it or filling up our closets with CDs.

Sure, there are more important things to be open-minded about, but don’t underestimate the value of cultural breadth. And with contemporary pop music fragmented into every niche and sub-genre imaginable, there’s an inexhaustible wealth of treasure to find by venturing fearlessly beyond your comfort zone.

Free music is obviously not a business model that works. But as the music industry searches for one that does, they might keep in mind that the modern listener is used to getting what he wants, and may even be better off because of it.

Some artists, at least, seem to be catching on. Last Friday the Gorillaz released “The Fall” in its physical, costs-money form, but only after giving it away for free on its website at the end of December. It also happens to be the first mainstream album recorded on an iPad.

The giveaway puts Gorillaz in good company, following similar stunts by Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails. But those are all groups with established audiences, whom they can count on to attend concerts and buy merchandise. Most bands don’t have that luxury, so they can’t afford to forfeit the album sales.

Going forward, then, the industry needs to find a way for artists to make money without sacrificing the broad access consumers currently enjoy on the Wild West free-for-all of the Internet. As it stands, the best option seems to be streaming and subscription services.

No matter how expansive the service is, though, it’ll still be up against the fact that once we’re used to getting something for free, we don’t want to start paying for it again. But it’s good for us to have to earn something every now and then, just like it’s good for us to be exposed to every kind of music imaginable.

And maybe, someday, we’ll be willing to pay for newspapers too.

If your enormous iTunes library makes you feel cultured, email Goodman at agoodman@media.ucla.edu.