SOMEONE MUST BE PREVENTING THIS

I'll admit that I download a lot of music. I like to think I support the bands I like by going to see them at shows, and occasionally buying something from them.

It would be a lot easier if every band had a button on their site that said "TIP JAR" that I could just click to send them a buck or two, or whatever amount I felt like. I would actually do this. It seems to me that they'd get the same amount of money from me that way, as opposed to me buying a physical CD I'll only use once and forget about.

I did this when In Rainbows came out. I grabbed it for zero dollars the first time, then listened to "Reckoner," went back, and paid Radiohead five bucks. I'm sure I wasn't the only one.

Why not do this for all bands, all the time? It can't be that complicated to set up. My guess is that record companies are preventing it somehow, for no other reason than that I can't think of any other possible cause; it seems like nobody in the music industry has figured out what this whole internet thing is for yet.