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If you tell me you're a fan of The Jezabels or Kanye West in 2011, what might you mean by that?

Let's assume that you mean that, at a base level, you enjoy listening to music written, recorded and performed by a particular artist or band. You identify with their music, or lyrics, or image, for whatever reason. And so you elect to align yourself with this artist or band by listening to their music, 'liking' them on Facebook, telling your friends about their music, following them on Twitter, buying a ticket to their nearby shows, buying a t-shirt advertising their name, and perhaps, buying their music.

The latter three are optional, nowadays; the last one, especially so. In 2011, buying music is like the 'maybe' you select on a Facebook event invite so as to not offend your friend, even though you immediately know you don't want to attend. You know that you can buy an artist's music, but you know that you can just as easily hear their music without making a transaction. You know that YouTube, streaming services and torrents are the most efficient methods of listening to music without having to pay for it.

In 2011, it's easier than ever to be a fan of an artist without ever parting with your money.

This is a problematic situation for all but the biggest artists, many of who were already established before Napster smashed the piñata with a sledgehammer and left the entire music industry scrambling on the ground for pennies.

It's a bizarre situation where you can know all the words to your new favourite band's debut album and catch their buzz-driven set during summer festival season without ever making an explicit donation into their wallets. They'll get a performance fee from the tour promoter, of course, but generally speaking, the road to the Big Day Out is paved with poverty and hardship for every artist without wealthy benefactors supporting their art.

Historically, this role has been inhabited by the record label: the wealthy benefactor who provided cash for talented musicians so that they might grow and mature as songwriters and performers. So that they might sell more records, play larger venues, and eventually provide a return on the record label's initial investment. Labels were banks, signing mortgages to artists who might someday be able to own the house outright.

Labels are banks, still, but they're no longer the only service provider. Canny media platforms and service providers like Bandcamp and Topspin can become surrogate record labels for artists by distributing and marketing their music on a worldwide basis. Canny artists, too, can manage their own affairs, if they're willing to invest significant attention into the business side of creativity. A third - and often overlooked - option exists: fans as artist patrons.

We Are Hunted co-founder Nick Crocker defines patronage as, "One that supports, protects, or champions someone or something, such as an institution, event, or cause; a sponsor or benefactor: a patron of the arts."

This notion of artist patronage is what we need to foster among the next generation of music fans. That music is valuable, because talent isn't free.

We can achieve this by instilling ethics among those who consume music. We've seen that guilt-tripping doesn't work. You might remember the famously maligned ad which used to screen before films. "You wouldn't steal a car...", it began, before ending with, "Piracy. It's a crime".

Every single young punk who ever saw that ad - myself included - scoffed at it, mocked it, and casually replied: "Bullshit."

That kind of guilt-trip is meaningless because it directly challenges our actions. We feel threatened by the implication of being a pirate, or a thief, or a tight-arse. And so we push against it, even if we are not that kind of person. We may even become that kind of person out of spite.

Any musician, filmmaker, game developer, magazine publisher or author could tell you that we do not need more of those kinds of people.

Within 10 years, the entire galaxy of creative industries have been senselessly devalued by that exact kind of person. The person who either doesn't believe that creative endeavours deserve financial recompense, or won't give the concept a second's thought, because there it is; a digital copy of an album, a film, a video game, a magazine, or a book, all available at a cost of zero dollars.

Lawsuits and creative industry tut-tutting, too, have done little to stem this flow in the face of an entire generation driving bulldozers through the dam of ownership. Those people just don't give a fuck.

It is, admittedly, an absurd and sorry situation where we now have to discuss ways of making people give a fuck about such a base concept: that those who do creative work deserve to be paid in return. Yet here we are. No point in audibly sighing about it now.

What we need is a cultural change, and I believe that reinforcing the notion of artist patronage is the first step toward making that change.

Make buying an artists' work via retail - either physically, or online - a point of pride. Make meaningful channels where fans can donate money to their favourite artists.

Make people truly believe that their action of financially rewarding an artist for their work is making a difference to that artists' life, so that they may create more work, sooner.

Make people embarrassed about getting something for nothing; about refusing to partake in the notion of artist patronage, which rewards creative individuals for their toil.

Don't guilt-trip those people. Don't sue them. Just make those people understand that just because they can do something, it doesn't mean that they should.

Andrew McMillen (@NiteShok) is a Brisbane-based freelance journalist. http://andrewmcmillen.com/