What would prevent a large company (particularly a label) from just purchasing the work directly from the artist, for the full (and very affordable) asking price, and just adding it to their copyrighted repertoire, thus maintaining the status quo?

Basically the Creative Commons licenses. They are in irreversible, meaning once you published anything under a CC license of your choice you cannot take that back. So labels could certainly throw in some coins, but they could not just add it to their copyrighted repertoire.

Another general thought I had:
I am researching and working on such a systems for quite while now (and so is Cosby Fitch – we should join forces, BTW ). The trickiest part is actually having the artists buying in.
Ultimately I belief such a system/service should be owned by the artists themselves. Actually this could be a groundbreaking move for the whole industry. The internet shiftet power from the (in)famous middlemen to those who really matter in this business – artists and fans. With the FAC and a2f2a we are having great artists on one side and great geeks (not meant offensive) on the other. A powerful, fair and efficient service could be build around that.

Any chance to put this on FAC’s agenda?

The kind of idea you’ve described has been brought up a few times. And, I don’t remember it being debunked or rejected, either!

Personally, I like the simple, uncorrupted methodology to something like that. It certainly removes a lot of trash from the equation (middlemen, lawyers, etc.).

One negative that does come into my mind about it:
What would prevent a large company (particularly a label) from just purchasing the work directly from the artist, for the full (and very affordable) asking price, and just adding it to their copyrighted repertoire, thus maintaining the status quo?
(!)

“If you cannot sell your music piece by piece, then sell it only once. But then to the whole market. The idea is to satisfy the artist’s financial interest right at the products digital release and give up control afterwards.”

bjoern, that is definitely the way of the future, to sell music instead of copies.

Just as the Internet provides a means of instantaneously delivering an artist’s art to their audience, it also provides a means of delivering the entire audience’s money to the artist in exchange. What’s more, no-one needs to suffer a privilege that suspends their liberty, nor a tax or royalty system that extracts money from them through force.

It’s a win-win outcome. Money for artists, music and liberty for fans.

The ultimate problem is that digital music is a public good (more on wikipedia). That does not mean digital music belongs to everyone, or has no value. That only means that digital music is a good with two distinct characteristics:

non-rivalrous and non-excludable

This means, respectively, that consumption of the good by one individual does not reduce availability of the good for consumption by others; and that no one can be effectively excluded from using the good.

The problem with such goods is that you cannot sell them piece by piece. Billions of dollars have been spent trying to make digital music rivalrous and excludabel again through DRM, legal actions, etc. All that is just a waist of time and money. What is really needed are business-models that are able to handle music as a public good. So here is what I have in mind and I appreciate your opinions on that:

If you cannot sell your music piece by piece, then sell it only once. But then to the whole market. The idea is to satisfy the artist’s (note, not some large corporation’s) financial interest right at the products digital release and give up control afterwards.

How? Like this: Say you just completed the recordings of your new album. It hast not yet been published, though. You offer the world the following:

“World! This is my new album. For $10,000 I will release it under Creative Commons* license by-nc. That means everyone will be free to legally copy and share the album as long as it is for non-commercial purpose. If you want to make money with my recordings, please contact me and we sort out a deal. Everyone of you if free to pay whatever s/he wants. But remember, the album will only be released if we reach this target together. We’ll be collecting for the next three weeks.”
* if you want to learn more on CC, check: creativecommons.org

This is a totally fair approach, engages fans and enables artists to make some money from their unique role as gatekeepers. There are a couple of reasons for people to actually pay: They can legally share afterwards, they can get it for maybe $2 if enough people join in, the love the music, they love net-neutrality, etc.

What do you think of that? Actually this is a model I am trying to establish right now. If you wanna join, drop me a line: bj@sellyourrights.com

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

Just joined and this was the first article I wrote. I find it it to be very inciteful and very much alongside my own thoughts.

This industry is definately changing and although it will ultimately redress itself and find a balance, I think that ultimately more of the power will lie with the musician/act.

Perhaps the days of superstardom of the Coldplay/Rolling Stones/beatles ilk is finished and rather we will have localised industries whereby more artists can earn a decent living but less artists can become superstars?

Cheers

In response to Jack’s essay, I was wondering if the partnership between Recording Companies is necessary any longer now with the advent of filesharing? What I mean to say, is that beyond the actual recording of the material (which can be achieved on a no-commitment, per hour basis), the distribution is free (and the profits from Recording Companies’ sales seem to be irrelevant to the artist anyway). The most important advantage of partnering (which is distribution) is then doable without that partnership.

For example, I heard of a group that would sell their CD’s dirt cheap (practically hand them out for free) in every location they were destined to perform next on their tour, and would attract large crowds for their shows. I can’t remember names or guarantee validity to this story (is such a thing possible?). Even in theory though, not only would they be independent of partnerships with companies, but the filesharing network would benefit such a group greatly.

I would love to hear a response.