But the stumbling block is the record companies and there associations who both claim they are doing what they do for the artists, but in reality they are doing it for themselves.
Trying to keep the old business model afloat so they keep total control on how and how much we pay for the music.

So far I have not heard anybody from the music business complain about when music became digitised and we music fans re-brought our vinyl on CD so everybody got paid twice for the same piece of music and the again when us fans brought it again on remastered CD or anniversary editions for those extra few tracks which 9 times out of 10 were not worth it.

So this is some of the reasons why we the record buying public feel we get rip it off.

Again this whole problem started off because the industry ignored the inter-net for many years. All they did was moan and started to sue there customers, further alienating the customer.

They try to tell us there are now plenty of legal ways to get our music on line. But can you explain this how can to by a physical CD costs me £6.98 from Amazon and to buy the mp3 version from Amazon would cost me £6.99 a penny more for a product which is inferior in sound quility than the CD. Where is the incentive in that, so if I want an inferior copy then why not download it from P2P.

I am a big music lover and if I like an artist I will go and buy his music and thanks too the inter-net I have found many artist that I would have never have heard.
But it has also saved me from making some big mistakes and saved my money to spend on the artists I like and feel I should support.

There will always be people out trying to get something for nothing but the true music fan will always support music by buying it on CD going to see the artist live.
So I feel the biggest threat to artists not getting paid is not piracy but your own industry.
The industry should have looked at models like Alofmp3 to see that if they had a model like this they could have made themselves and the artists lots of money.

With this backdrop, I can’t underscore enough how much the pop-cultural media was simply destroying our very humanity. We are inherently creative creatures. It has been argued recently that music was even the driving factor for our language, which was the driving factor for our brain growth development. Music main be more core to our being than we even know. Living in a society where the majority of people experience music as something only other, “more talented” people engage in, no wonder depression is out of control.

With this said, it is a fundamentally good thing that we are potentially returning toward a more egalitarian viewpoint of music. If it is impossible to make MEGA bucks from music by selling to everybody in our culture, then people will get it out of their heads as a dream. People will stop approaching music with the dream of being the next mega-pop-king-of-media-demi-god. And perhaps there will be fewer guitar players. On Fresh Air this week, Carly Simon was discussing in an interview that she was depressed for many years when she couldn’t compete with her former pop-icon self. The music she was making was undoubtedly brilliant, yet it didn’t “sell” anymore. However, during the interview she was and positive energized about the new musical landscape and discussed new possibilities in the new world. More than the new avenues for distribution, in essence, you are no longer viewed as a failure if you fail to drown your culture in your music.

As a parallel note, and not unrelated to mega-pop-demi-gods, recorded media have also been detrimental to society from the point of view of virtuosity. Though classical and jazz music couldn’t possibly rival more pop-oriented music with it’s draw-dropping potential for culture-drowning wealth, it has created a parallel situation. Only the most virtuoso of virtuoso could possibly hope to eke out a decent living as a musician (not uber-rich, mind you, just wealthy enough to “not worry”). As a jazz musician myself, who has performed in many places and with many bands, and yet no virtuoso, I’ve met many nearly virtuosic musicians. Musicians who in any normal measure of the capabilities of a human being, are pretty damn amazing. Yet, they are living by the seat of their pants: there are almost no regular venues to perform in (most of the real jazz venues are taken by the mega-virtuosos), and they are often driven to perform in weddings (and play 80s music, etc), or are forced to go into music education. Music education would be a fantastic job, if it weren’t for the ridiculous expectations of our culture brought on by pop culture and recorded media.

I do think that virtuosity is a good thing and should be what we as musicians strive for. The issue is excessive virtuosity in recorded media at the expense of our culture’s everyday experience and relationship with music. Wynon Marsalis is truly phenomenal to be sure, but if we compare ourselves to him, we shall never make a single note. For most, the peak is too high, the steps too many. Humility is key, but it also helps if it is possible to play trumpet well (but not like Wynton), and make a respectable living.

In conclusion, musicians (and would-be musicians) should give up notions of going “big”, even in Japan. We should get on with making great music that they really care about and that we can all experience and share. We should return to learning and creating music for music’s sake (and art!) and strive to live in an age when a teenager defines their style not by the music they listen to but by the music they make. If we can do that, there will be a greater diversity in musical taste and expression. More experimentation, bigger minds. More musicians with which to collaborate with. And if all this happens, there will be a LOT more people who will be able to make a respectable living in music. And by respectable I don’t mean pimp-my-house-respect. I mean normal jobs like nursing, teaching, auto repair, etc. Heck, if a couple of really amazing musicians get uber famous in this future eutopia world make it big, do they really need to make more money than professors, doctors, lawyers, presidents, and god?

So I say, who cares about file-sharing! In fact, it should be encouraged. Times, they are a changing.