Most downloaders actually love the music they are downloading, says Ghostfish, aka Scott Coe.
He believes illegal file sharing was “born out of the high cost of music, especially the enormous mark-up on CD’s,” and he says so in his comment post to ‘Artists want to be heard’, he says, continuing >>>
From the downloaders I’ve spoken to, their justification was that the record labels were ripping them off with the high cost, but they didn’t consider the impact to the artists.
But then you think about the small % of what you spent on the CD that actually went to some artists – was it just the fans that were being ripped off?
I can think of several parallels. How about the current food market? The producers say they are under pressure from the supermarkets to drive down the prices. But despite what the news may say, have you actually seen the price at the checkout go down (bread is a prime example)?
I haven’t!
What I like about this site, is finally a dialogue between the two aggrieved parties… the artists and fans. With a common enemy, what’s the point of further fighting???
Artists in other creative industries all also cutting out the middle men, and I’m sure they will be watching us with interest.
At the end of the day, you can listen to music for free, turn on the radio! If you want to choose what you listen to, then there are lots of sites you can use… Myspace, Reverbnation, LastFM, Imeem, Spotify, to name but a few. If you want to own a copy of it, then you should pay something, and that should go to the artist(s).
The artist needs to earn a living, to re-invest in their work and be rewarded for the blood, sweat, love & passion they but into creating their work. If you didn’t pay the artists, the music industry would collapse. You may still get some new music floating around, perhaps from some just doing it for the love, but you’d loose so much diversity, so much talent.
“Artists should be heard, as they deserve to be rewarded,” says Ghostfish, adding:
“Now the real question, is how and how much. This is a great opportunity to shape the future of a great, and much loved industry. To protect and evolve something which enriches all our lives. And it’s the artists and the listeners/fans who are the most important people in the equation – do not waste this opportunity!”
October 30th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
Great post – totally agree to that. So how to pay artists?
This quote
clearly tells us that the whole idea of compulsory licensing, cultural tax or however you call it cannot be a solution.
Appart from issues that have been discussed here, you would need to apply such a system to all kinds of creative digital products (software, games, music, film…) because there is no reason why the music industry should have a priviledge. Just to name two problems with that: (1) you would need to collect a quite high tax/fee for that, (2) some people are consuming significantly more digital products that others (injustice). There are a lot more issues around I don’t want to digg into right now.
I’d love to push this whole discussion a bit more torwards alternative solutions. Talking about what’s right, what’s wrong, what shall be done with copyright and all that is certainly important and helpful. But as we are having this great community of fans and artists here in one place we should discuss what both parties think are feasible solutions and what not. So here is one alternative:
I’ve described it here http://a2f2a.com/2009/10/27/louie-louies-jack-ely-joins-a2f2a/#comment-263 and I will repeat it again and again, till it get’s picked up by the discussion.
What I love about this solution is that (1) it does not require a change in copyrights law – a major legal act; (2) it leaves all power to the most important parties involved – artists and fans; (3) it does not require a central organization.
Please note, if you do a background-check on me you’ll see that I am tyring to run such a system. That’s why I am pointing out that I do not want to sell something here! I love that concept and want to see it happen – that’s all. BTW, anybody who wants to copy that can actually do it. Copyright does not protect ideas like that
). It’s quite old actually. You can check for the “Street Performer Protocol” on Wikipedia to learn more.
Plus it’s not my unique idea (even though I thought it was once
October 30th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
Yup, Stephen Bryer alludes to the idea of selling intellectual work instead of copies in “The Uneasy Case for Copyright” in 1970. It is one of those fricking obvious ideas that is only obvious once you’ve grokked it, but until that point sounds like complete gobbledegook.
Sell music not copies.
“Eh? But copies are music.”
No. Copies are copies. Music is music.
Duh?
Look, a photocopier can produce a copy of Macbeth, but only Shakespeare can produce Macbeth.
The copy is not the play.
Pay Shakespeare to write his play. Pay printers to print copies of it.
Pay Billy Bragg to write, sing, and record his songs. Pay the chap at the car boot sale for copies of them.
Are we there yet?
October 31st, 2009 at 7:06 am
Here’s the beginning of Stephen Bryer’s insightful discussion of how intellectual works could be sold in the absence of copyright.
It’s well worth reading the whole article. Unfortunately, I think this document is only available on academic file-sharing sites, or on request from your friendly Harvard law school student who’s prepared to risk a bit of copyright infringement for a good cause.