No, it’s not a Music label. This time it’s Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch who weighs in on the ‘Music Tax‘ concept.
 ”Forcing people to buy music whether they want to or not is not a solution to this problem. The in…

Stratt

And there would be 100s of ways of upselling from the flat rate - just like cable TV, net access / dsl, and mobile phone subscriptions. I invite you to read the Flat Fee Music Manifesto at http://www.musiclikewater.net and the post via the link above, and then come back with some actually informed opinions. It doesn’t always pay to shoot from the hip when your gun has only fake bullets.

First of all you have to be ‘branded’ before enough people will pay to see you and make playing live profitable. Same with the public wanting to purchase the cheesy t-shirts you have to offer.

My contention is that the Internet, by itself, will produce few, if any, ‘branded’ artists in the futrue.

But let’s say you get a little buzz going on the Net. Let’s say 100,000 - non gamed - people post themselves as your ‘fans’ on MySpace … Where you gonna play? Your ‘fans’ are likely spread around the world. If you’re lucky 500 might be in L.A., say. How many of them will buy a ticket to see you? 2%? Who’ll book you and not make YOU PAY to play in their club with those kinds of numbers when the name of the game is how many butts you can put in seats?

Paying to play might have been O.K. when there was a chance that some record company might have discovered you, but is doesn’t work if there is no chance of creating some kind of upward momentum if you doomed to running a business on your own.

The thought that playing for free is good promotion has lost whatever sense it might have ever made. What are you promoting if you have nowhere to go?

And, wait a minute, where are all these venues that are suppose to support future stand alone artists … They don’t exist … and nobody is going to open new clubs if the potential number of patrons an internet act might draw doesn’t pay for the electricity to run the place.

But, let’s say you work your way up to a place where some toilet might book you and pay you enough to break even - or even make a few bucks over what it costs you to get there … How long can you keep that kind of life style up before you say … “I’ve got no health insurance, I’ve got no savings, I’ve got no future, I’d better get a real job and start taking life seriously.” Hopefully, you won’t wait too long to reach that conclusion so you still have a shot at a career beyond working at MacDonald’s or working for the government.

Have you ever known indy artists who have ‘waited too long’ to make the transition and have been sentenced to working the road and trying to find clubs that will book them for the rest of their lives … I’ve known many of them and they are not a happy lot. They are usually broke or heavily in debt … and, if they get sick … well, it’s sad.

The internet it blowing the idea of making music as a living back to the dark ages …

Who cares if it costs nothing to make and distribute music these days … (which, by the way, isn’t true). The day of the ‘branded’ artist is over. We’ve seen the last Beatles, the last Madonna, the last Eagles, the last of the thousands upon thousands of truly magnificent, highly creative and talented artists that commercial music brought us over the last 100 years. And, it’s all because everyone will rip off rather than support new artists … Music and those who make it are no longer treasured, revered, cared about … in what is becoming a more and more solitary, personal playlist, existence, music is no longer the glue that bonds human interaction together .. music has become disposable … one ‘delete button’ away from the next ‘nobody cares’ piece of background noise destine for tomorrow’s trash bin

Sadly, that’s the irreversible truth …

Technology marches on.

Click

I agree that the industry itself has become corrupt as the people who sit in the offices are starting to make more money than the artists themselves, but I have absolutely no problem paying for my music and intend to keep doing so. I know that most of the money will go to fat cats who wouldn’t know a truly good piece of music if it came up and screamed “Hi! I’m a good piece of music!” in their faces, but a portion of your music purchase does get to the artist–and the artist relies on that revenue to support them while they make more music. The idea that music should be totally free is what is killing the music industry. If we didn’t pay for music, we wouldn’t have very much music to listen to–why? Because the artists who make the music can’t live off of their parents forever and will eventually have to get regular jobs to support themselves which leads to having less time and less energy to create the music we know and love.

Sure music generates a lot of revenue from live performances and merchandising, but that is only once the artist has established themselves…and what about the people who don’t or can’t afford to go to concerts? The fact is that music sales are what generate tours right now. Saying “oh but I’m really popular on the internet” isn’t going to guarantee you a booking.

Why does everyone want something for nothing?

The arguement between artist vs technology is interesting (I am a tech person) The problem is the “product” music cd’s have little to no value now. Many things made this come about:

Industry not reducing the price as media became cheaper, burners became cheaper. People found you can basically “replicate” a cd or even better make your own compliation for pennies per cd.

Total lack of quality artists that drive cd sales. Yeah there are still some heavy weights but most are lucky to have large sales volume.

Radio is advertising, the same songs get played etc ..

So napster and the like blew that model out of the water .. people got WHAT THEY WANTED.

Once something is basically free - hard to expect people to pay for it.

Now I understand the frustration for all in these industries affected and there is no simple answer. Technology moves on - ask newspapers and the like how they feel about the internet. I don’t have the answer for compensation across all the dynamics (artist, engineer, song writer etc) but like any business - if you have a skill / product other people want .. you will get paid.

One last note on all the “it’s the damn pirates” fault .. the scene is and never will be about profit. Anyone selling music, video etc is not part of the scene. The fault is technology made an underground thing mainstream and simple enough anyone could understand and use.

The main issue is how to control and price something that is digital. Obviously it doesn’t hold the same value as a physical object, I’d love to see the music at a fair, minimal cost and for extra $1 - 5 you can get high quality covers, bonus content, special offers for tickets before scalpers snap them up etc. I’d PAY for that. The problem with artists making money touring is unless your a major artist all the venues are are bad as the labels .. big business controls who and when is played.

Thanks for reading

a positive one for me… maybe ‘this’ will drive out overhyped and marketed pop acts and the fringe will become the mainstream in that people will finally be able to adapt some solid preference because of the affordability and availibility of such a wide variety of music. aaron carter to zztop and everyone between for dollars.

What about all the self promoting bands, they seem to have just as good music as the ones promoted by big music. I don’t see why the public doesn’t simply boycott all the bands that have contracts with big music, then they could sell their own music on the web. They could sell merchandising on their own, and there could be some way, like with digg, to rate new bands. Then the promotion would be from the grass roots. There’s an idea for a site… I’m probably behind the times on this, somebody likely has already done this, no?

But the sooner we limit IP the better. Anything that exists solely through the force of Big Brother is bad for us.

And another thing…just how much does the Canadian music industry think that Canadian music being downloaded is causing money to be lost somewhere? There aren’t that many Canadian musicians first of all, in comparison to the US. So the Canadian music industry will all of a sudden make scads more money because of some dumbass tax and then go “see, our profits are way up now….you are all thieves”. That is the logic these people use. It isn’t logical at all in case you haven’t noticed.

And anyway, wasn’t that “you’re all music thieves” tax on media removed? Hard to justify adding another “Tax” for something when one already exists.

Should we expect to ultimately pay nothing for phones, internet, music, movies in hopes that ad dollars will support the entire thing? that is just not realistic. That worked when big media companies controlled a single powerful medium (TV).

What about your dear freinds at Amie Street, do you wish that they go out of business too? I think you would have a very different opinion if this was your livelyhood being attacked. Music is not a commodity - it is art and has a human element to it that has value - not to mention the entertainment/emotional value that is worth something as well. Should we not pay for paintings either?

Who can’t afford 14, 33 or 50 cents for a song these days? that is very little to you and a LOT to the artists.

I think you are an a-hole for getting on your soapbox and preaching that this is “just how it is” I could say that blogging will have the same demise as it rapidly commoditizes and you would probably not like the thought of that either.