You’ve been drinking the Kool-Aid. There is no promise to pay artists more here. Remember the list of SoundExchange’s “unfindable” artists? How many of them have now been found? All the talk of how this helps the poor artists is completely bogus. This is a bail out for the industry plain and simple. Virtually none of this money will go to small artists or to indie labels regardless of the number of downloads they get just SoundExchange fails to distribute the money it collects from streaming and sat. radio companies to these same groups. These lies aren’t even new, they are just the same ones that have been used before!

As far as your point about Jim Griffin’s fairness, I call BS on that. You might or might not recall that I left the Pho list when Jim failed to enforce his own rules of conduct regarding personal attacks on the list.

It was no coincidence that the violater in question worked for one of his paying customers SoundExchange. If you pay you get to stay and say whatever you want even if its an offensive personal attack. The rest of you on the list are just there to make the place seem worthwhile to Jim’s paying customers that imagine they are gaining insight into the bleeding edge of the digital revolution. And you don’t get paid for the ideas you share on Pho, he does! Nice gig if you can get it…

If the music labels “pioneer” this new business model, why wouldn’t other industries do the same thing to prop up their failed business models?

People will value art regardless of the fat cat music executives and their lapdogs. Supporting the artists directly has become easier thanks to the internet, which is the new, wide open distribution channel.

I’ve been doing political activism in France for several years exactly for this kind of idea.

The tax is going to be handled by the government just like any other tax, the works of art will be available at online libraries managed by the government just like any other library, fair distribution of the money back to artists will be handled by the government just like any other state-controlled global licencing systems.

In the mean time, I don’t download music and I don’t buy it from the record companies. If I do want something, then I buy a used CD or I buy direct from the artist. I see no reason why I should pay a “tax” to support an industry I don’t like for music I don’t want.

The music industry as we know it is in the mid-stages of a terminal disease. They just now are starting to admit that they should get some treatment. But given that the industry is only slightly more likable than the Third Reich, I say let them die. Artists will still produce music and find ways to get paid.

Sure its cheaper to distribute, cleaner and more efficient… and the profits soared. Everyone’s fat and happy.

I guess they didn’t spend much of their profits on forecasting. And they certainly didn’t foresee the mess that they are in now.

And With any digital medium Piracy of copyrighted materials is never going to go away. You cannot sue 1/4 of a population, what kind of PR is that.

The model needs to be designed for the technology. And, like it or not, there will be a surcharge on music, a type of utility charge tax or whatever you want to categorize it, attached to your isp or powerbill once BPL is in place.

And, Yes, Music will find itself placed in the same place as your washer dryer.

The time has come for tech people like MA to stop telling the music industry to “get creative” — the only way they will get creative is with taxes and laws. The technologists are going to have to step up and figure something out that works for consumers, artists, and labels or we risk having some really oppressive policies put in place. We consumers have little power in this fight.

Instead this new tax will be used to compensate artists for loss in income due to illegal downloads and downloading will remain an illegal act, pursued by the MIAA/RIAA.

And once a tax has been introduced, it will keep on increasing to cover “the ever increasing piracy”.

mark my words

There’s one compelling reason for organizations to jump on board… kickbacks.

Money talks. Ethics walk.

A poster above has it right. Hardly any musicians actually make money, and I agree that the only hold the majors have over everyone is their marketing muscle/money. You can have the greatest album in the world (click my name ), but if nobody knows about it…..

In Sellaband.com ’s case, they have half the solution, in that the artists are chosen by the fans to go and record an album. What the lack is the marketing though. That costs alot of money.

At the end of the day, someone has to buy the product for the artist to pay their bills (indie or major), but a catch-all tax isn’t the answer.