High Stakes in the Music Business / Free music needn’t be stolen music:
For the price of three CDs in taxes, we can each get free access to anything we want to hear and have clear consciences. Not bad. Will it be easy? Nope: Big music will lobby against this system apoplectically and apocalyptically. The
fight will be a wonderful spectacle, scary and awesome to behold, but in the end artists and their audiences will both be better off. Bring it on.
Worth a read: the author suggests a new model, where we divide the amount the RIAA cartel booked as sales last year, divide that by everybody, and consider that — US$40 — a single payment for all the music you want. Never mind that CDs should be much less than $13 apiece (even if you can find them at that price).
And then there’s this from the late great Frank Zappa:
A Proposal For A System To Replace Ordinary Record Merchandising:
This was written in 1983? And we’re not all that much closer, even as his ideas prefigure today’s landscape almost eerily.
People today enjoy music more than ever before, and, they like to take it with them wherever they go. THEY CAN HEAR THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GOOD AUDIO AND BAD AUDIO . . . THEY CARE ABOUT THAT DIFFERENCE, AND THEY ARE WILLING TO GO TO SOME TROUBLE AND EXPENSE TO HAVE HIGH QUALITY ‘PORTABLE AUDIO’ TO USE AS ‘WALLPAPER FOR THEIR LIFESTYLE’.
What is an iPod or other mp3 player, if not the fulfillment of that idea?