TMF: A link in the comments says they have already paid:
http://torrentfreak.com/riaa-pays-up-in-anderson-case-080814/

It only costs big bucks to produce new music the way the recording industry does it now. Meanwhile, my friend has created a professional grade music studio in his garage and has produced CDs for several local bands.

The music industry as we know it does not so much provide us with music as limit our choices so as to concentrate popularity and thus earning potential in a relatively small percentage of the musically-inclined population.

Is it any wonder they turn to choice-limiting as a strategy for dealing with their problems?

It is always the existence of alternatives that frighten those in control. Extrapolate that to infinite examples in life and business. It’s a point that can’t be overemphasized. As a matter of fact, you’ve just thrown light on our entire economic legal and regulatory system.

Have you never hear of something called “viral marketing”? If your goal is to make music and make a decent living, you can do it yourself thanks to this whole internet thing. If your goal is to make millions, have a posse, do the talk shows and make some bad movies, you need industry money. Of course, you’ll have to sell your soul.

‘Produce’ usually means some industry guy sitting in the mixer room, helping the recording engineer tweak the sounds. Perhaps putting up the bucks behind the scenes for studio time, PR flacks, promos, filming (what an archaic word) the videos, etc.

My band (see the link on my profile page) has used our own PA gear, a 2nd-hand Dell desktop, and various bits of audio software to record, mix, produce, and convert (to audio or MP3 files) songs we’ve done.

Out of pocket expenses? None. Just time and effort.

Cost of all the gear? Considerable (guitars, microphones, mixers, amps, cabling, drumkit, etc. etc.)
But considering we had pretty much all of that gear anyways (to play gigs), the extra expense was minimal indeed.
And we tweaked the sound until we got what WE wanted – not what some industry guy thought would sell (and generate profits).

As TMF says, the prob now is getting people to notice YOU and your band, above the rising tide of others doing the same thing ….

However, JustAVoice, I don’t agree that it’ll ‘hurt the music industry in the long run‘ – what it can and WILL do is make them change their business model, to change with changing times. They ARE still the best at promotion, etc., etc., but the ‘recording infrastructure’ they have is largely going to gradually shrink and fade away.

Van Halen, Jethro Tull (among countless others) have used their own profits from their music to build their own custom recording studios on their own property – so they can bypass the whole ‘industry’ issue.

As the cost of making and distributing quality music drops, I think people are going to have to realign their expectations of what constitutes success.

Does “getting noticed” continue to mean being as famous and well-paid as Metallica, or does it mean getting gigs and having your songs sell on the iTunes store? If the music industry stop producing stars, does that mean the music industry is hurting, or that a few hyped-up musicians are no longer sucking up all the oxygen in the room?

FYI – Ian Anderson now owns most of the Salmon in Scotland (and large chunks of their habitat, as well). So whenever you eat Scottish salmon, think of Jethro Tull.

because you want to see the new up and comer succeed so that she will create more music that you like?

because you are grateful for such creativity and beauty?

Whats funny to me is that no money is actually being lost, just shifted around. So in order for me to download allegedly *smirk* tons of music I would need a bigger hard drive, a new MP3 player, my PS3 to listen to it on …yada yada yada. So in reality its not that the music is free, I’m still paying for it even if the actual music itself is.

The musicians aren’t getting money from your purchasing hard drives, PS3s, and mp3 players (well, unless it’s a Zune, and even then…)

By that logic, you’re entitled to “free” copies of Photoshop since you already put your money into a computer and hard drives.

I mean seriously why do you need a 8 gig music player if you are buying all of your music. This would be over 2k songs assuming 3-5 megs per song. That means someone spends $2,000 dollars on music alone to legally fill this (assuming .99 a song).

I’ve 24,558 songs on my iPod now. Most are from my own CDs, a small fraction from the Amazon MP3 Store, and an even smaller fraction from iTunes. I consider it a good use of my discretionary entertainment budget over the course of 23 years.

So yes, sometimes you seriously need an 8 gig music player if you are buying all of your music. Sometimes you need a 160 gig one.

because you feel confident that the money will go to the artist and not to lawyers and MBAs and marketing execs and DRM designers and lobbyists?

because you are honest?

Did Radiohead lose money for putting In Rainbows up for whatever people wanted to pay them? No. More and more artists are offering up their works this way. Nine Inch Nail’s The Slip was offered up as a free download, and it sounds like the forthcoming Eno / Byrne album will adopt this model as well. People who are smart in the industry have realized that if you simply offer more production value in the physical product, people will buy it. Offering up free downloads ensures there will be a great deal of buzz generated about new works. I downloaded In Rainbows for free, and then, as soon as it became available in stores, I bought a hard copy, not only to support a band I love and their strategy of making it available originally for free, but also because it is a higher quality recording on the CD vs the MP3s, and has a cool cover and enclosed stickers, etc. which now are emblazoned on my car.

If the Music Industry wants to continue to get away with low or no production value in their hard copies they offer, they deserve to have the music ripped and shared with reckless abandon. If they enclose a cool booklet with artwork, photos, lyrics etc. people will buy it if they like the artist, plain and simple. -Not to mention that most people can’t be bothered to download and burn their own CD. Please stop echoing the whining of this culture and soul eating dinosaur!

Because someone, maybe the artist herself, shares some of her music with you?

You’re starting to sound like a broken record.

Thank you very much. Don’t forget to tip your waitress.