That you bring up classical music is an interesting case in point; dedicating oneself to music to the extent that is necessary to produce a symphony is definitely a full time career, and it’s only right that artists who do that should get remuneration.

Which record label was Mozart signed to? Saying “I don’t believe that the monopoly on production that record labels have enjoyed for the last fifty years or so is healthy for music as an art form or for artists themselves” is not the same as saying “I don’t believe people should get paid for their work.”

I worked for a record label around the time of the fall of Napster, and we wouldn’t sign anything that was a commercial risk. The 80p that we gave to the artists from the £15 we charged for CDs was too much of a risk (when you factor in the other costs of music production through a record label) to back anything that didn’t represent a guaranteed Return on Capital Employed. In real terms, this meant we signed radio-friendly, commercial shit, and refused to back anyone that was in any way cutting edge or avant garde.

No record label in their right mind would sign Mozart, and if they did, they would pay him a pittance because everyone else has to take a slice. Mozart succeeded because he had rich patrons that liked his music enough to pay him to exist, not because he got paid £0.01 every time his work of art got used in a commercial. The way that the system stands right now, there will be no more Mozarts, and a thousand more Rebecca Blacks, because one is “challenging” or “difficult” (both words we used in a negative sense) and the other had three million views on youtube before record companies even thought about her as Viable Product.

So why is it, exactly, that record labels have the right to exist when the means of distribution that they have held a monopoly over for the last 50 years is now utterly redundant? The one thing they did well is now meaningless and yet they continue to lobby for right to exist, to the point of criminalising people for using technology to enjoy art.

There are countless other, far more efficient ways for artists to get paid, and yet people are so brainwashed by the record companies’ 50-year monopoly that they discount the other half a million years of human existence.

/rant

And yes, track down how to end the artist money directly, I’m sure it’d be more appreciated than namelessly purchasing a CD and them getting $.10 (if that)

After trying to buy non-Kindle ebooks from Amazon I must admit I didn’t even look at them – sounds like I need to re-evaluate that. Yes, they are available here. Google Music is apparently US only.

7digital are also available here. They have separate UK, DE and CH stores, but this is forced by the labels, so they say (so obsessed with borders). It’s real downloading (not streaming) thugh, so I can live with it. Amazons’s monopoly on everything – agreed!

Bandcamp look like something different and fun. I may struggle to find anyone I’ve heard of – but that’s part of the point, right?

Imagine the cultural ramifications if the same thing happens to the film industry, especially in the US.

I have some very musically-talented friends; should I force money into their hands each time one of them picks up a guitar and plays a tune when we’re relaxing with a couple of beers?

It’s art production in its truest, most traditional form, which is to say entirely removed from the monetising and corrupting influences of being made into a revenue stream for a multi-national corporation.

If you take away the money, people won’t stop producing art. Who paid cave painters? Art production is an inherent form of human expression, and being unwilling or unable to pay the likes of EMI or Time Warner will mean fewer lawyers, PR hacks and corporate CEOs get rich off the efforts of other people, but it won’t somehow stop people with a passion for music from wanting to express themselves.

Also, smut.

How a new release looks like it go shot across 80 girt sand paper when it’s only been in like 1 or 2 other hands is beyond me.

In that respect for an artist to go out and perform not a whole lot has changed in 100 years.  They just need to get enough people to pay to listen/watch that they can make a living off of it.  What has changed is the number of people making music, the skill level (or varying skill) needed to create music, and the type and quality of music pushed upon the masses. 

I also think your cost representation of CD’s is a little off.  Sure a cd doesn’t cost much to make, and the music isn’t that much more, but everything that goes into making the music that is going on that cd costs something as well.  A top notch recording studio isn’t cheap, and isn’t being utilized 24/7 pumping out cds.  If a group spends 3 months recording a new cd at a few hours a day or week that cost has to be incorporated into the cd.  I suppose if you don’t care about a studio quality recording then picking up a cheap “bootleg” or self produced cd at a local gig is another cheaper option.

So you have a vendetta against the record companies…But musicians gotta eat…

Very little record company income goes to musicians. The amount of it that goes to musicians that aren’t already wealthy borders on non-existent.

- Offer a paid music service. 
- Make it better than the free alternatives.

For 10 years the music industry has been pretending this is not the answer to piracy. Hey presto, it is.

Paying money for music is a fluke of the 1920s, an ASCAP conspiracy, a relic of the days of plastic media. If you want some money from me, put on a show.

Quoted part is entirely accurate.  What makes music so valuable in the first place?

Primarily scarcity.  The record industry put millions of hard-working musicians out of work early in the 20th century when they realized there could be more money in recorded music than sheet music.  (Strangely enough, I’ve never heard this mentioned when people complain about how piracy destroys jobs.  Record industry destroyed far more livelihoods — of real artists doing what they loved for a living — than piracy ever could.)  Everyone wants to be heard so it’s easy to get people to record cheap (before they’re famous anyway).  The price of each record represented mostly the cost of recording, reproducing, and distributing the actual records.

But those costs have dropped to near zero due to technological innovation.  What possible economic or legal theory dictates that record companies should get special legal assistance in maintaining their prices when their costs have dropped so precipitously?  Why did CDs cost $14 when the costs for recording, reproducing, and distributing them came nowhere close to that?  Why didn’t competition on the free market drop prices to where they were should have been (just a teensy bit over cost to produce)?

Mostly because suckers like you kept paying those costs.  This puts the price point for music out of the reach of a lot of lower income individuals.  We’ve set up a society where people are only allowed to share in and contribute to the culture if they have disposable income.  Let’s just hope the next Mozart isn’t born poor.

Note that before the record industry’s ascendance, a lower-class Mozart could have learned from locals making a living from live music.  The record industry put those people out of jobs, remember.  Let’s please stop pretending that the recording industry is good for music in particular and society in general.

“What’s the takeaway here? That’s a very good question. As a thirty-three year old man, I’m ashamed of the piracy of my twenties, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that it gradually helped transform me from a person who didn’t care about music into a music lover, an individual with a true passion for sound, and a fervent believer in buying music.

I hope, in the grand scheme of things, that is a comfort to the musicians and music executives who despair about the rampant piracy endemic to digital music: I can not be alone in this. I stole music just long enough for me to grow to love buying it.”

It is quick because it obscures Brownlee’s twist of an argument that many of us have heard since the days of Napster. According to the author, pirated music is no longer a conduit for the eventual purchase of copyrighted material. Rather, free-but-legal music allows him to explore and decide what he likes a lot before he purchases music (vinyl). While I would agree there is sometimes a type of passive downloading that is inimical to the appreciation of music–downloading hundreds of albums for what purpose?–is such a dichotomy helpful?

Which, without equivocation, is a completely bazoo thing to say.