So here’s a long comment post

As I write this, there are 81 comments under Why artists get paid for radio plays.

Among them is # 79 from Billy Bragg to Crosbie Fitch, which includes this »»»

Copyright was invented to protect creators from having their work exploited for profit by others without remuneration. Since then it has been extended to ridiculous lengths – not allowing people to copy music that they have bought and paid for etc. I am interested to see if, between us here, we can find a consensus that returns copyright to its original intent, so that it only comes into play when someone is using your creation to make money.

Can we fashion something that gives individual the right to use, share, and build upon published works, but also places a statutory responsibility upon them to remunerate the originator if the work they have used, shared or built upon is used to make money?

“Returns copyright to its original intent so that it only comes into play when someone is using your creation to make money.”

Yup. That’s the trick — for the moment at least. Because copyright is like the labels — at last gasp, but not dead yet.

And the old bases of cash-cow ‘consumers’ are also dying. In 2009, we have a brand new, and rapidly expanding, pool of intelligent and articulate customers who’ve been permanently poisoned against the corporate music industry and it’s ‘product’.

There are also hundreds of millions of kids who’d happily pay 10 or 20 cents for songs they like. My daughter and her friends (10 – 15) enjoy all kinds of music online, old and new, with YouTube and other video sites as their principal sources. Then they gossip with each other about what they like. Then they go to concerts. Then they buy CDs and T-shirts. I know because I have to pay for it.

IMHO, we need to cut back on this preoccupation with ‘copyright’ — it’ll bury itself.

Sell individual downloads

We need a selection of sites featuring music from indie musicians, and established artists such as Billy who own their own material and who can therefore do whatever they want with it.

Sell individual downloads — singles, in other words — for 15 or 20 cents per, or perhaps by size as did AlloMP3. What’s better, 20 people at 20 cents, or 1 person at $1? And include MP3s as well as regular tracks on CDs so people can easily transfer them to their music players.

Forget the labels. The full range of corporate ‘product’ is already out there and readily available to anyone who wants it. Sooner or later, what’s left of the majors will open their catalogues and drastically lower their wholesale prices. They won’t have any choice.

Meanwhile, ‘Trust’ should be the watchword. Musicians should trust people to be fair.

I know that’s simplistic and there’s a lot more to it than that, but I, as a music lover, would like to see discussions moving away from endless wrangling on what copyright is or isn’t, what it should do or shouldn’t do, so on and etc.

Instead, let’s talk a little more about how people such as myself can have direct access to online music and the people who make it.

The middlemen aren’t only the labels. They’re also the politicians, industry lobbyists, copyright lawyers and ‘consultants’ and all the other ‘professionals’ who depend absolutely on the status quo remaining the status quo.

Let them keep what they’ve got, and while they’re busily cutting each other’s throats, we can bypass them and decide together what we want to do, how we want to do it, and with whom.

We don’t need their help.

The people have spoken, and loudly

Way back in 2005 I was interviewed by Slyck (one of the oldest online music sites) and one of the questions was, “Tell us how you feel about the online copyright wars and do you see any end in sight?”

“The wars are all in the mind of the entertainment industry,” I said, going on »»»

P2p is here to stay and without wishing to be corny, the people have spoken, and loudly. When the various corporate interests finally admit they’re operating in the digital 21st century and not the physical 1970s, things will settle down. As Cherry Lane Digital ceo Jim Griffin said recently, the labels, “cling to their pursuit of this notion of control and calling those who do not comply thieves, and in doing so they leave billions on the table that should be divided fairly amongst creators and rights holders.” The companies won’t be able to leave those billions floating around for ever. Their contracted artists and shareholders won’t let them. So Yes, there’s an end in sight and when it arrives, we’ll have the labels and cartels saying how they’ve been solidly behind p2p since day One.

Another question was: What should the MPAA and RIAA do to curb piracy’s prominence?

“Given that the MPAA and RIAA are no more than the blunt weapons of the entertainment industry cartels, the first thing they should do is: stop trying to sue their customers into buying,” I answered, saying »»»

It’ll take a while, but they’ll eventually begin to recover some of the goodwill they’ve squandered. The cartels should then immediately open their entire catalogues to the people they’ve more or less designated as their principal sales fronts, with iTunes and Napster II to the fore. This content should be licensed to distributors (including the current p2p operators) at reasonable prices so people can buy tracks at between 10 and 25 cents per download. The organized criminals – the ‘pirates’ – depend largely on physical product to ply their illicit trades. They’ll find it a hell of a lot harder to operate when music and movie lovers are buying fairly priced music and movies from adequately stocked download sites. The RIAA and MPAA should also stop spending ridiculous amounts of money publicizing the very thing they’re trying to quell. P2p and the digital media represent tremendous opportunities, not death knells.

And in answer to ” It has been argued both the copyright industry and file-traders have already won; the copyright is making money and has initiated their own online distribution model while file-traders have a new tool and tons of files to choose from. Will the future simply be a wary coexistence?” – I also say (sorry ) »»»

The entertainment industry currently sells most of its inventory to offline consumers. However, more and more people are logging on every day and eventually, the balance will shift and anything that can be digitized WILL be digitized and sold online, not as physical product. Quite a few of the existing overheads, such as the money tied up in storage, print costs, enforcement, PR campaigns, etc, will consequently be drastically lowered or cut altogether. This, in turn, will mean more and more people will be buying more and more reasonably priced product via the Net. And they’ll be talking about what’s good and what’s bad in their blogs, in emails, over the VoIP networks, and so on. There’ll be no way for manufacturers to escape the results of releasing shabby product, as they’re able to do until now. We ‘consumers,’ as we’re still contemptuously known, will be sharing information and completely by-passing the old marketing and sales religions. Also, like any other corporate entity, the MPAA and RIAA owners ultimately have to answer to their shareholders. The apparent success they’re enjoying by suing the ordinary men, women and children who share music online, serves nicely to obscure the reality that they’re making little headway against the organized criminals – and nor will they as long as they deal with physical product in a digital world. The ‘pirates’ are far more advanced than both the entertainment industry and the national police and enforcement units that cynically act for them. And that’s the way it’ll stay until the labels, studios and software makers smarten up.

Not only but also, I add, “artists should be thinking about video.

“Because thats where everything’s going.”

Cheers! And thanks …

Jon Newton