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Comment by SomeStupidPoint

7 years ago

There's two points --

Just because we want some copyright, doesn't mean we want the current system. There's lots of room to have mixed strategies, eg personal use copying of music is free but public performance requires a license. (Basically, the de facto state now.) And there's lots of reason to believe we should adjust the current system (and business models built around it) somehow, because it's clear that what we have legislated isn't optimal... or in some ways even workable.

Secondly, why not Kickstarter it? (or Patreon? or sell merchandise? etc.) There's no reason not to collect a pool of money, escrow it (with some payments to live on during), and hand it over when they release an album. They get paid for certain and the public can listen to the album as much as they want. This seriously hurts the machine that is pop music, but is that really a bad thing? I think we can do better as a culture than what we presently have (in the form of big, centrally controlled companies/networks).

There are lots of ways to fund music and musicians without the current paradigm. People like art and want to support art they enjoy. (And for that matter, music managed to get funded for all of human history without the present system... So I suspect the concern is overstated.)