DISQUS

echovar: Passing the Hat through the Network

  • the matthew show · 1 year ago
    It's very refreshing to see this discussion taking place not only among artists, but also music consumers. Those of us who truly care about music and its creators are looking for the right thing to do rather than simply accepting the old model's iniquities.

    As an artist, I believe in enriching the lives of my audience, and in the process enriching my own life. I want to do that every hour of every day, and thus far, it has not been possible. But as the sands shift, something amazing is beginning to take form. It has inspired hope in me for the first time since I naively entered the dogfight ring of the music industry over a decade ago.

    Music done properly is communication. The same is true of social networking. If these forms can dovetail, the world will be better for it.
  • Jason Jackson · 1 year ago
    Great discussion. There's going to have to be an organization set up in the general framework of ASCAP and BMI to get so called royalty payments to small musicians. I don't mean small like very short people. Anyway, in my opinion, it should be set up by musicians and run by musicians for the purpose of making sure that us guys who rely on the internet for our exposure to the public have a guaranteed way to get paid for our service. If a fan wants to contribute (internet tips) they can do so and whoever the artist is gets the money in the form of a monthly payment. Or something like that. There should also be parameters set up so that people with lots of money and fans like Metalica can't come in and wreck the thing. This would be in lieu of having to have a manager or agent to take care of this stuff. There's already of course the sites like Itunes where people can get paid for having their music downloaded, but the whole thing seems to be very disconnected and all over the place, plus most of the folks who download from there are getting the latest major label stuff and not being turned on to the smaller guys. Maybe we should have our own thing, our own site, our own community, to promote and sell our music on the web, and maybe anybody with more than 5000 true fans should graduate to the major league.