Copyright law is like 1930s prohibition says top music manager

You didn't create any art nor copyright protect it while stocking shelves so you wouldn't be entitled to any royalties.

If you don't understand the basics of art and copyright law, it's all moot.

You didn't create any art nor copyright protect it while stocking shelves so you wouldn't be entitled to any royalties.

If you don't understand the basics of art and copyright law, it's all moot.

Artists can still be paid to play, even with free downloads. It's called a concert.

I stocked shelves in a convenience store when I was in school. 17 years later I'm not still getting paid royalties; on the other hand, if the shelves had never been stocked 17 years ago, the store would have gone out of business. So, the work I did 17 years ago helped the store owner to make his profit today.

Why should a garage band, or anyone else, be raking in millions for a song they played years ago? I'm still listening to it, and the convenience store is still running, but neither I nor the band (or label) need be making a fortune today for those past efforts.

This idea sound OK, but the quality of the music would be critical to its success IMHO. For example, Itunes' music costs $0.99/track and uses poor, lossy compression, making it a very poor value. And as has been said, the artists are currently getting the short end of the stick while the music companies and Apple get rich.

I think any music service that wants clients would have to ensure that the quality of the music was at least equivalent, or perhaps superior to, the present quality of CD's. This would also make the music files larger, and they would thus be "less convenient" to share or email to others.

DRM would also be out of the question, as people paying for music want to be able to do what they want with it. A cheap, subscription-based service would make DRM (and sharing music) unnecessary.

Giving artists most of the profit could also make people feel like they are directly supporting them, instead of buying yachts for music company executives.

Copyright is law to protect artistic works. It's not going to change just because it's easier for criminals these days than in the past. We'll just create new jobs by building prisons for the criminals who can't function within the laws of society.

I think Jenner's idea is interesting; having people pay a flat rate for unlimited access to music, and then dividing up the total and paying artists proportionally to the number of times their songs were accessed makes some sense. Having songs accessible for download and storage on any device used by the customer would probably make this idea an instant success.

One pivotal issue would be: how much of the money goes to artists, and how much would be grabbed by the media cartels. Right now music prices are high because the cartels grab about 90% of the profit (even through Itunes), leaving only around 10% for the artists. One would have to ask oneself: what are we getting for this 90%? Lawsuits against customers, media industry petitioning governments for the imposition of legislation that removes citizens' rights and privacy...this does not seem to benefit citizens in any way. The artists deserve a lot more than they are getting. I would suggest at least 70% of the profits should go to the artists, and the music industry could become a lot leaner, and yet, not meaner, but "nicer", acting as a facilitator for artists' success and people's enjoyment (and not as an oppressive dictator, as per the present situation).

Another issue Jenner's idea does not address is the difficulty artists have in "breaking into" the music market and beginning to benefit from music sales. Most artists -- according to Tommy Silverman -- never succeed in marketing their songs through the existing "media cartels". The subscription-based model Jenner suggests would force artists to compete for "their share of the pie", which may be similar to the current situation in some ways. But how to grab some pie is the question.

Perhaps there is a way to harness the power of the Internet to help promote more artists. The show “American Idol” comes to mind...people “pick” and thereby promote previously-unknown artists to stardom. Jenner's music site perhaps could also allow people to download and rate "new" songs from all artists, and track and publish the statistics to promote the particular song and artist (similar to what is done on the "Idol" shows). This would give people several things they want – reasonably-priced music, an increased sense of control while “voting” someone up, and help build relationships between artists and fans.

but don't get very far.

Anyhoo, I've seen *plenty* of musicians whom I'd rather hear than Pink Floyd, not that he's# bad. From hillbillies to piano bar, including a pretty amazing guy with a rhythm machine and a guitar, *live* music is pretty good regardless of genre just for vivid impact. -- Participation is even better.

You haven't at all refuted that adequately recording music is pretty easy these days, and cheap too. This completely changes the old recording studio system, and I'm not a believer in advertising hype to promote some mediocre talent for the masses. The people I know make music for own entertainment, and don't seem to thereby miss out on any opportunity costs; it's a weak point because no one *is* guaranteed results for investing time.

I'm all *for* those with even modest talents getting rewarded. But it ain't an uncommon talent, not even Pink Floyd. What I'd like to see is those middle-men studio types cut out of the deal entirely; they aren't necessary. That would open up more likelihood to reward those costs you mention, probably about at current levels for musicians, but much cheaper for buyers, and I think that an unalloyed good.

Hope that holds you, though I'm vague as to your exact quibble. I'll bet the dig at Apple is the proximate cause of your verbosity, though.

# = a witticism again taken from the lyrics.

That in fifty years time no-one is going to pay to listen to music without some crazy big brother scheme operating.

Musicians (myself included) are going to have to get off their lazy arses and actually go and perform the songs they've written.

The era of a free lunch whilst you sit on the royalties for 70 years is unsustainable and was ridiculous in the first place.

"As far as I can tell, the public in general don't listen to a bunch of guys jamming; they want "name-brand entertainment"."

No, the public want good music, and this might as well be found in the pub with a bunch of people jamming, for all that it influences the matter.

The whole "name-brand entertainment" is what the music industry would like you to think everyone wants, so that they can hype up a handful of artists and ramp up the production.

Sadly, you're either parroting them or you've bought into the whole idea that a good song by someone you've never heard of must be "bad" (because you've never heard of them), but some generic, mediocre shit by some big name must be "good" (because you've soaked up all the hype).

This "music service" proposal is nothing more than state-sponsored radio. You're not going to get any choice in what you listen to, and no doubt the only music that paltry $60M will pay for will be utter trash.

If I wanted to listen to *radio* I'd pay for some stupid satellite radio service. I don't. I want to listen to my own music selection, not the trash that others think I do. Even that Pandora service was too limiting.

Also, whatever your feelings on the music industry stopping people from copying music, it is not wasting time. Look at how many easy-to-download services like Napster and Kazaa have been shut down, effectively encouraging people to go to the next easiest method to find music: online music stores. Let's be honest here, if people just got their tracks free from Napster, a lot of "whim" purchases from Amazon, Apple, or whatever equivalents would not happen. The music industry has effectively made it *difficult* to obtain free music, but more work needs to be done in providing legal alternatives, and adopting models that maximize profits even while cutting their losses (like people buying more, even if there might be some sharing).

music is only worth what people are willing to pay. if the music industry cant produce it at a competitive price they will go bust.

the business model needs changing. e.g. reduce production costs, on demand streaming, ect.

Oh, and by the way, this very plan here is being proposed by one of those very "hangers-on (who) want to get rich off a band's products" - do you think that possibly he has some vested interest in his plan?

And of course, before you even reply, let me point out that when you wanted to quote a song-lyric, you didn't quote the words of someone just improvising some words at random at a jam session down the pub - you quoted Pink Floyd. Which is merely proof that even YOU want "name-brand entertainment" - which is exactly what Pink Floyd is. (And, for added irony, wouldn't it be amusing if Peter Jenner was one of the hangers-on that Pink Floyd had when they wrote and recorded that song!)

Wow, that's a really stupid post. How many people listen to a bunch of guys sitting around in a pub jamming, other than the people who happen to be in the pub getting drunk in the first place. As far as I can tell, the public in general don't listen to a bunch of guys jamming; they want "name-brand entertainment". Very very little popular music consists of a bunch of guys jamming.

Apple might be getting rich, but trust me, the performers rarely are, and songwriters even more rarely.

The cost of making music is not what you think it is: it is the cost - both real and opportunity costs - incurred
by the time (frequently years) and effort required to make music which other people find worth listening to. (Or go and make your own, if you think 99 cents a track is too much.)

Possibly it was James Whistler who said, when a client complained that 40 guineas was far too much to pay for a portrait made with a very minimal amount of paint, that the paint itself was not what determined the cost; it the artistic knowledge to know where exactly to put the paint. (This story can be told in a more amusing - and coherent! - manner but that will do for now!)

But then again, given your attitude, I personally can not help but think of the phrase "knows the cost of everything, and the value of nothing".

Well, some details would be nice. Particularly, how is he going to divide this money? And how much is going to go to people other than the talent? And as each recording is, with only relatively infrequent exceptions, a collaboration of various people in various roles, how are THEY going to divide the money - which, keep in mind, they are not going to see until well after the work is done. And how is he going to hand cross-border payments. And how is he going to keep track of whose work is being downloaded, and copied, and generally "being lost track of"? And what if some artist does not feel like participating in this scheme? Are you going to prohibit him from going outside this system, using governmental police powers, perhaps? Or giving him a higher royalty rate than some obscure artist on a little independent label?

Of course, these are just a very, very few of the many, many possible questions to ask, but it would be nice to have some answers.

99 cents a song is still *way* too high -- as proven by Apple's excessive income. Costs of production are fixed, but it's up to the industry to keep them *low*, not throw in every gold-plated option to make them look higher, and especially not by "advertising costs", which isn't known to work, anyway.

You're *only* getting a bunch of guys together for a jam session, same as many bars manage to do every night. I've seen it done at effectively *zero* cost. Recording it adequately can now be done by ordinary PC hardware. -- All of this is proven by the thousands of solo releases on download.com.

A revolution in hardware occurred, all right, but the basic problem that hangers-on want to get rich off a band's products remains. (Pink Floyd long ago made that point, but I can't recall name of the song off top of head.)