Against the Music Tax

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

Here's an article about the music industry's latest attempt to stifle progress, hogtie musicians and consumers, and generally shaft everyone to their own profit. There's a reason why the recording industry isn't doing well: they've spent the last several decades annoying everyone. This is just going to dig that hole even deeper, as more people decide to find something else to do with their money than buy overpriced music from companies they resent.

Techdirt's Mike Masnick On Why a Music Tax Is a Mistake
Techdirt founder Mike Masnick has followed the twists and turns of the digital music debate for more than a decade, offering some of the most prescient and lucid information and arguments on the topic anywhere. Today he tackles growing calls for a voluntary music licensing scheme, pushed most recently by Warner Music Group to universities, that would basically allow file sharing by having ISPs impose a surcharge on all users to be paid out to copyright holders.

Now contrast this with cyberfunded creativity in which musicians and audiences can connect directly, cutting out the middlemen. This saves money and increases the interaction that people enjoy. It creates more opportunity for diverse music to become popular. And the trend here is for musicians to share their material widely, because that broadens their audience. People like music that isn't a pain in the tail to play or a budget-breaker to buy. This inclines them to support those musicians by buying albums, swag, concert tickets, etc. and by recommending the music to their friends.