Coolfer highlights the growing success of fan-funded artists, some of whom have raises tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Fan-Funded Artists
Tags: fan-funded artists
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A Free Market for Music
This is the future: a free market for the exchange of music between musicians and their fans.
See [ link ]
No copyright litigation necessary. No levies or taxation necessary.
In fact, it works for any form of digital art, whether software, music, movies, or even blog articles.
There are also many ways in which digital artist and their audience can come to a deal. There’s even an auction mechanism, i.e. The Digital Art Auction.
[ link ]
Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it?
Sorta along the same lines but nowhere near as large a scale and fund level, is a web only album based organization called [ link ] donation based via paypal, works for most the artists who don’t want to deal with the labels them selves who know that listeners are going to put the internet online anyways no matter what a label tries to do… Probably not the best way to make a living, but it pays a few of the bills and gets the names out there.
@Crosbie Fitch
I don’t get it. How do you go from “a free market for the exchange of music between musicians and their fans” to “No copyright litigation necessary”? I don’t see the connection. Are you saying that if I collected songs from a dozen or so of these musicians, bundled them up and sold copies that the musicians wouldn’t care? What recourse do they have besides copyright litigation?
Distribution After Sale
Stacy, distribution of digital artworks subsequent to their sale in a free market is also known as promotion. It is something usually encouraged rather than prohibited.
If you are a musician who has sold their work to their audience, and has therefore been satisfied with an amount of money in exchange for music, then any further exchanges of the music by others are only to be encouraged as this promotes the artist to a wider audience to which they may sell their next work.
What musician who had been happy with the money they’d received, would then start suing people who resold copies of their music? Why? The musician has been paid in full, and an amount probably far greater than they could expect from a traditional record label. Why would they wish to alienate their fans by prohibiting manufacture of copies or sales thereof?
If a musician has a thousand fans each of whom contribute a dollar to collect a fund of $1,000 for which the musician is happy to exchange the release of their music, why would the musician say “But, you can’t sell the music you have purchased from me, nor may you make copies of it to sell to others”?
Usually when someone has been paid, that’s the end of the matter. Why on earth should musicians be so unlike any other craftsman that they continue to have a controlling interest in the use and sale of what they have already sold and lost control over?
If I paid a dollar share for some music and found myself able to sell copies of it for even two dollars each, why should I not be permitted to do so? Alternatively, why should I not be permitted to give copies away? What is so sacred about music that its cultural or commercial exchange must be policed and tightly controlled?
If a musician let’s go, allows themself to be satisfied with a mere $1,000 for one song, and does not seek to restrict the spread of their music whether commercially or not, then their audience will grow ten fold in a short time, and the next song will sell for $10,000.
A caring musician would take the money and wish each member of their audience the best of luck in enjoying their work, sharing it with their friends, adding value to it, using it to add value to other things, building upon it, remixing it, and making a living from it – as the musician has. None of this involves, fraud, deceit, plagiarism, theft, or any other crime. No families need be fined or imprisoned. Society need not be taxed, nor levies applied to digital media or services. No commercial monopolies need be enacted and protected.
I’m not suggesting musicians give their work away, but that they sell it. Not by suing their fans, but by befriending their fans. A musician’s audience is their best customer.
Of course, a new and undiscovered musician may well need to give some of their early work away if only to build up an audience and a market for subsequent work. This is not an alien concept.
This stream demonstrates how juvenile the thinking is for your readers. ‘None of this involves, fraud, deceit, plagiarism, theft, or any other crime.’ Other than theft of intellectual property! Intellectual property is not like real estate.