The problem with a per month fee is that it creates no incentives to produce good music. In the old systems artists who produced music people wanted to hear were rewarded with record sales and crappy artists didn't get paid.
With an all-you-can-eat model of music, especially for p2p distributed, how does the record label know whose music is worth more based on downloads. There will be little incentive to sign on new or indie groups and pay them while the consumers will likely download their music anyway, assuming it is covered by the all-you-can-eat license. New artist would be shut out of the system unless the had some sort of connection(corruption, manufactured pop group) to the record label.
And the record labels wouldn't even have to pay current artists in proportion their success if that success can't be measured. Even if they measure success by torrent activity, there would be still little incentive to sign new groups. As always the little guy gets screwed.
Maybe this could be arranged to work and even be better than the current system. But, I don't want to pay a monthly fee that goes to 90% of music that I don't like just to get the 10% I do like.
The problem with a per month fee is that it creates no incentives to produce good music.
Tell that to the countless Indie bands that produce music 10X BETTER than mainstream music. They don't have near the same amount of money as top 40's pop artists, but they don't care. They make the music cause it's what they love to do, I'll be damned if their stuff isn't sometimes better.
My point is that the indie bands would be cut out of the record labels deal. They won't get paid by the record label from the all-you-can-eat deal, but people will still pirate their music assuming it's covered by the deal. They may make good music but they won't get paid as much as they should for it.
My point is that the indie bands would be cut out of the record labels deal.
Obviously sol, it goes along with the entire virtue of being an "INDIE BAND", but the beauty in this is that they all have their own distribution methods, their own labels, and their own little microcosm within the industry. And it's thriving, very well.
* They may make good music but they won't get paid as much as they should for it.*
How much "should" they get paid? They distribute their own music however they deem fit, so if there was a memo that got passed around that says "a musician should be making billions of dollars because we're a society that simply thrives on entertainment", then my entire post here is moot.
The Indie subculture is doing VERY well on it's own, and they are by far more sympathetic to file sharing because they want the exposure.
Lessfinancial incentives to produce good recorded music to be played back by private individuals.
Live music will continue as before. Commissioned music (i.e. movie, TV, and commercial soundtracks) will continue much as before. Every musician whose record sales don't support them financially -- which is a very large percentage of musicians; go read some essays by recording artists on the subject of record contracts -- will continue as before.
Or, who knows, maybe it will all break. It's not as if the future is easily avoided, and it's not as if the current system is all that great. My favorite musicians make almost no money from recordings.
With an all-you-can-eat model of music, especially for p2p distributed, how does the record label know whose music is worth more based on downloads. There will be little incentive to sign on new or indie groups and pay them while the consumers will likely download their music anyway, assuming it is covered by the all-you-can-eat license. New artist would be shut out of the system unless the had some sort of connection(corruption, manufactured pop group) to the record label.
And the record labels wouldn't even have to pay current artists in proportion their success if that success can't be measured. Even if they measure success by torrent activity, there would be still little incentive to sign new groups. As always the little guy gets screwed.
Maybe this could be arranged to work and even be better than the current system. But, I don't want to pay a monthly fee that goes to 90% of music that I don't like just to get the 10% I do like.