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(e-gold tipjars) can also be a solution to the "Napster problem," IMO, since if you listen to Courtney Love and other musicians, they get far less than a buck for a $15 CD.

it's called Fairtunes.com

At this link there's a discussion of a pro-napster song that played on NPR. The author of "The Napster Rap" is Eric Schwartz.

They also have a list of links including "Recording Industry Math & Info" links and "Writings on voluntary payments/tipping".

--
Q: What do you get when a Postmodernist joins the Mafia?

At this link there's a discussion of a pro-napster song that played on NPR. The author of "The Napster Rap" is Eric Schwartz.

They also have a list of links including "Recording Industry Math & Info" links and "Writings on voluntary payments/tipping".

--
Q: What do you get when a Postmodernist joins the Mafia?

At this link there's a discussion of a pro-napster song that played on NPR. The author of "The Napster Rap" is Eric Schwartz.

They also have a list of links including "Recording Industry Math & Info" links and "Writings on voluntary payments/tipping".

--
Q: What do you get when a Postmodernist joins the Mafia?

What's even more wonderful is that since now they've convinced the courts to make Napster filter its service, they can send threatening letters to everyone else. CuteMX, Scour, iMesh and Audiogalaxy have already caved, now Aimster is in trouble. (I'm not sure which were shut down or filtered voluntarily and which took "convincing".) Soon, you won't be able to download any major music from the internet. All that means is that none of those bands will be getting my business. What I've learned from my CD purchasing experiences is that you should always try before you buy. (and those little listening stations at the record stores don't count.) Several years ago, I got sick of wasting money on CDs, and stopped buying them. Napster changes that -- and I know many others who would agree.

What would happen if someone set a service like this outside of the U.S, where they wouldn't have to worry so much about the RIAA. Or would they have to filter out all U.S. traffic, like JumpTV does? (see the recent story about iCraveTV II)

It's also unfortunate that as the lack of big label music drives people away from these services, the amount of lesser-known stuff decreases too.

I wonder what a service like Fairtunes can do to get more business. Given the low value of donations to artists so far (just over $9000 total, with the 4th higheset-paid person being Linus Torvalds at $180) I wouldn't really say that it's been a success. That kind of thing would work a lot better if it were integrated with Winamp, BearShare, or some other such thing. (It should still be voluntary, so you can pay more for songs you like better, but pop up a little reminder once a month, giving a list of songs you've downloaded or played)

What's even more wonderful is that since now they've convinced the courts to make Napster filter its service, they can send threatening letters to everyone else. CuteMX, Scour, iMesh and Audiogalaxy have already caved, now Aimster is in trouble. (I'm not sure which were shut down or filtered voluntarily and which took "convincing".) Soon, you won't be able to download any major music from the internet. All that means is that none of those bands will be getting my business. What I've learned from my CD purchasing experiences is that you should always try before you buy. (and those little listening stations at the record stores don't count.) Several years ago, I got sick of wasting money on CDs, and stopped buying them. Napster changes that -- and I know many others who would agree.

What would happen if someone set a service like this outside of the U.S, where they wouldn't have to worry so much about the RIAA. Or would they have to filter out all U.S. traffic, like JumpTV does? (see the recent story about iCraveTV II)

It's also unfortunate that as the lack of big label music drives people away from these services, the amount of lesser-known stuff decreases too.

I wonder what a service like Fairtunes can do to get more business. Given the low value of donations to artists so far (just over $9000 total, with the 4th higheset-paid person being Linus Torvalds at $180) I wouldn't really say that it's been a success. That kind of thing would work a lot better if it were integrated with Winamp, BearShare, or some other such thing. (It should still be voluntary, so you can pay more for songs you like better, but pop up a little reminder once a month, giving a list of songs you've downloaded or played)

Hi David, glad to see you're better now (or at least posting).

I disagree (reluctantly, I get to see the mayhem that some "average users" manage to inflict upon themselves every working day) that users won't understand -- and indeed WANT -- moderation. Indeed, I think that moderator-points on /. are what could be termed a quickly-expiring online "currency," although with limited value due to the lack of an exchange marketplace and I'm not sure the word currency is right in this case (hence the quotes).

Everyone here has probably seen a comment that they'd like to mod up (or down, I guess) and not had any points to do so. I'm not proposing this for Slashdot itself (I'm not against it, either) but it might be nice if the "SlashCode" were modified so that mod points could actually be purchased, if a site owner chose to sell them. Obviously, I stand to gain from widespread adoption of one currency in particular (which seems ideally suited for the job, IMO) but I'd of course want to let all flowers bloom if this happens.

I don't write code, and I have no idea how hard this would be to do. The sites I've seen operating the Slashcode (Cluebot and Fairtunes) seem not to have user-moderation enabled at all, so I'm not sure that's an option in the publicly available version. I think that if average users more-quickly (well, ok, slowly) saw reputation as a valuable thing -- one that should be guarded and handled with care, the 'net might benefit. I agree that it won't be an easy job trying to teach them, but in the end it might be worth it -- even for others besides greedy-old Jim Ray. :)

Of course, for those who don't know me, I'm tremendously self-interested and biased. I'm also ready to admit that "moderation-for-the-rich" might not improve some sites, but I'm not convinced that it's never "worth it" to sell mod points. For example, I'd have paid half a gram or so to moderate this comment up this morning. I could not, so I didn't, but look at the comment and see if that would have been a good thing for yourself. The green-eyeshades types at Andover.net just *might* want to look into how many clickthrus that single transaction would equal...Or maybe not, I don't know.
JMR

Get some freedom and help expand the possibilities
GoldenAgents is a group of individuals around the world that assist in small non-comercial e-gold exchanges.

You can use e-gold for buying from Amazon without a credit card by using BananaGold or grab Thinkgeek items via MetalProxy
If you want to get paid for your open source programing then set up a donation page just change account numbers and link targets to suit
The other place to check out is Fairtunes to keep music artists well fed in the face of hideous recording company contracts. They take VISA paypal and e-gold ;)

In other words, I wish there was a way for us to donate directly to musicians in appreciation of, and as compensation for, their creative genius and all the hard work they put into entertaining us. Any suggestions???

http://www.fairtunes.com

Pirates are the end users who use the programs and infrastructure to do things that are antiquated laws have deemed to be 'illegal'.

Should the RIAA be suing the creators of FTP or IRC because they can be used to share copyright material?

..But of course fans should be sending money to the creators and that's why there is Fairtunes.

Matt

Besides, any money that you send me can and will be confiscated by scientology.

Why is that?

Matt.

Matt
offshoremp3s.com.

There already is a series of systems which integrate mp3 players and fairtunes. The first of which is freeamp 2.1rc5, and there is a fairtunes plugin for winamp, so infact your ideal situation exists and currently works!

1. Add artists to your shopping cart as usual
2. Proceed to the checkout page
3. Note the total amount of your shopping cart
4. Click the PayPal button (to mail us the contents of your shopping cart)
5. Go to: www.paypal.com
6. Send paypal@fairtunes.com the same amount of money as your shopping cart.

Second, he's actually in the clear from the moral point of view. As evidenced by him spending about $10,000 to set up Fairtunes, a site which allows fans to donate directly to artists, he cares about seeing that artists don't get ripped off. I've personally donated $25 through Fairtunes. To get the same amount of cash into artists' hands, I'd have to spend over $300 on CDs.

Third, Sealand's independence has, to some extent, recognized by British courts. Sealand fired a warning shot at a boat that approached too closely, and Roy Bates was taken to court for some weapons violation. The court ruled something to the effect that the weapons laws didn't apply to Sealand since it is sovergn. Also, Sealand established its independence before Britain extended its teritorial waters, so Sealand is in the clear on that front, too.

Fourth, the Sealand guys seem to know what they're doing. They have generators and redundant internet connections. Their server room is filled with pure nitrogen for security and fire prevention. Cool shit. I'm sure they could handle Napster II.

Fifth, Sealand might take this on just for the publicity. With Napster in the news nearly every day, this could get Sealand some much-needed press.

Matt

Matt

But if Sonyster's paying the artists and Napster isn't, they'd have the recordings first. This would enable Sony to charge more, and even delay the propagation of "their" songs to Napster for a few hours by creating a proprietary client that wouldn't facilitate automatic mirroring.

Six minutes after the Grammies, Eminem & Elton John's performance was on Napster. I rest my case :-)

I agree with this suspicion--it probably comes down to this: in the large, people aren't altruistic. There's some kind of self interest--it may be in the form of "warm fuzzies" rather than money, but the person still "gets something" for his/her efforts. I don't really know whether there'd be less real artists, but I am hopeful that they would not only continue to exist, but flourish, being supported by a willing base of patrons rather than through a small percentage of the fruits of systematic intellectual "property" extortion.

I used to think so, too, but the failure of Fairtunes to generate any real revenue for artists ($7000 over 8 months?) has left me disillusioned.

People have already pointed this out, but there are two essential differences between SPP and tipping waiters:

1) Tipping is not anonymous, and failure to tip incurs societal disapproval (people think you're a cheap bastard).
2) You personally benefit by tipping, assuming you return to the restaurant (you'll get good service next time)

If you actually think voluntary tipping is viable for the music industry, check out Fairtunes's stats. They've been running for something like 8 months, and have only brought in about $7000 US for artists. I believe the two university students who started Fairtunes have spent over $10,000 on equipment and development costs. Unless those numbers increase drastically in the next year or so, I'd say voluntary music tipping is a failure. You can't fault their implementation, either--it's a very well-thought-out system, and I can't think of how they could make it better. The problem is that people suck. If we were all perfectly moral, Fairtunes would work. Too bad it ain't so.

I also ... didn't see any binding guarantee that they would actually send my money to the artists in question, or that they even knew where to send the check.

While we can't offer a binding guarantee (no one can) we do try our hardest to get the money to the artist. Failing that we'll refund your money. So far we've processed 1000 contributions and only one band has rejected payment. Why trust us?

1. We display all the transactions on our site so both fans and artists alike can check see if a transaction has been made. If the artist sees a transaction on the site but doesn't get a check then they'll know something is amiss.
2. We've received a substanstial amount of press coverage and if it was known we were cheating artists it would ruin us pretty quickly.
3. So far we've processed ~$6500. That is barely worth skipping the country with (seeing as our investment into the company has been greater than that).
4. We display processed cheques on the site.

In terms of the professionalism. No one is funding dot.coms. We're doing what we can with what we have.

Matt. (founder of Fairtunes)

I also ... didn't see any binding guarantee that they would actually send my money to the artists in question, or that they even knew where to send the check.

While we can't offer a binding guarantee (no one can) we do try our hardest to get the money to the artist. Failing that we'll refund your money. So far we've processed 1000 contributions and only one band has rejected payment. Why trust us?

1. We display all the transactions on our site so both fans and artists alike can check see if a transaction has been made. If the artist sees a transaction on the site but doesn't get a check then they'll know something is amiss.
2. We've received a substanstial amount of press coverage and if it was known we were cheating artists it would ruin us pretty quickly.
3. So far we've processed ~$6500. That is barely worth skipping the country with (seeing as our investment into the company has been greater than that).
4. We display processed cheques on the site.

In terms of the professionalism. No one is funding dot.coms. We're doing what we can with what we have.

Matt. (founder of Fairtunes)

I also ... didn't see any binding guarantee that they would actually send my money to the artists in question, or that they even knew where to send the check.

While we can't offer a binding guarantee (no one can) we do try our hardest to get the money to the artist. Failing that we'll refund your money. So far we've processed 1000 contributions and only one band has rejected payment. Why trust us?

1. We display all the transactions on our site so both fans and artists alike can check see if a transaction has been made. If the artist sees a transaction on the site but doesn't get a check then they'll know something is amiss.
2. We've received a substanstial amount of press coverage and if it was known we were cheating artists it would ruin us pretty quickly.
3. So far we've processed ~$6500. That is barely worth skipping the country with (seeing as our investment into the company has been greater than that).
4. We display processed cheques on the site.

In terms of the professionalism. No one is funding dot.coms. We're doing what we can with what we have.

Matt. (founder of Fairtunes)

I also ... didn't see any binding guarantee that they would actually send my money to the artists in question, or that they even knew where to send the check.

While we can't offer a binding guarantee (no one can) we do try our hardest to get the money to the artist. Failing that we'll refund your money. So far we've processed 1000 contributions and only one band has rejected payment. Why trust us?

1. We display all the transactions on our site so both fans and artists alike can check see if a transaction has been made. If the artist sees a transaction on the site but doesn't get a check then they'll know something is amiss.
2. We've received a substanstial amount of press coverage and if it was known we were cheating artists it would ruin us pretty quickly.
3. So far we've processed ~$6500. That is barely worth skipping the country with (seeing as our investment into the company has been greater than that).
4. We display processed cheques on the site.

In terms of the professionalism. No one is funding dot.coms. We're doing what we can with what we have.

Matt. (founder of Fairtunes)

As someone once pointed out to me: FairTunes. Looks like a good plan.

Try Fairtunes.
--
OliverWillis.Com

Recommended contribution to the Offshore OpenNap Fund is $10/year. In the event not enough funds are raised to support an offshore OpenNap server for a year all funds will be returned to the contributors.

Matt.

Check out Fairtunes. It's a way to ensure all your money goes to the people who earned it--the artists, songwriters, etc.

In fact I think the artist will be worse off under an all you can eat plan. The pie is just going to end up being more thinly sliced leaving artists with the skinniest one.

Record labels have historically screwed the artists and this isn't going to change that.

Matt.
If you believe in compensating the artist use Fairtunes.

Wrongo. This is from the Fairtunes' FAQ on how much artists make from CDs:

According to the book, This Business of Music $0.447/CD.

According to Courtney Love, Toni Braxton declared bankruptcy in 1998. She sold $188 million worth of CDs, but she was broke because of a terrible recording contract that paid her less than 35 cents per album.

According to Matt Johnson of TheThe, $1 for every CD sold.

From personally speaking with artists it really is about $0.50.

And remember artists only see this money after they've repaid their advance and all the costs that went into producing and marketing the CD.

If I'm going to shell out $12.99 I want *ALL* of it going to the artist and that is why I compensate through Fairtunes as opposed to through the RIAA cartel.

Matt

Wrongo. This is from the Fairtunes' FAQ on how much artists make from CDs:

According to the book, This Business of Music $0.447/CD.

According to Courtney Love, Toni Braxton declared bankruptcy in 1998. She sold $188 million worth of CDs, but she was broke because of a terrible recording contract that paid her less than 35 cents per album.

According to Matt Johnson of TheThe, $1 for every CD sold.

From personally speaking with artists it really is about $0.50.

And remember artists only see this money after they've repaid their advance and all the costs that went into producing and marketing the CD.

If I'm going to shell out $12.99 I want *ALL* of it going to the artist and that is why I compensate through Fairtunes as opposed to through the RIAA cartel.

Matt

If you break the law by infringing on someone's intellectual property, and do so repeatedly in spite of warnings, what do you think will happen?

Caveat: I don't think it's right to enforce copyright laws AND impose a blank-media tax. That's screwing consumers, left, right, and center. You should only be screwed once :-)

Slashdot cried when the record companies went after Napster. "Deal with the law-breaking individuals," they said, "leave the company alone." Now, the record companies and artists are going after the users, and we're still crying. Why? Are we all hypocrits?

I agree that much is broken with the current copyright system and recording industry. That doesn't give you carte blanche to rip off artists. Personally, I fulfil my moral obligations to the artists by donating through Fairtunes. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like many other people do (judging by donation stats).

Go ahead and flame me. I ask only one thing of you if you do: come up with a viable scheme for artists to make money from their work. If you can't think of one, you can hardly blame the record companies for clinging to what they have.

Here's a quick comparison between Amazon and Fairtunes.

• 15% transaction fee (Ours is 3.5%)
• Receive money only if you're American (We don't discriminate)
• Lose your privacy (We respect it)
• $1 minimum transaction (Ours is $0.25)

We also have a Winamp Plugin so *you* (not us) can track your music preferences and then quickly and easily send money to an artist, or you can use the integration in FreeAmp.

Fairtunes isn't just for musicians! I.e. Look at Linus Torvalds who has received $175 from Slashdot readers.

The power of Fairtunes is that you can send money to anyone. Even if they don't ask for it!

Matt.

Here's a quick comparison between Amazon and Fairtunes.

• 15% transaction fee (Ours is 3.5%)
• Receive money only if you're American (We don't discriminate)
• Lose your privacy (We respect it)
• $1 minimum transaction (Ours is $0.25)

We also have a Winamp Plugin so *you* (not us) can track your music preferences and then quickly and easily send money to an artist, or you can use the integration in FreeAmp.

Fairtunes isn't just for musicians! I.e. Look at Linus Torvalds who has received $175 from Slashdot readers.

The power of Fairtunes is that you can send money to anyone. Even if they don't ask for it!

Matt.

Here's a quick comparison between Amazon and Fairtunes.

• 15% transaction fee (Ours is 3.5%)
• Receive money only if you're American (We don't discriminate)
• Lose your privacy (We respect it)
• $1 minimum transaction (Ours is $0.25)

We also have a Winamp Plugin so *you* (not us) can track your music preferences and then quickly and easily send money to an artist, or you can use the integration in FreeAmp.

Fairtunes isn't just for musicians! I.e. Look at Linus Torvalds who has received $175 from Slashdot readers.

The power of Fairtunes is that you can send money to anyone. Even if they don't ask for it!

Matt.

Matt.

I'll shamefully copy/paste this comparison here, because it's worth it :

• 15% transaction fee (Ours is 3.5%)
• Receive money only if you're American (We don't discriminate)
• Lose your privacy (We respect it)
• $1 minimum transaction (Ours is $0.25)

Fairtunes rules.

Linus Torvalds has received money from them too!

done.

Paul

If you want Fair Compensation and you care about your probably starving artists check out Fairtunes.

Matt

If you want Fair Compensation and you care about your probably starving artists check out Fairtunes.

Matt

Anyhow, we certainly saw a bit of an out pouring for Linus over the last several days ($145 in voluntary contributions so far).

I slung him five bucks. It was worth it, just to put the comment j00 r0x0r, l1nu5! onto Fairtunes.. :-)

While I certainly don't imagine that voluntary payments could feed a family of four. I do think many artists and fans would be surprised at how many people would voluntarily send money for art that they appreciated if it was presented to them properly.

Anyhow, we certainly saw a bit of an out pouring for Linus over the last several days ($145 in voluntary contributions so far).

Matt.

While I certainly don't imagine that voluntary payments could feed a family of four. I do think many artists and fans would be surprised at how many people would voluntarily send money for art that they appreciated if it was presented to them properly.

Anyhow, we certainly saw a bit of an out pouring for Linus over the last several days ($145 in voluntary contributions so far).

Matt.

While I certainly don't imagine that voluntary payments could feed a family of four. I do think many artists and fans would be surprised at how many people would voluntarily send money for art that they appreciated if it was presented to them properly.

Anyhow, we certainly saw a bit of an out pouring for Linus over the last several days ($145 in voluntary contributions so far).

Matt.

When was the last time some type of service like this wasn't hacked apart?

The only way this will work is voluntary, and for obvious reasons this does not work real well, check www.fairtunes.com to see how few people have actually "tipped" their favorite artists.

Dr. Jakob Neilsen has alot of interesting things to say about micropayments, but take it with a grain of salt because "In an ideal world" there would be no need for money."

In the meantime you can use MasterCard through PayPal.

Matt. (of Fairtunes)

:) The site is geared towards musicians but we've sent money to musicians, artists, cartoonists, lawyers, programmers,... We hope to soon have a more generic interface so that we're not biased towards musicians.

So feel free to send money to whomever you please! (Currently we're sending the money off after only $20.00 has been collected).

For example you can find Linus' Fairtunes page here: Linus Torvalds

..You can use either your Visa card or your PayPal account to send your contribution.

Matt

Follow the tipster protocol -- you can tip him at www.fairtunes.com -- once enough money is gathered ($50 bucks I think), they contact him and send the check. Courtney Love, and many others use the system already.

Also, even though FairTunes is for musicians, it works just fine for any "person" or "group" as long as they have an address or an email address where the guy who runs it can contact them.(linus@transmeta will work fine)

donate here: FairTunes.com


-Davidu

Of course it's unenforceable. But until I see the Journal, or any other publisher, going after linkers who don't pay, I'm not gonna complain. Heck, I probably won't say a word even then, 'cause the courts will slap down that for me.

I move to consider this nothing more than a step toward the voluntary payment system for Internet content that some have advocated.

Thanks, Matt