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Thanks, Matt

1) Download all the mp3s you can.
2) For each mp3 that you download, send $0.50 or $1.00 to the artist (via mail) for the mp3.

How about using Fairtunes rather than mail? It's a lot more convenient for both the listener and the artist.
--

Another option would be Fairtunes which lets you send money directly to the artist, which bypasses the blood sucking RIAA. And unlike Paylars we've actually mailed thousands of dollars worth of cheques to artists who have in turn cashed them. (Metallica cashed their cheque this Tuesday).

Matt.

Use Fairtunes and have 96% go to the artist. It's a voluntary system where the fans control the amounts not the record labels.

Matt

Check out FairTunes for an example of how some Canadians are rewarding artists without stifling the free music scene.

I can't say the response in Canada to MP3s has been too much different in nature than the US, although it's probably less heavy-handed.

At the University of British Columbia (yes, that's in Canada, in Vancouver), Napster is officially persona non grata, but it's not actually blocked, and they don't seem to care unless you're pigging bandwidth. The University of Victoria has been less lenient, and has forced some students to uninstall Napster while campus security watched, with the threat of suspension if caught using Napster again. I'm not too sure about other universities in Canada, but I suspect they're somewhere between UBC and UVic.

Remember, Canada doesn't have the DMCA, or UCITA, and the MPAA and RIAA aren't based here. That's got to count for something, too :-)

Oh well, sorry for my rant. I just don't see what the end of the RIAA has to do with music. No more boy bands, no more sixteen year olds ...in ...catsuits ...um, wait...

My .02,

One thing I think we can predict with confidence is that the record companies will still be getting the lion's share of the fees (they "own" the creative work, after all), and the artists who sign with the majors will still get screwed.

Personally, I'll switch to Gnutella and use Fairtunes.

All of these corporate attacks on your liberty, all of these draconian restrictions are being paid for by the money YOU spend on corporate-sponsored books, DVDs, CDs, VHS tapes and trips to the multiplex. If you want it to stop you need to re-orient your priorities and better target your entertainment dollar.

If you like movies, go to Atomfilms or head down to the local art-house cinema that shows truly independent work instead of the mega-mall. If you like music, go to mp3.com or use services like Napster and pay artists you like directly via Fairtunes or Paypal. If you are an artist, release your work to the public under the terms of the OPL and let the public know about your account at Paypal.

Don't spend dime one on anything for sale at Amazon.com. Use your local library instead. If you simply must have some piece of corporate media, buy it used.

The only power these pimps have is the power YOU give them. For the DMCA and everything else the RIAA and MPAA have done to your rights, and plan to do to them in the future, you must choke off their access to the cash they expect to have available to fund their ongoing attacks against you, your family and your children. Hollywood has had a terrible year, box office receipts are way off. Keep it up! Make the first decade of the 21st century a finacial Waterloo for them!

Every one of these abuses flows from the ability of corporate money to pervert your democracy, your birthright. Support alternatives to the corrupt two-party system. One week from today vote Nader or Harry Browne.

Night
Geek Goddess

Napster is a way to discover and share music, but as the only way we have to support artists we like is to buy their CD, thats what we do.

You could also support these artists by going to their live shows, or buying their merchandise, if they have any.

Or you could send money directly to them with Fairtunes.

Voluntary amortization (donations or shares) could still work...

I doubt that voluntary contributions would work. Take a look at Fairtunes. They've been operating for a few months and they've been able to collect less than $4000 USD, for all musicians. How long would that pay even one software developer? Most people won't pay for something if they don't have to. And I don't see why developers who provide useful contributions should have to beg for donations in any case.

... the reliable way to share the burden is to collect the money up front and hire somebody to do the work. If I need a class of software, my competitors probably need it too, and posession of software isn't a worthwhile competitive advantage unless I hire the best coders in the industry to design and maintain it--if we all start with a well-tested base and customize it, we'll usually all come out ahead.

What if we're talking about software that would have millions of users? Who's going to fund that?

The question is if Napster is making a profit.

I use Napster so I can spam-download music and I tend to discard 90% of it before it finishes playing once. As a result, there are artists that I'd never have listened to because they don't get airplay. Mary Lou Lord. Moby. BT. Boa. And with those I'm more than happy to send a few bucks to fairtunes.com (and I really need to get off my *** and actually do that).

And that is the crux. I will support the artist. Which to me is far more equitable than the thug-like, drug-pusher-like cartel of the RIAA. Now look, I know this sounds to you like a big knee-jerk reaction but I have serious issues with the RIAA that I've come to on my own without the every-present nudging of Slashdot. Yes, I know that there are people looking to freeload, but you can't simply lump me with them wholesale.

My .02,

Shameless, shameless Fairtunes.com plug:

You can do everything you're talking about right now at Fairtunes. You choose the band, choose an amount, type out a message to the artist, and charge it securely to your credit card. We aggregate the contributions, write the band a cheque, mail it c/o their management, and post the canceled cheque on the web when it clears. I'm done now. John Cormie (jcormie@fairtunes.com)

People are speaking with their wallets at Fairtunes and sending their money directly to the artist and cutting out the record labels. I totally agree that we need more action and less whining.

Matt.

I just dropped by the Offspring website, originally planning to tell them off for buckling under.

But on the Offspring site is a much more revealing news column than the RIAA approved YAHOO news item above. You know it's going to be a good read when the link is titled "We Got Fu**ed"

To sum it up, if Offspring had gone ahead with the plan to deploy the whole CD content online, Sony would have crushed them under lawsuits that would have stopped them from releasing the songs, the CD, and thier tour. So Offspring would probably have been out on the streets for a few years recovering.

The best part of the Offspring news was this paragraph:

"It sucks," he said, "because once people get thier hands on the music, fans will have to turn to Napster and other distribution methods to take a listen, but they won't be able to find the songs at www.offspring.com. We will be the only site on the Web that will not have the Offspring's new music."

So now I plan to support them by downloading the single, and probably buy there new CD. Or, perhaps I'll just napterize the whole thing and drop them ten at the Fairtunes Offspring page...

These non-payers are no less dishonest than those who flagrantly refuse to pay. We pay a fee to King for his story, it's not a tip.

One can argue that a tipping model might work better for intellectual property like stories, music, etc., but that's not how King set up his project. At no point does he ask us to pay only what we think it's worth. The story is yours for a flat fee. The options are pay for it or steal it.

It seems someone would rather have vigilante justice than clean-cut law.

You must be using some definition of "clean" with which I'm not familiar.

Would you buy their music if they sold you MP3s online?

I would not. However, if I downloaded free MP3 recordings of their music and liked them, then I might be willing to give them money (e.g., via fairtunes).

I've written in more detail on the Fairtunes forums about this, so I'll keep this one brief. I refuse to pay money for intangible "content". If I buy something, I expect to get fair value for my money. Paying for downloads is not fair value, because it doesn't take into account modem disconnections, data corruption (whoops, /home was full... lemme delete some stuff and try again), or simple data loss due to human error or hard drive failures. On the other hand, if I can just download a copy for free any time I like, then I can make a voluntary payment once, and I don't have to worry about keeping backup copies of the song on separate physical media, etc.

If someone doesn't want to let their music be passed around, they have every right not to let it be.

The song writer has the ultimate power -- she can choose not to write the song. The performer has the second-highest amount of power -- he can choose not to perform the song.

Once the song has been "written" (that is, shared with another person), the cat's out of the bag. You can't unwrite the song, any more than you can unspeak words that someone else has heard, or undraw a picture that someone else has seen.

Once the song has been performed, and recorded in some physical medium, it can be shared infinitely many times. There's no way, short of physical force, to prevent someone from duplicating information.

Beyond that, all we have is a bunch of legal traditions backed up by military power. There is no ethical reason why a songwriter or musical performer should be able to tell me what I can and cannot do with a copy of a song. There is no "divine right of authors" to tell the rest of the world what can be done with a story. The only reason the record companies can boss me around right now derives from legal and military power, not moral authority.

To summarize: you've got no right to tell me I can't share music, Mr. Federal Agent, and if you'd kindly put that gun away we could get on with our lives and do something productive (like making sure musicians get paid).

http://fairtunes.com/
--

Within the next four months, a student or "other individual found downloading illegal MP3 tracks" will go to jail "as a clear signal that piracy will not be tolerated in the US."

So my question is, do American jails have enough room for 20 million pirates?

Matt
Fairtunes

Besides, if we reward outspokenness in a tangible, financial way, who else might follow suit? I don't want the internet to be a reasonable alternative only as a hypothetical.

My .02
Quux26

Matt.

Matt.

Don't say you would pay if you could. You won't.

We can, and we have.

www.fairtunes.com, $2500 (combined US & Canadian) and counting.

www.paylars.com, $500 and counting.

But that trade off would never be made by the RIAA etc. because when they made the trade off with Sony over DAT they knew that the amount of 'serial copying' would be limited to a scale way below Napster.

The goal of the entertainment industry associations in the next few years is to make copying information difficult enough so that, say, less than 10% of people will do it, while not pissing absolutely everyone off, so I would be very surprised if they go after IRC servers (the mode of copying which gave Fanning the idea for napster. Smae goes for the much more complex attacks needed on Gnutella etc.

If I were the Aimster people I'd be very interested in whether the court adopts the argument that Sec 1008 doesn't apply. Aimster - by restricting availability to those on your Buddy list aims specifically at coming within this section (and the tape-swapping cases) by denying that this is about 'distribution' = "it's just my buddies"

BTW - I think that arguments over the morality of file-sharing are a little silly. Of course artists need to get paid - doing it by paying for 'intellectual property' is just the way it has been done in recent monopoly capitalism.

There are other exciting and viable models for funding creative production. Street performer protocol, tipping

Cheers
James

Connects to a online database (ala the old CDDB or maybe FreeDB)

Figures out who the artist is based on the ID3 tag or based on some "signature" in the MP3 file.

Lets the user tip the artist directly either with a predefined (by the artist) amount, or by an amount the user determines.

The pieces are in place. CDDB-now-gracenote claims to be able to recognize MP3 files. Fairtunes lets people tip artists directly. PayPal lets people send micropayments over the web. Now someone just needs to tie these 3 together and make it easy to use. I wouldn't even mind them skimming some of the tips off the top (so long as the artist recieves at least half). Anyone out there willing/able to create this service? I won't even charge licensing off my idea. ;-)

There apparently is a way of tipping the musician - fairtunes.com. I haven't gotten around to looking at them yet but this wired article was interesting.

Matt

At www.fairtunes.com we allow anyone to send voluntary contributions over the internet. Of course we are primarily geared towards musicians right now but we do have some poets and authors in our database. But if you look at our stats in a little over a month we've already received approximately $2150USD in contributions for artists. Some of our artists have received more through us in the form of tips then they ever have in CD sales over the net.

Matt
Fairtunes co-founder.

At www.fairtunes.com we allow anyone to send voluntary contributions over the internet. Of course we are primarily geared towards musicians right now but we do have some poets and authors in our database. But if you look at our stats in a little over a month we've already received approximately $2150USD in contributions for artists. Some of our artists have received more through us in the form of tips then they ever have in CD sales over the net.

Matt
Fairtunes co-founder.

If you're Canadian we can arrange to send you a Canadian check since we're also Canadian.

Matt.
Fairtunes co-founder.

There's already sites that are build around supporting artists by tipping them when you use their mp3s. Check out www.fairtunes.com

Sure you can.

At fairtunes.com

-

There are other models of music creation and compensation on the horizon.

See NPR's article on the Street Performer Protocol to see how British band Marilion got more control of their music while still planning to sign with a major label.

The Artists Coalition would probably also like to hear from those of us that would actively support a voluntary, tip-based, just compensation system.

In addition to your congressional representive, you might want to cc: your notes to mine, Rick Boucher, who's one of the forces behind repealing the "work for hire" mess described in this salon article.

Finally, go visit fairtunes, mentioned a few weeks ago in this slashdot story.

crime pays when corporate pigs can't afford to put gas in their BMWs.

Maybe someone should whip up a version of the Fairtunes site for people's favourite developers not musos.

I really don't think voluntary contributions work. From Fairtunes:

Total Contributions: $1764.22US & $285.58CA

That's less than 1 week's salary for a software developer. Most people aren't going to bother tipping. Those that do, will tip a small amount.

Why should developers, musicians, or any other type of content creator have to beg? If they're producing work that is valuable to you, you should either be forced to pay the price they ask, or do without. If we can devise a way to make the direct cost to the consumer 0, while still compensating the producer, that's fine. So far no-one has come up with a system for this that works in general though, AFAIK.

Probably never work, but you never know.

This is only happening because of a popular mystique surrounding compuer language. The motion picture industry wants to control how people watch DVDs.
Say the way to watch DVDs on your Linux box had a regular language solution. You just had to type, "pretty please play this DVD." This would piss the industry players off, but they wouldn't be able to ban people from tellling each other how to watch DVDs on their computers.

If the motion picture industry doesn't want people watching DVDs, they should come up with a way to prevent it that can't be bypassed with information that is simple to explain in an email. It would be like Ford making a car that can be stolen by saying "please open and start." If they're dumb enough to make a car like that, they can't whine about people telling each other how to steal them, and expect the gov't to launch a brigade of mind police to make sure nobody is spreading the news.

The same thing is happening with the music debate. The music industry won't be able to solve the problem of music sharing through technology, so they'll try to use legislation and enforcement. The problem is that the draconian nature of that enforcement will have far more devastating consequences to society than any degree of "copyright infringement."

This brings up a central and serious problem. The single most influential force acting on our democratic and legislative processes is lawyers and lobbyists employed by big business. This is a problem!

Negativeland has an incredible resource on copyright and related issues. Fairtunes is becoming a great place to get involved with these issues. Lots of stuff happening!

I remember correctly (it's been a long thread) you mentioned that early on publishers tried to put libraries out of existence. Are you aware of any articles or published works that describe those efforts?

I mentioned that I thought I remembered hearing such a thing. I'm pretty sure I did, but don't have any evidence to point you to. I was rather hoping someone else would steer me to such evidence; as they haven't it might be worth considering that I remembered incorrectly on this point...

I also wanted to say that from my experience living with an avid reader and library patron, that dedicated library patrons NEVER buy books. My wife reads approximately four books a week and in the twenty years we have been married she has never bought a single book. So the idea of your antagonist here that libraries are an inferior version of Napster from the standpoint of availability or that they libraries encourage people to buy books, at least from my experience, is unfounded in practice. She may have to wait a few weeks for some latest and greatest novel to wend its way through the "on hold" list, but hell there are 89 other trashy novels to read in the meantime so it's not a problem. Does the phrase "why would they buy it, if they can get if for free" ring a bell?

That was my impression, but it's nice to have it confirmed by someone who's more familiar with libraries than me. Meanwhile, we have factual evidence that just the opposite is true with Napster. And yet people who donate trashy novels to the local public library are looked up to as good samaritans, while someone posting a difficult-to-find and musically important song to Napster is a scum-sucking pirate!

I have gone back and forth on my feelings about Napster. I do use it extensively and feel that for the first time in my life I finally have the same kind of access to music that avid readers have always enjoyed because of the existence of libraries. The only people who have had this kind of access to music before were either extremely wealthy or were somehow attached to the music industry (radio people, music reviewers, etc.) I now essentially have the same or better access to music for research or just plain out of curiosity purposes and this is a great thing. If I wanted to listen to every version or cover of a particular song I like I can do that now. It has really increased my appreciation and knowledge of music immensely.

Then don't feel guilty about it! (As long as you buy the CD/compensate using fairtunes the artists you really appreciate!) The fact that you're so fraught with doubt about something that you recognize has significantly impacted your life for the better shows just how successful the RIAA has been in demonizing Napster.

Can you imagine how even less literate our culture would be now if all reading was pay per view? In fact, using this logic, it might explain the relatively low musical taste of the mass culture. When one has to buy every piece of music one wants to listen to it discourages taking a lot, or any, chances when buying CD's.

A very insightful point. In my experience, most people still get their books from stores, not libraries, but the fact that one can browse a book to your heart's content before buying it probably does have a lot to do with the risks we take on interesting literature.

However, I do worry about the artist conpensation aspects of the Napster controversy. I don't think this whole composing and producing for tips idea will fly.

It will be interesting to see. Personally, I'm supporting fairtunes and trying to give it a chance. Still, it's worth noting that that's not the only way for artists to make money in a world of unrestricted MP3 flows. For one thing, many if not most people will probably still choose to support those artists they really enjoy, even if they can get their music for free. For another, artists could include various other un-Napsterable incentives along with buying their CD, like first dibs on the best concert seats. In addition, artists are beginning to experiment with a model in which they would announce that they have, for example, just finished recording an album, but they won't release it until they get x preorders--enough to cover their costs and maybe get some profit for themselves. Even if the total number of sales is lower than it would have been under the old system, the fact that the Internet is allowing musicians to bypass the big labels means that the artists can make much more money even with much lower volume sales. And finally, the sound quality of a CD played out of a real stereo will beat MP3 for the forseeable future.

I remember correctly (it's been a long thread) you mentioned that early on publishers tried to put libraries out of existence. Are you aware of any articles or published works that describe those efforts?

I mentioned that I thought I remembered hearing such a thing. I'm pretty sure I did, but don't have any evidence to point you to. I was rather hoping someone else would steer me to such evidence; as they haven't it might be worth considering that I remembered incorrectly on this point...

I also wanted to say that from my experience living with an avid reader and library patron, that dedicated library patrons NEVER buy books. My wife reads approximately four books a week and in the twenty years we have been married she has never bought a single book. So the idea of your antagonist here that libraries are an inferior version of Napster from the standpoint of availability or that they libraries encourage people to buy books, at least from my experience, is unfounded in practice. She may have to wait a few weeks for some latest and greatest novel to wend its way through the "on hold" list, but hell there are 89 other trashy novels to read in the meantime so it's not a problem. Does the phrase "why would they buy it, if they can get if for free" ring a bell?

That was my impression, but it's nice to have it confirmed by someone who's more familiar with libraries than me. Meanwhile, we have factual evidence that just the opposite is true with Napster. And yet people who donate trashy novels to the local public library are looked up to as good samaritans, while someone posting a difficult-to-find and musically important song to Napster is a scum-sucking pirate!

I have gone back and forth on my feelings about Napster. I do use it extensively and feel that for the first time in my life I finally have the same kind of access to music that avid readers have always enjoyed because of the existence of libraries. The only people who have had this kind of access to music before were either extremely wealthy or were somehow attached to the music industry (radio people, music reviewers, etc.) I now essentially have the same or better access to music for research or just plain out of curiosity purposes and this is a great thing. If I wanted to listen to every version or cover of a particular song I like I can do that now. It has really increased my appreciation and knowledge of music immensely.

Then don't feel guilty about it! (As long as you buy the CD/compensate using fairtunes the artists you really appreciate!) The fact that you're so fraught with doubt about something that you recognize has significantly impacted your life for the better shows just how successful the RIAA has been in demonizing Napster.

Can you imagine how even less literate our culture would be now if all reading was pay per view? In fact, using this logic, it might explain the relatively low musical taste of the mass culture. When one has to buy every piece of music one wants to listen to it discourages taking a lot, or any, chances when buying CD's.

A very insightful point. In my experience, most people still get their books from stores, not libraries, but the fact that one can browse a book to your heart's content before buying it probably does have a lot to do with the risks we take on interesting literature.

However, I do worry about the artist conpensation aspects of the Napster controversy. I don't think this whole composing and producing for tips idea will fly.

It will be interesting to see. Personally, I'm supporting fairtunes and trying to give it a chance. Still, it's worth noting that that's not the only way for artists to make money in a world of unrestricted MP3 flows. For one thing, many if not most people will probably still choose to support those artists they really enjoy, even if they can get their music for free. For another, artists could include various other un-Napsterable incentives along with buying their CD, like first dibs on the best concert seats. In addition, artists are beginning to experiment with a model in which they would announce that they have, for example, just finished recording an album, but they won't release it until they get x preorders--enough to cover their costs and maybe get some profit for themselves. Even if the total number of sales is lower than it would have been under the old system, the fact that the Internet is allowing musicians to bypass the big labels means that the artists can make much more money even with much lower volume sales. And finally, the sound quality of a CD played out of a real stereo will beat MP3 for the forseeable future.

True enough.. But we are Canadian and PayPal doesn't accept Canadian users or businesses. We're working on establishing a US presence to circumvent this but it'll take some time.

Matt
co-founder
www.fairtunes.com

Actually we have been slapped on the wrist for some credit card contract violations so far in terms of what we disclose. ...So read the FAQ while you can!

What do the artist's contracts look like?

And that is the million dollar question! We are working very hard to ensure that the artist gets their entire tip. ..Even to the point where we're prepared to have our lawyers go up against any record label. I also think there would be a large public outcry if artists aren't allowed to accept tips for their work. Who knows maybe I actually bought their album and then tipped.

Matt
co-founder
Fairtunes

And either have the hits (till today).

Matt Goyer
co-founder
www.fairtunes.com

I have yet to see a non-profit organization move as quickly as a for profit one. If we left this up to some organization or group it would take them years to get it done and at the end of the day it would probably only be available to people who belonged to that group.

Whereas a for profit (we certainly don't have any profit!) organization can move much quicker. There is no bureaucracy or red tape. Someone wants a feature added, we add it. And we make it accessible to everyone.

Matt
co-founder
www.fairtunes.com

I think you're much more likely to know if a small band gets paid because for the most part they're running their own websites and are much easier to get a hold of. I've emailed with numerous small independent artists but have yet to talk to a single 'big name'. And I'm sure that these independent artists are going to post how much they've been recieving on their websites as a way of 'independent audit'. Some are even going so far as to send CDs to everyone who donates.

This means systems like fairtunes should try to make people who tip look good, i.e. publish your handle on a list of people who contribute to this artists AND give a message to the artist for you---

We definetly do this. Check out www.fairtunes.com/stats.jsp now that things have sorted themselves out on our end :).

Matt
co-founder
www.fairtunes.com

I think you're much more likely to know if a small band gets paid because for the most part they're running their own websites and are much easier to get a hold of. I've emailed with numerous small independent artists but have yet to talk to a single 'big name'. And I'm sure that these independent artists are going to post how much they've been recieving on their websites as a way of 'independent audit'. Some are even going so far as to send CDs to everyone who donates.

This means systems like fairtunes should try to make people who tip look good, i.e. publish your handle on a list of people who contribute to this artists AND give a message to the artist for you---

We definetly do this. Check out www.fairtunes.com/stats.jsp now that things have sorted themselves out on our end :).

Matt
co-founder
www.fairtunes.com

Ummmm... www.fairtunes.com/dev.jsp states that Fairtunes is looking for developers "to help with development of a plugin for Winamp, XMMS and whatever other players/platforms interest you." Yes, the fact that they're looking for coders doesn't fix the problem, but the fact that they're looking for coders does mean they're aware of the inconvenience of looking up each artist from their website and paying them individually. They even go so far as to say this:

"This kind of software would have to be open-source so everyone could see that it isn't secretly sending information about the users listening habits to us or any other company."

Even though I'm not an open-source fanatic myself, I do think that Fairtunes is being quite noble in asking for outside help. There you have it, people: get down and dirty and make open-source work. Easier said than done, of course, but hey... :p~~~

If for-pay mp3s came out - I would _gladly_ sponsor it.

Then go check out fairtunes.com, which slashdot was even kind enough to post a story on today.

Also with the shopping cart model you can send money to multiple artists on one invoice and the .23 cents is spread across all of those 'tips'. Matt
co-founder
Fairtunes

after a lot of "administrative" costs

Though /.'ed as they are, IIRC, Fairtunes.com charges an extra 4% of the transaction and $0.25 per transaction, which includes all the costs of distributing the money to the artists, and the credit-card merchants fees. So, giving $0.01 would cost $0.26. Giving $1.00 would cost $1.29... giving $10.00 would be $10.65

I think this idea has considerable merit. I like it. I do have, however, some concerns about their ability and plans for dealing with "imitations", for lack of a better word.

Just like cyber squatting on domain names, and their similar-looking/sounding names, it seems it's only a matter of time before someone starts registering:

• Britanny Spears
• Britney Spears
• Britney Speers
• Brittle Spears

Then there's making web sites that are variations on www.fairtunes.com such as:

• www.faretunes.com - Tips for cab ride muzac(tm).
• www.fairtoons.com - Tips for Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, or (shudder) Barney.
• www.fairytunes.com - Tips for "Tinkerbell".

And that is the exact reason we setup something called Fairtunes that allows you to voluntarily pay for copyrighted music that you may (or may not have) 'stolen'/downloaded.

Matt
co-founder
www.fairtunes.com