A New Way to Pay

WHEN I WAS a kid, back in the nineteen sixties and seventies, i collected 331/3 LP vinyl records, for those of you old enough to remember. Then, along came eight tracks in the early to mid seventies, and they replaced records. You kept seeing fewer and fewer records for sale, more and more eight track tapes.

So, i started collecting eight tracks.  Just when I felt i was starting to amass a collection which amounted to something, eight tracks were replaced by cassettes. As eight tracks faded away with the nineteen seventies i decided to never again collectmusic, in any way, shpae, form, fashion, or format. It just wasn't worth it.

And that brings us up to date. That's where I'm at today, not collecting music, no way, no how. So, as an umimpassioned outside observer, i have for about twenty five years now been fascinated by the effect of technology on the music industry.

A friend of mine started giving me cassettes full of great songs which he had recorded off other cassettes, making uniwue greatest hits collections. I never said no to him when he gave me one, and i thoroughly enjoyed them all, notwithstanding my non collectionism.

notiwhtstanding my non collectionsim, i ended up with quited a collection of free greatest rock and pop hits on cassette greates hits tapes. Thus, technically, i was receiving stolen goods. But it was over twenty five years ago.

Nowadays, with computers, anybocy acn have as much music, any particulare music they want, almost free of charge, correct? The big question is how to stop musical intellectual property theft, which seems impossible.

Perhaps people whose books are often checked out of libraries wish they could somehow tap into that potential source of revenue, but, alas...perhaps picasso's heirs wish his estate could profit each time a visitor to a museum gazes upon one of his works...and perhaps, just perhaps, people ought to have access to music, the music of their own choice...for free.

That's the main reason recording artist amanda palmer has decided to stup trying to make people pay for music, and start letting them pay for it, to stop trying to make them pay for music, and start asking them to pay for it. They end up paying whatever they can afford, which , sometimes, is nothing. but she's cool with that. It will come around later, she feels.

It seems to work for her. She makes a good living with her music, and she doesn't charge anything for it that isn't voluntarily paid by the consumer. And, that, dear friends, might just be the role model for the future, in a world in which it is, for all practical purposes, impossible to prevent intellectual property theft. Who can possibly stop the masses from sharing recordings on their own computers? No one.

You wonder if this might level the playing field a bit; give local musicians a chance to make a decent living, and bring the huge paydays of top contract recording astists down to size. That would not be an altogether negative side effects of voluntary payment for music.