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Re:To Apple, Love Taylor by biggy3100 on Sunday June 21, 2015 @12:42PM (#9754011)
Techdirt leans pro-piracy, just as torrentfreak does. I'll pay for my content in whichever fashion gets the artist paid the most - makes no difference to me. And I am not just talking about music. TV, Movies, etc. It's content as an entire class. All content companies are getting smashed against the backdrop of piracy.

I'll do whatever I can to support content creators.

Re:To Apple, Love Taylor by gjm11 on Sunday June 21, 2015 @12:53PM (#9754047)
> Techdirt leans pro-piracy

Does that make it OK for artists to get 2.34% of what listeners pay for the music they make? Or does it make TechDirt's figures wrong? If so, how?

> Or were you not paying for anything already, and then came across that info which now justified your position?

I am not striking, but I agree with everything s/he wrote. And, as it happens, I do pay for all the music and video and software I acquire. So it is simply not true that holding the opinions s/he expressed is always a rationalization for not liking to pay for things.

(And: do you actually have any evidence that striking pirates things rather than paying for them? Or do you just assume that anyone who takes a position opposing yours must be a pirate?)

Re:To Apple, Love Taylor by walterbell on Sunday June 21, 2015 @12:58PM (#9754066)
Is it legal for artists to sell virtual goods directly to fans, or are those rights locked up in record company contracts? That would allow separation of payment from distribution.

TPP/TTIP/RECP leaks suggest the criminalization of non-commercial copyright infringement, where prosecution will be possible even if the copyright holder does not want to prosecute, e.g. fanzines.

Can we develop a payment mechanism which moves funds from audience to artist for virtual goods, with no exchange of music (which can be obtained on any channel), but which provides a non-forgeable "protection from being prosecuted"? This would return control to the artist.

Unbundle the music license payment from music delivery payment.

Re:To Apple, Love Taylor by mike_hearn on Sunday June 21, 2015 @01:54PM (#9754279)
If labels were so abusive artists wouldn't use them. It's not like setting up a label is hard.

The reason labels have such high overheads is the same as for movie studios . They subsidise a lot of non-Taylor Swifts music that don't end up being profitable. The costs of the failures end up impacting the profits of the successes. The flip side is - lots of artists get studio time and songwriting time even if they haven't already proven themselves.