Just to summarize the music distribution problem for those of you who are unaware. The RIAA has a stranglehold on the major music distribution outlets. The members of the RIAA board are major record label executives and their objective is to protect their company’s profits. They are not in the business of protecting the interests of the artists themselves. If a band signs with a major RIAA label such as Sony or Universal, they give up the rights to their media and their brand. Signed bands receive a very low percentage of sales – often giving up rights to generate profit from own merchandise.
Another media distribution method, peer to peer software, provides channels for people to share media for free. This does effectively hurt the profits of the RIAA labels. However, peer to peer software also steals profits from the artists. Therefore, this is not a realistic solution to the music distribution issue.
However, we must consider the popularity of free music distribution. Even the RIAA states on their website that is will be impossible to completely restrict people to share media and distribute it for free. So why not work with it?
An ideal solution would allow free distribution of media – which will happen regardless – but would also press upon people a moral obligation to support the artists they enjoy. Through a donate and download system the users would be able to pay what they think the media is worth. The artists would receive almost all of the revenue from these donations as opposed to an extremely small percentage of a major RIAA label’s sales. Also, bands would retain the rights to their brand and their media – they would be able to keep 100% of merchandise revenue.
I have come across one website that proposes to do just that – www.webceleb.com. They also have a pretty kick ass media player where people can experience the media before they download it. Webceleb is just getting up and running and has not yet proven the model, but I have faith that it will catch on.
