Re: Design principles and ethics

[Marcus Brinkmann]

Hi,

let's change perspective a bit.  Musicians _already_ do not live from
making music.  Let's check out a few facts from the US Department of
Labor:

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos095.htm

"Part-time schedules and intermittent unemployment are common; many
 musicians supplement their income with earnings from other source."

"Although musicians employed by some symphony orchestras work under
 master wage agreements, which guarantee a season's work up to 52
 weeks, many other musicians face relatively long periods of
 unemployment between jobs.  Even when employed, many musicians and
 singers work part time in unrelated occupations.  Thus, their
 earnings usually are lower than earnings in many other occupations.
 Moreover, because they may not work steadily for one employer, some
 performers cannot qualify for unemployment compensation, and few have
 typical benefits such as sick leave or paid vacations.  For these
 reasons, many musicians give private lessons or take jobs unrelated
 to music to supplement their earnings as performers."

What about royalties?  The statistic page by the US Department of
Labor doesn't even contain that term.  The closest I can find is
recording fees.  The web site mentions them exactly once:

"The most successful musicians earn performance or recording fees
 that far exceed the median earnings."

I interpret this in the following way: Recording fees do not provide a
significant source of income to any musician but the most successful.

The above paragraph indicates that the major source of income are
teaching or jobs unrelated to music.

There is only one conclusion we can draw from this: The current system
fails utterly to reimburse musicians for making music.  So, whatever
the answer is, it is not recording fees.

It remains to answer the question why people in arts put themselves
through such horrible conditions as described above.  We find the
answer in human nature.  To paraphrase Eben Moglen, to ask how to make
people on earth produce art is like asking how to make a coil with a
magnet induce a current: Let the earth spin, and remove the resistance
to creativity, and humans will be creative without requiring further
encouragement.

Lawrence Lessig analyzed in his book Free Culture how "big media uses
technology and the law to lock down culture and control creativity"
(this is the subtitle).  Never before in history of mankind did so few
control so much of our culture as today.  This, not the lack of
monetary compensation, is what inhibits creativity.  This is the
obstacle that has to be removed to allow people to be more creative,
to produce more content that is more relevant to people.  The claim
that reproduction fees are good for artists is a sham.

Thanks,
Marcus