Today it was announced that Last.FM would be allowing users to steam songs in full length for 3 plays and offer a subscription model if you want to open it up to play those songs indefinitely. Aditionaly they will be paying artists directly for the plays out of the money generated from advertising and subscriptions.
Seems like a step in the right direction to me. But once again I am freaked out by the lack of respect for the artists themselves on the message boards. Shouts of "Music wants to be free!" and "down with the music industry!" were common. People that know me might understand that this set my head spinning with what is wrong with this line of thinking.
File sharing people and unlimited streaming people feel that it is them versus the evil suits that have been getting rich for decades off of overpriced record and CD sales and they are screaming for the end if the music industry!
Don't they realy mean, the end of the music industry... as we know it?
I don't think many people would be happy if the hard working people that make music all stopped because they had to get jobs at walmart. You have to think about all the people involved in music creation... musicians, producers, recording engineers, even the talented independent artist that has invested a huge amount of time learning the craft and money on decent equipment.
Anyone who has ever tried to make a great song knows just how hard, expensive, and time consuming it is. Even with the vast advances in music technology over the last few decades it still takes a lot of skill, imagination and time. If you are someone who has never tried, and you think I am full of it... then I challenge you to go make an interesting original song that is ready for distribution. Go ahead, I'll wait here... no? yeah, It's not so easy as most people assume. Dire straights were being sardonic suckas!
The music industry is not just a few vastly wealthy jerks at the top. Any new model needs to consider how to compensate the "worker class" people that put themselves into bringing you music that doesn't suck. Hopefully Last.FMs announcement is a step in the right direction.
Now if we could just get the average joe thinking about the people that make music as being worth supporting.
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