nsb3000 said:
I am not quite sure how I feel about this ...as an apple/ OS x fan I want them to be successful, but than sometime Apple takes on that draconian mantra that all cooperation's do sometimes, and it seems un-apple. (Didn't part of Apple initial funding come from selling devices that allowed you to use Pay Phones for free? In that light, this is ironic. )
I have the very same issue, since I am almost universally anti-DRM and pro-informational freedom. People ought to pay for things because it's the right thing to do, and the artists should be comnpensated for their music, not the RIAA and industry groups for their ability to maintain a fully parasitic structure. At this point in the game, they add
nothing to the market, but they pull ridiculous amounts of money in because that largely have a lock on traditional channels, and are doing their damndest to plug any new ones and stop them before they can really take off.
I like Apple, and I'd rather them hold the keys to DRM than Microsoft or Sony, but I'd still much rather ther not be any DRM at all. Still, I have to grimace and wring my hands, though, because the iTMS is selling iPods like hotcakes, and that's helping bolster Apple's warchest at the moment.
It's a thorny issue.
I've thought about this, and at first I thought it was a good idea, but it leaves a very wide gap open where a 3rd party (say, a new RIAA) can come into play. By this I mean somehow intercept that $20 and again leave a small amount for the artists themselves.
Opening mail is a federal crime. Send them cash, check, or money order through the postal system, and unless there's some ridiculous clause that allows all mail to be censored before it's read, the RIAA or another group can't touch it.
Sending the artists money directly won't work, ever. I'm sure that if your idea ever takes flight that all the record companies will just write a stipulation into their contracts that artists can't accept money directly in the way in which you are suggesting.
So? Anyone with $200,000 in startup capital for two willing programmers, a couple of xserves and xserve RAIDs, and an optical line could have a musicians collective selling directly to the public in a matter of weeks. Apple's shown that WebObjects can power such a thing now, and PayPal (or something similar) could be the payment service.
The only problem is that the music companies own anything produced under their contracts
in perpetia. It would have to be new music, indie tracks, and other material, but it could easily be done.
I don't know why it hasn't been, yet, other than fear of the RIAA's draconian reach into the legislative and judicial system.