Comments on: Conscience Cleared?

By: John Wesley

John Wesley — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 18:44:18 +0000

This misses one very important fact… The middle man gets paid by the artist long before the song makes money. Buying a song legitimately still wouldn’t put money in the “middle man’s” pocket, just the store’s pocket and the author’s pocket.

By: Bob

Bob — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 17:55:46 +0000

For everyone commenting here about how “cutting out the middlemen” is the wrong thing to do, and how the image isnt well thought out…

Are you guys dense? Thats the joke, cutting out the middleman seems like a good idea untill you consider all the other people missing out too. Thats the whole point of the image. Thats the joke.

By: MarcusBrutus

MarcusBrutus — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 14:40:20 +0000

Artist pay to produce their albums, the initial money is loaned from the company that produces the music, to pay themselves.. The aim of the idea is to enable the musicians the ability to choose who their producers are going to be. Everyone would still be paid, from the mixers to the guy who picks all the red M&Ms from the bowl. The artists wouldn’t receive services for free now would they? Certainly not from the music industry.

By: zakk

zakk — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 14:14:02 +0000

well in essence this is a very welcome idea, however like it has been stated, the middle man deserves some of the money too. Though perhaps not so much as what they bank every year. The universal donation website would be good, if it could be implemented according to some standard of downloading etiquette. Which of course to this point doesn’t exist. I could see the downfall of such a website from the 1337 haXz0r pirates that they are using spoofed credit cards and stolen paypal addresses.

Sad world of money hungry people that we live in.

By: Ben

Ben — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 13:10:33 +0000

Uhh… the cover designer, the person who records the music, and so on are already paid off when the music is released.
It’s not like they get a cut of the sales…
And there would be no need for producers in the first place if the download-music-send-money-to-artist system were in effect.
Ergo: Yes, conscience cleared.

By: kometbomb

kometbomb — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 06:45:50 +0000

Dick: I don’t get how the artist should get continuous income from the sales whereas someone that also helped to make the record should not. It’s just that sometimes a deal is not that good and then you should not sign.

I think the only way to really cut the middleman is to go see shows. Though, then you’ll still be paying the venue.

By: Dick Waters

Dick Waters — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 05:45:19 +0000

Noble Idea, however I don’t think you realize that about 90% of the industry are “middlemen”. These middlemen are hired by the artists to execute tasks they are otherwise untrained or unwilling to perform. Besides, the lions share goes to marketing and I doubt many artists argue paying those folks

By: kometbomb

kometbomb — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 05:26:18 +0000

TRav: Even if the indirectly related personnel didn’t get paid by records sold, record sales are where the money and the motivation to pay them comes from. If you don’t pay the label, they won’t pay anyone to produce records. It’s simply a case of how much of the record you downloaded happened thanks to who.

So, moral of the story: If you are going to pay according to what everyone deserves, do just that. But of course, “Cut the Middleman” is a better slogan than “Pay According to What Is the General Consensus of the Amount of Work Provided by Each Person Involved”.

By: tim

tim — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 05:01:07 +0000

That is ridiculous. The sound guy doesnt make a comission on album sales, neither does the album artist. the artist pays the above a flat rate, which will improve if artists are making more money, thus youre arguement is moot.
-tim

By: TRav

TRav — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 04:37:44 +0000

If you cut out the middlemen, people like the mixers and producers and such are still going to get paid by the record company. They don’t make any more depending on how the cd sells.