Now you can pay artists directly for creating the music you
love! Note - Fairtunes is now called Musiclink
"One day in the summer of 2000, student Matt Goyer got to thinking
about the ethics and economics of free music downloads. He wondered how
bands could survive in the face of free downloads. It worried him so
much, he quit his summer job at IBM and built Fairtunes, a Web site that
lets you send money directly to your favorite artists. The site tracks
down artists and cuts a check for the royalty donations periodically. So
far, over 3,000 users have paid about $20,000. It's not the music labels
Goyer's interested in paying and preserving, just the bands. He says each
dollar sent to an artist is equivalent to what they get from each sold
CD. Send a buck and you can download an artist's music with a clear
conscience, he argues. While he may have a point morally or ethically,
it's a vulnerable legal argument. The Winamp player/client recently added
Fairtunes links to its downloads to prompt users to pay and play. We
suspect this nice, insidious idea will only increase the self-inflicted
paranoia of the music industry. Time has the tale - legally free to
download, and no need to send a contribution. "
Fairtunes:
http://www.fairtunes.com/
Time:
http://www.time.com/time/globalbusiness/article/0,9171,1101020520-237030,00.html
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"RazorPop, Marc Freedman" <marc@...>
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