Music itself is not a product that you’re entitled to sell, because music is like a secret. Before you tell a secret to anyone, it’s yours. It’s useless, but it’s yours. Before you ever perform a song, it’s yours. It’s pointless, but it’s yours.

But once you tell that secret or perform that song, it now belongs to everyone. It’s in their minds, or their hearts and souls. Trying to reap a “revenue stream” from that is– well, good luck trying, but it’s doomed to fail.

Most people instinctively understand that you can own a thing, but if someone copies it, good on them. You don’t own the duplicate. Just because digitial representations of art are infinitely copyable at very little cost doesn’t change that; it just means that musicians (all artists, really) need to redefine how they get their income.

And as another journalist put it, the best way for a musician to get paid is the time-honored one: through performances. Through merchandising. Through cross-promotion. Through everything EXCEPT trying to “own” the music itself.

So while you get the spirit right — we don’t want to destroy musicians (I’m much less concerned with destroying the music “industry” — bunch of parasites — than I am with destroying MUSIC) — you get the specifics wrong. The solution isn’t to cling to our old, worn-out language of “ownership” of ideas. The solution is to adapt and evolve.

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Homes in USA

I like your outlook and blogs. Nice that you balance truth with hope…

George