I found this thread via Google and have read all the posts with rapt interest. I’ve never before been exposed to a community of opinion that is so opposed to file sharing. It’s been an eye-opener.

The main argument I’m seeing here, is the theory that music costs money to make, and those involved in the production need to be compensated for their work. A secondary argument is that file sharing, by it’s nature, prevents compensation and is thereby stealing. A third suggestion I’ve seen is that artists will not make work if they are not receiving adequate compensation to dedicate the time needed to make great art. (An argument, I believe, that ironically propelled the creation of much copyright law that exists today. I say ironically because so little copyright law, in practice, actually monetarily protects the person who made the art.)

I disagree with almost everything in the above paragraph. But it’s going to take me a while to deconstruct it.

The first misconception is that the artist, if not compensated will no longer create. Any artist of a decent caliber creates their great works because they have to create, not because they want a big fancy house (not that anyone’s turning down big fancy houses if offered.) If you took all the money from artists away, you’d still have writers, painters, musicians, and actors all still struggling to create, and their work would still be appreciated by their fans. And, it would still be great.

And that’s the core relationship. The one between the artist, and the fan (or listener, or appreciator, or reader, or viewer, or whatever word applies to the art). That relationship has always existed throughout history, and nothing that has or is happening in this technological revolution is going to change that.

However, there is another piece to this relationship. A big piece. That is the people that come in between and facilitate the relationship. This piece has also always existed. A writer needs a publisher, a painter needs a gallery, a playwright needs a theater, etc. It’s also in this part of the process where money so often is exchanged. The theater owner charges tickets for his theater, the audience happily pays, the playwright gets a cut.

How much the artist gets versus how much the middle men get, and how much the audience has to pay is always in flux.

Also, when an art is popular enough, completely useless middle men get created due to the sheer profit, volume and popularity of the art being created (think record label executives, entertainment lawyers, and the entire concept of Ticketmaster.)

Right now, the relationship between artist and fan is better then it’s ever been. The artist is now in much better control of his/her message thanks to the internet and has a much more direct line of communication with the fans. What’s in incredible flux, however, is the middle men. They, by this technological revolution, are getting completely knocked around.

What I’m seeing on this forum is a bunch of middle men, who are about to be replaced, standing around and screaming “THIEF!” instead of trying to jump in to the revolution. Which is a shame, because how this shakes down in the coming years is going to mean a lot of money to the right people in the right places, and it just involves repositioning yourself.

I’m going to give you some free advice, as I’m a nice hippie anarchist :

1) Now that we’ve established that artists are always going to create and audiences will always want to pay (yes, they will always want to pay in one way or another), think to yourself, “how can I reposition myself back in the middle of this stream/relationship?” With this question in mind, think about the old way that the art was being delivered, and now look at the new way. What was you old job? Is it going to be needed if the new way is the only way? (Assume the new way will be the only way within 10 years). If not, how can what you are doing translate into the new way of doing things?

2) If you are becoming dispirited by these simple realities, remind yourself that someone is going to make an awful lot of money off the new way of doing things. Right now 3 of those someone’s are Broadband ISP providers, MySpace and Apple, as examples. But those are hardly the only 3 and the power will shift and turn as new ways of transmitting art evolve. Think about all that money! You greedy middlemen bastards! Maybe thinking about it long enough will inspire you to finally get creative and think of a way to jump in on this!

3) Try not to get too caught up in wishing laws were implemented or fighting a fight against a revolution that’s going to happen anyway. Even if you sued the shit out of every little kid you could find, and successfully stopped every ardent fan from redistributing their favorite band to their friends, this revolution would still happen a few years later and you’d again find yourself making less money and now staring down the barrel of a technology behemoth like Google. If you just stay stuck in cement yelling thief you’re going to watch as all of your relevance fades away as you get older and older. At that point, why not retire? It’s a young man’s game, after all.

I know I sound harsh and condescending, but none of you have been particularly nice in reacting to the rather rational kid in this thread who is merely trying to, like me, get you to think a lot differently then you are now. You already lost the old business model, it’s just taking a while to completely die. But this is most certainly an opportunity disguised as a crises, and people will come out on top and the same amount of money is going to be spent by consumers on entertainment, it’s just a question of how and where they spend it, and where you sit in that relationship to make money.

Finally, research your competition. Go hang out in p2p communities. Try the clients and software. Check out the torrent sites. While doing it, ask yourself, what are they doing right but, more importantly, what do they suck at? People will always choose the easiest path to their favorite artists. The iTunes music store isn’t succeeding because people are “moral” or “immoral”, it’s succeeding because it’s incredibly easy to get the song, have it labeled perfectly with album art, and have it placed on their ipod. But I think there are other ways the store isn’t there yet, and there are still a lot of functions the p2p scene lacks as the main distributor of music to the next generation. A TON of features, in fact. You very much can compete with, and beat, free.