that there will always be someone who will do music/painting/photography/any other art you can think of
for no money.

How many photo books will remain unread because we have the weekly ET photo round up?

How many potential photo artists here will be unfairly removed from a potential cash source because someone redirects here for people to view their photos for free?

I think the money to be made from the arts will be made by artists.  Those who aspire can struggle, but an artist  is like the guy who walks tightropes between tall buildings illegally

I can download the entire works of Billy Holiday and a thousand other artists.  Why should I care if a person thinks they have a great hit on their hands?

An artist has (I think) a need to produce their art--I mean, they have an urge to produce art...and value is in the eyes ears taste buds skin and nose of the beholder, and artists are those who can get food--or maybe not....because art isn't a job, where you pick up a salary.

The craft may take time to learn, and applying the craft is maybe a worthily paid profession.  But Ry Cooder knew he was going to make his money from music by the age of fourteen.

So I think: make the best music you can; offer it out.    Play live--meet the public, whether by radio, or MP3s on the web, get it out there, and hocus pocus, like Firefox (have you ever paid them money?  Does the app work?)

Okay: I think the danger with micro payments as obligatory (whether legal or moral) is that the idea of deserved payment is the antithesis of the fee gig, the bring-a-bottle party (both of which do at least one person out of potential booty)...

Session musicians are right to have a union and charge union wages: they sell a skill.  Ditto mixers, recorders, videographers, sales people...

Ya know, I've always enjoyed Tom Waits, and I like it that he left Island to join a small label because (and maybe I paraphrase) "I liked their attitude."

Or: is the music supposed to have some musical effect, or is all the hard work supposed to be repaid in money?    When the police threw Fela Kuti's mother out of the first floor window of his compound...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fela_Kuti

...ya know, if the only money accrues to artists from countries in the lower half of the 177 classification, will art have suffered?

Ach aye!  

Would ET musicians be happy to produce an album of music for the listening pleasure of ETers without asking for cash?

And would they still be happy if the album became the most downloaded album in history?

I mean, if you can eat yesterday, today, and tomorrow, and if you get sick you can quickly see someone who can help you then you may well be better off than most...

I simply don't think it is fair to say the creators of Open Office, Spybot, and the like don't contribute...you were the one who put me onto Spybot--Free!  £0!!!

Isn't free software as unfair to the programmers as free music is to musicians?  But I LOVE free software--I get where I want to go without having to schlep at some pointless task.  Shouldn't it be the same with music?  

And for the musicians who can't create without being "full time", there have always been avenues...there are worlds where music is breakfast, lunch, and dinner--I have a friend who has harboured his dream of leading his group to victory since he was fourteen!  He is now a DJ in Oslo (and very happy, thank you very much)...coz music was his passion, not just his own but  that of others...

Och aye!

I see no reason why one can't make great music and be a road sweeper, and I see no reason why a road sweeper should earn any less (or more) than anyone else.

Also (as if I hadn't banged on enough!), I see a clear difference between learning, say, the bassoon, where the time is long and the concerts are rare, and learning "popular music", where the notes are basically tonal and the riffs are mostly in four beat.  Folk music should earn its money from the folk...and it seem s live gigs are the way forward, with maybe some music sales possibilities...sorta like the freeware--for those who...

ach, maybe I mean: If us liberals aren't willing to cough up when we have the cash (I mean: donate to Open Source projects), then we are part of the other system....

Heh heh!

I think you should write a diary about the music aspect.  You have strong feelings about it, and experience, and I think it would be good to see your aspect laid out as you wish and...yes!..at length, with all the context you want...ya know...I sorta know where you're coming from, but where I live there are a lot of musicians who distinguish between

being paid for performing music

and

making music they enjoy playing/listening to

...to be a good pianist you need maybe two to three hours practice A DAY...for at least two or three days a  week.  Most of the jazzers teach by day.  I don't think they'd turn into Charles Mingus if they didn't have to teach...

And Charles Mingus was a pimp, among other things.

peer to peer--the pirate model is, I think, the future.  FREE ACCESS TO CULTURE!  ALL OF IT!

Wouldn't that be great if you had no money?

The whole "you could afford it but you won't pay" aspect is a separate cultural issue, I think, and really: when we're all happy to pay the real price--when we insist on paying the real price for our lifestyles from morning to evening...the world will change...cough cough!

Och, I sorta see where you're coming from, but I think there are nuances and it I think it would be useful to see them laid out as you wish, extrapolated, coz I think there are undercurrents I'm missing (but I also have alternative roots in mind, 'twould be interesting to compare and contrast)...so...my lord, quarter to three!

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.