Ok, fair enough. Sorry using the expletive and calling you a pompous twit.
I wish Jonathon Coulton the best of luck with Creative Commons licensing. But as a model, I'm not convinced it will work. The benefit of having healthy labels is precisely the fact that artists don't get all the money. Some of it is siphoned off to find new acts. Let's not forget that the industry invests 20% of gross in R&D, which is a respectable figure in any industry. And of course you get economies of scale and the network of industry contacts, allowing you to market in different countries and across differient mediums.
In effect you're describing a model where the entire job of the label is taken on by the artist himself. I think that's a step backward rather than forward: if people pay for their music, the artist can concentrate on doing what he does best, which is make it. Not sell it. And, one way or another, he will need to sell it!
I wish Jonathon Coulton the best of luck with Creative Commons licensing. But as a model, I'm not convinced it will work. The benefit of having healthy labels is precisely the fact that artists don't get all the money. Some of it is siphoned off to find new acts. Let's not forget that the industry invests 20% of gross in R&D, which is a respectable figure in any industry. And of course you get economies of scale and the network of industry contacts, allowing you to market in different countries and across differient mediums.
In effect you're describing a model where the entire job of the label is taken on by the artist himself. I think that's a step backward rather than forward: if people pay for their music, the artist can concentrate on doing what he does best, which is make it. Not sell it. And, one way or another, he will need to sell it!