Currently, musicians and distributors get paid mostly via rent-seeking activities - they forego advance payment for their labor in exchange for the possibility of rents on the products of it.
This has a few advantages - the utility of music is generally unknown at the time of its production. Popularity, especially, adds utility to a piece of music and is very difficult to predict in advance. In fact, I think popularity dominates the utility that many content consumers derive from music. Sometimes auteurs manage to produce something that defies your expectations and gives you much more utility than you thought it would have.
If you retain the right to seek rents on content you've produced, you're able to charge what's appropriate to the utility that consumers currently derive from your music, rather than what they'd have expected to when you made it (nothing, if they'd never heard of you!). If you can't seek rent on the products of your labor, then you have to get compensated for it directly. Currently, musicians do this mostly via live performance, but I suppose holding content for ransom via some sort of kickstarter-analogue might be a viable way forward.
If I had to guess, I'd guess that there's less money in that sort of thing than rent-seeking, but I'm certainly not an expert. If there's less money in it, then there will be less high-quality content. I've thought about it, and I think I'm okay with that. If the market for recorded music contracts due to digital sharing, I think I'll live, and I'd prefer digital sharing to remain possible.
It's unfortunate for musicians, but I guess I'm just a callous soul.
This has a few advantages - the utility of music is generally unknown at the time of its production. Popularity, especially, adds utility to a piece of music and is very difficult to predict in advance. In fact, I think popularity dominates the utility that many content consumers derive from music. Sometimes auteurs manage to produce something that defies your expectations and gives you much more utility than you thought it would have.
If you retain the right to seek rents on content you've produced, you're able to charge what's appropriate to the utility that consumers currently derive from your music, rather than what they'd have expected to when you made it (nothing, if they'd never heard of you!). If you can't seek rent on the products of your labor, then you have to get compensated for it directly. Currently, musicians do this mostly via live performance, but I suppose holding content for ransom via some sort of kickstarter-analogue might be a viable way forward.
If I had to guess, I'd guess that there's less money in that sort of thing than rent-seeking, but I'm certainly not an expert. If there's less money in it, then there will be less high-quality content. I've thought about it, and I think I'm okay with that. If the market for recorded music contracts due to digital sharing, I think I'll live, and I'd prefer digital sharing to remain possible.
It's unfortunate for musicians, but I guess I'm just a callous soul.