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Comment by mariorz | Hacker News Reader

How about this one, demanding compensation from being blocked in Denmark and using that to start a grant for danish artists.

http://blog.brokep.com/2008/04/14/maybe-a-grant/

Hey brokep: How about doing something similar with the cash from all the porn ads?

I also find it unreassuring to see he isn't interested in proposed flat-rate compensation schemes:

http://blog.brokep.com/2007/12/06/the-problems-with-a-flatra...

Maybe he thinks artists should only be compensated for live shows. Those who can't should probably tend bar or something.

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You're misinterpreting his comments. He's saying it would be impossible for his site to find out which artists are being downloaded the most to compensate them. That's a reasonable thing to say considering how many musicians get torrented.

I can think of ways of estimating even what personal play-time different artist get. Maybe something voluntary a la audio-scrobble.

That post isn't just about the technical problems though, for example:

"We’re paying a tax to a system not needed anymore. The record industry is passÃ© and we do not need nor want them anymore."

I'm not one to defend the decrepit record industry but that's just avoiding the real issue. Is compensating artists considered passe now too?

But you can't tell how many PIRATED musicians are being scrobbled, can you? There's no way to detect what listens are audio and what listens aren't.

I'm not one to defend the decrepit record industry but that's just avoiding the real issue. Is compensating artists considered passe now too?

That's regarding the idea of buying records - the money from most of which goes directly to the record industry. Different models work in different ways.

>But you can't tell how many PIRATED musicians are being scrobbled, can you? There's no way to detect what listens are audio and what listens aren't.

Well in the proposed flat-rate scenario there would be no need for distinction.

>That's regarding the idea of buying records - the money from most of which goes directly to the record industry. Different models work in different ways.

The post was talking about the flat-rate scenario not buying records, in any case it's obvious the record industry model is dead as it currently exists. That doesn't mean we shouldn't think about viable ways of compensating artists.

I don't know that the flat-rate scenario is, so perhaps you can explain for me: what's the idea? Do musicians all get paid the exact same? What exactly is the "flat" rate being discussed here?

It's basically a flat tax, meaning it doesn't matter how much you download or consume, the proceeds of which would be somehow distributed back to the artists.

The tricky part is obviously in how to fairly distribute the money, and this is where tracking what gets listened or downloaded comes into play.

Why not eschew taxes altogether, and find a good way to convince people to pay for music? Anything else is going to be unfair.

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