Musicians Should Join the Rest of Us

Stan Schroeder strikes an interesting comparison. Journalists freely distribute content and still make money. Why the Hell can’t musicians do the same?

The thing is, us journalists are often criticized by musicians and music label execs when we write about the zero cost of copying music and the pointlessness of RIAA’s desperate schemes; the criticism is somewhere along the lines of “you don’t know how it is; how would you feel if someone stole your original content and distributed it freely?”

Well, in fact, we do know how it feels. In fact, most of us voluntarily give our content for free to anyone that wants it, via RSS. Think about it; what is RSS, really, than a simple way to freely distribute content? Sure, RSS content is not always the same as the original content; images are often missing; an ad is sometimes inserted. But isn’t that similar to how MP3s aren’t the same quality as original CDs?

We could choose not to give out an RSS feed; we could close down our content and make it available only to paying customers. We could try to sue everyone that reproduces are content, anywhere on the net; hell, we could sue anyone that even links to it.

But that would be stupid, wouldn’t it?

Yes, musicians and labels, quit whining and join the rest of the world’s content creators. Learn how to make money in a world where information is free. Tay Zonday already did it. Trent Reznor just did it. Why can’t the rest of you?