I've proposed an alternate fix to this mess: “Musician Donations Anonymous". Why not allow those who don't pay for their music to make direct micro-payments to the artists?
http://precision-blogging.blogspot.com/2005_06_01_precision-blogging_archive.html#111954181611146602
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Posted by Daniel H to GrafoDexia at 6/23/2005 11:54:28 AM
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I read your post Daniel. Micropayments would be great, but there's no mechanism for that coming out in the near future (they've been promised since the dark ages, however). Macropayments have worked for some artists outside the mainstream industry, which suggests that a micropayment system might work. The incentives might be different, however. The premise behind a micropayment system is something like the penny jar at store counters--no one cares about a few cents, so they'll give to feel good about it. The macropayment systems that have worked for artists that I've seen generally rely on appeals to the diehard fans and are somewhat extortionary, in that they claim that the music will not continue without their support (we'll call it "the NPR model"). Ultimately, though, I'm just not sure that either would scale to cover the whole industry, because suddenly you're not dealing with fans so much as casual listeners, and the donation becomes just one more lower price--and a dramatically lower one at that.

--Ari