GIVE IT AWAY
“Always on the edge, David Byrne recently cranked up his own internet radio station. (If you have iTunes you can find it in the ‘eclectic’ category)… Xeni Jardin interviewed Byrne a few days ago” for NPR’s “Day to Day”, in a show about filesharing, and here’s a bit of his thinking, via Ratchet Up:
“I would love to have compensation for [my music]. But the argument of record companies standing up for artists rights is such a load of hooey. Most artists see nothing from record sales — it’s not an evil conspiracy, it’s just the way the accounting works. That’s the way major record labels are set up, from a purely pragmatic point of view. So as far as the artist goes — who cares? I don’t see much money from record sales anyway, so I don’t really care how people are getting it.”
Most musicians make ends meet through constant touring and from the sale of merchandise at concerts.
The corollary for filmmakers, I suppose, is the non-theatrical speaking gig. Why have no enterprising companies sprung up to capitalize on this by organizing and booking the circuit (at universities, film societies, and other grass-roots organizations) for indie filmmakers whose films have not been picked up for distribution?
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