[VikingCoder]

"the movie and tv industries are and have been the best employers of artists this side of the Medici clan."

Your definition of "best" and mine are vastly different.

They exploit artists, for great profit. There's such demand that they are able to exploit many artists. The costs are so low, that they can afford to employ many more artists than will succeed. The artists love their craft so much, and are often so desperate to make it big, that they will work for ridiculously low wages AND absolutely zero job security.

We all know that distribution used to be hard, and now it is not. Distribution used to be the main reason why you needed to sign with a label, or a studio. Reaching a "good enough" level of quality used to require an enormous, up-front investment of capital. Now, it doesn't.

Kill exploiters. Reward supporters.

[shoham]

I don't think that distribution is as important as promotion, but promotion is incredibly hard, in reality. Yes, the internet provides the ABILITY to promote oneself, but actually getting through, and capitalizing on whatever exposure you earn is tough stuff!

If you want to reward supporters, I submit to you a project I launched over a year ago to support artists that is continuing to grow, but can always use more support itself: http://www.feed-forward.net

FeedForward (A)Gives incentive for artists to give constructive feedback and positive reinforcement for each others work (helping to overcome what I call "The crabs in a barrel effect" whereas artists often ignore each other, spam each other or troll each other online and IRL, on Feedback the discourse is both constructive and insightful) (B) I take no cut or commission from sales, either digital or physical -- so artists keep their earnings (minus a small PayPal transaction fee)! and (C) FeeForward features artists of all disciplines: writers, flash developers, musicians, visual artists as well as film makers. Artists help support and promote each other, and thereby earn more exposure for themselves, I think you'll like what we're doing :D Check it out, and let me know what you think.

Thanks, -Shoham