[wwweston]

> except for the terrible logic of less profit for the musician is automatically bad for the consumer because people will just stop making music if they can't get rich off it.

It's not terrible logic, it's fundamentally sound. It's just not absolute.

That is, people won't "just stop" across the board. But the harder we make it to make money from making music itself, the more time would-be music makers will have to spend finding some other way to make money to finance their life.

So you lose music at the margins, particularly music that requires a higher level of investment to produce, particularly from those who have less disposable time/money.

[GhotiFish]

I don't agree with that. I like artists, not businessmen. Turning artists into businessmen, or simply making businessmen don the apparel of an artist is not "good for the consumer", it's not "fundamentally sound" either.