I think that the copyright laws need to shift from attempting to guarantee the artist’s total control of their work to governing the behavior of those who use the work. Clearly, this instance of “Ray of Light” is not an abuse of the original work, and in fact can reasonably be construed as a sort of homage. But if I were to perform it in a stadium for people who paid $50 each to hear it, it would be. The law needs to be concerned with the latter and not the former, and in settling the vague cases in the middle.

As to how artists make money from their work in this model, I think Radiohead’s “In Rainbows” is a perfect example. Fans had the ability to pay for the work or not. More people downloaded it for free than paid for it, but enough people paid for it that Radiohead made more money from the release than they would have through the traditional methods. It’s almost a democratized form of the old patronage system. Instead of a wealthy noble paying to have the artist produce for them, those fans of the artist who wish to contribute do. It’s scary to anyone who was used to the predictable returns of the traditional system, but as with anything digital/Internet/2.0 we’re dealing with numbers that are still too vast for us to comprehend. How can Radiohead make millions when the average amount people paid was less than $5 and most didn’t pay at all? Because an immense number of people paid that $5.

Thats my def.

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