Amanda Palmer, incendiary lead singer of "punk cabaret act" the Dresden Dolls, just posted a very interesting piece to her MySpace page about why she's not ashamed to ask you for money. I'm going to quote her here, and warn you in advance about rough language. Sorry but it's the future of media at stake.
listen.
artists need to make money to eat and to continue to make art.
artists used to rely on middlemen to collect their money on their behalf, thereby rendering themselves innocent of cash-handling in the public eye.
artists will now be coming straight to you (yes YOU, you who want their music, their films, their books) for their paychecks.
please welcome them. please help them. please do not make them feel badly about asking you directly for money.
dead serious: this is the way shit is going to work from now on and it will work best if we all embrace it and don't fight it.
It's a much longer post and I'm only quoting a little bit. You want more, befriend Amanda. I'm inclined to agree with her. The middlemen won't disappear but they're not running the whole show from now on. If you like someone's work, and they're still alive, pay for it. (Unless they tell you otherwise). If you don't, they got to take a day job, and all their material will be about how awful it is to work at "x".
Do we really need a generation of songs about being a waiter?
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