Part of what she's asking for isn't so bad, namely aggregate metrics or just general listening statistics. I've got some music on Pandora as well, and I can say that they make absolutely no information available about how many people are listening, how many listeners skip the song, how many listeners give the song a thumbs up or down, etc. Once the music goes in, the rest if a big mystery.

She loses me when she suggests that she should just magically be able to get her listeners' contact information without some sort of opt-in. As much as I would love an epic mailing list of anyone who has ever heard my work... yeah... no...

Artists already receive royalties for terrestrial radio. The metrics for tracking performances aren't very good, though.

My data is largely anecdotal. I'm a TV/film/video game composer myself, and I'm networked in pretty hard with a lot of musicians/composers both on the work for hire side and on the recording artist side. Most of my closest associates are pretty dramatically in the middle class bracket, despite working on large projects that you've definitely heard of.

Since I'm not really that active on the recording artist side of things, I can't say that things like downloading affect me too much. But anytime copyright discussions come up, I feel like I need to weigh; a lot of arguments that center around recording artists and copyright have dramatic legal implications for the work I do.

As far as the chart you cited goes, it doesn't give separate data for different income brackets, so it's tough to take any conclusions from it. I can only say that, as a composer, I'm not out there playing live shows, so...

I would be careful here. While there very much is a rich "1%" of the creative class, there is also a rapidly shrinking low/middle income creative class that is affected by things like downloading.

I'm not necessarily commenting on the ethical implications of downloading or even the ethical implications of the RIAA suing you, but it's worth pointing out that there most professional musicians probably shouldn't be lumped in with mega rich artists.

How-to here.

McLovin: Muhammed is the most commonly used name on Earth, read a book for once.

Arizona proposes another batshit law.
The rest of the country is unsurprised.

Norton keeps me safe.

All this switching back and forth between dynamic range compression and data compression makes my head hurt.

So to clear things up... dynamic range compression is a form of signal processing that is usually used to make the average level of a signal louder, hence the loudness wars.

Data compression probably doesn't need to be explained to this crowd. But you know... MP3s and stuff.

Really. This will get some good buzz going in advance of Sony formally releasing the tracks.

That noise reduction technology was really designed to reduce tape hiss inherent in the cassette tapes themselves and wouldn't reduce noise inherited from the master recording. It's likely that whatever choices were made during the recording and mastering stages of producing that particular album resulted in a noisy master.

Wait... you want to do away with copyright altogether?

Just think of all the "new funding models" that will be available:

I could write a sequel to the Harry Potter books. If I had been really quick about it, I could even have rushed out a sequel right after she had written the first book, but before she was done writing her second book. I could call it Harry Potter 2: Forbidden Lust and use her cover art from the original publication without paying for it!

Or maybe I could just take the text of Harry Potter and resell it under a new name, maybe Harvey Bowler and the Wizard's Rock!

For the cover art for Harvey Bowler, I'll just go online and find the coolest pictures I can find and use those. I won't have to pay the original artist for them at all! What a deal!

I could turn Harvey Bowler into a big budget movie. Fortunately, I won't have to pay any musicians to write music for it, since I can just take whatever music I want from anything else. There's this great artist who did a song I love that would be perfect for the end credits. I can use his music for free!

It's so obvious! Completely abolishing copyright is the only solution that makes sense! Let's do it!

Fair use allows using copyrighted material for educational purposes, criticism, research, etc. Using a song for background music would not be considered fair use, especially if the entire song is used.

but only if you promise to buy REAL clothes this time.