A viable means for rewarding artists? (Score 1)

Most of the suggestions listed so far have involved different ways to make people pay to duplicate music or pay to play music. It's fairly obvious that all of these are doomed -- someone will quickly find a way to duplicate or play for free, and everyone will use it.

What is really unique and, more importantly, controllable, is the artist's individual creative efforts. In other words, everything that goes on before the music is released. This is nothing new. Traditionally, most art and music has been "paid for" by commissions -- the pope wants his ceiling painted, so he commisions Michaelangelo to paint it.

What we need is a system where artists can agree to release an album when they receive a certain amount of money from fans. For example, the Backstreet Boys could ask for $50,000,000 from fans before they release a song/album. Individuals would pay whatever they felt was appropriate. Lesser known artists would, of course, have much lower funding targets. Artists could release sample tracks or clips in order to boost interest.