I disagree with DRM also.

But artists need to be rewarded fairly.

What do do?

Have an internet tax.

This should replace the TV licence so that many are no worse off, perhaps even better off.

Tax paid should be proportional to usage - this is very easy to do - ISPs - fixed line and mobile can easily track this.

Then there should be money incentives for people to declare what they have downloaded so that the money from the tax goes to the correct artist. Otherwise if they don't declare then they pay a more expensive overall tax which goes into the MCPS/PPL/PRS/Musicians Union pot which is shared out in the same way they do now with the proceeds of royalties of radio stations.

The copyright process in the UK should also be simplified: the MCPS, PPL, PRS, Musicians Union, TV Licensing agency etc should be merged to reflect the multi-platform age. After all, Ofcom is a merging of Oftel, BCC, TSA, Radio Authority, reflecting convergence of TV, telephone and computing communications.

And the TV license is unsustainable, particularly as increasingly TV and radio are being watched via the internet and it is an unfair tax that doesn't account for consumption. Sure, the money from it provides the BBCs universal access model giving people serendipity but so can an internet tax if a slice of this is taken to promote content where the market fails.

Better by far to have each band set up their own website, and allow people to buy DRM-free music from them directly. That way, fans of the music will be supporting the people who make the music they like, rather than giving a record company most of the money and the band a pittance. It will change piracy from an act against a faceless corporation to an act against an individual, which most of us are reluctant to do.

Whenever a record industry person moans about how this money must be made "to support the artists", you should ask yourself (or them, if you happen to be close by) exactly how much goes to the artist in question, and how much to executives who have never had a creative thought in their lives.

"Better by far to have each band set up their own website, and allow people to buy DRM-free music from them directly. "

That's being done already isn't it? For example Radiohead, Peter Gabriel, etc. etc. And what about those who download and then share the files with their friends etc rather than encouraging people to pay?

Yes I think there is a market for direct selling but there as to be a tax on the internet to compensate artists for piracy.

Tracks shouldn't be DRM but they should be "watermarked" cleverly with something like a unique number that identifies the original purchaser to discourage copying - the copies can be traced back - something that unprotected offerings on iTunes+ does already I believe.

And I also think that there can still be record companies. Why? Because of their marketing experience. Sometimes bands need to be managed and marketed correctly; they cannot do all this by themselves. Record companies can know the optimum time to release a track with their marketing intelligence.

Sure they can get it wrong and sure they've quite rightly had some bad press in the past regarding apparently controversial contracts (e.g. George Michael vs Sony (Columbia) but they can get it right sometimes.

In actual fact a record company is a bank - providing advances, a marketing and business management company. And some bands choose not to use the traditional record company and instead use the resources of a consumer brand e.g. Pepsi or Toyota. And why not - it's a romantic an naive person to think that artists shouldn't be rewarded.

With an internet tax, all artists could get some reward, allowing lesser known to flourish through a slice of the funds going to serendipity that the BBC does quite well now but on the back of an unfair licence fee tax.

"Yes I think there is a market for direct selling but there as to be a tax on the internet to compensate artists for piracy."

Well, at that point, you're telling people "Go ahead! Pirate! After all, you've already paid for it!"

I am not confident in the ability of a centralised body to get the right amounts of money to the right people. I cynically expect those people setting up this tax to end up keeping as much as they can for themselves. I also don't see the justice in taxing everyone for something that not everyone does.

Your post shows that you have no idea what the Internet is. Please take some computer classes. TV is content distribution. The Internet is a network of computers, by definition free. I shall avoid using terms that you don't understand, and to keep things simple, shall we just consider the following: What if a company wants to download a database for its clients? What if I'm downloading free operating systems or creative commons licensed works? What if I run a home business? You can't tax on traffic. It would be similar to having to pay a tax to drive your car around your own farm, or a walking tax to go from your kitchen to your bedroom.

I do not like the idea of a tax that goes to organisations I do not approve of being changed to cover the cost of me doing something I never do.

First of all while I do make fairly heavy use of the internet and a fair bit of use of P2P networking, I do not pirate software so why should I pay a tax.

Secondly the cash collected by the various royalties organisations goes to record companies, not artists. Artists do get their bite of the cake sure, but it is a pretty small bite.

I do agree that artists do deserve to be payed for their work and even record companies deserve to get some cash for supporting and promoting artists, but there are other ways to do this. In any event I am far from convinced that people downloading stuff via P2P has a significant effect on the cash that artists receive. All the evidence suggests that people with MP3 players not only download stuff, they also BUY more music, so they are still contributing a fair ammount of cash to the artists and record companies.

I downloaded and paid for quite a few tracks when I found out it was a simple and easy way to buy music. Now, I don't buy it like that at all. Why? I changed my computer and half of them got 'lost'. I paid for them. I want them back. In the days of vinyl, I bought a record and it didn't disappear when I changed my stereo, so why should I be fleeced every time I change my computer hardware?

Sod them. Stingy miserable profiteering b*stards.

I've bought from iTunes but I then burn the tunes to CD-RW and rip them back to the computer, then lossless compress them to FLAC which is about 66% of the size of an uncompressed .WAV audio track but identical to the original. The 33% saving does add up, though off course it is not near the 10% compression that you get with AAC or MP3.

To be honest, with storage memory so cheap and convenient (16Gb memory cards the size of your little finger nail, anyone?!) I would say it is a waste of time to rip your collection to anything less in fidelity than FLAC. Plus FLAC supports multichannel at greater bit depths of 24bit.

A techie point, deviating from the original thread, but while we were talking about collections thought I'd mention it.