Popular singer-songwriter Juliana Hatfield, who has spanned from near-punk to glittery-pop over her career, is trying something new via her website. In a manifesto about file-sharing that calls both the big four and the p2p pirates to the carpet for their own respective sins, a representative for Hatfield lays out a new plan.
"There's a furor raging over the legal and ethical reality of music downloading and sharing. On the one hand there are huge multinational corporations suing children and grandparents for copying digital files that let them listen to songs so ubiquitous as "Paranoid" and "Happy Birthday."
On the other side of the line drawn in the silica is most of the rest of the world whose sense of entitlement makes them think the work of artists belongs, somehow, inalienably, to the people. Copy and share, copy and share. This part of the world somehow believes that acquiring the product of artists' labor is obviously helping the artists, just by listening."
As an alternative, she's made a large chunk of back-catalog available for free, as DRM-less downloads. What she's asking in return is pretty reasonable:
"you can support the artist who wrote and recorded this song and click the PayPal button at the top of the page and send Juliana a contribution. The iTunes standard of $.99 per song may seem too high for you, in which case you can send $.50 - though there is virtually nothing else you can buy legally for $.50. Alternatively, you can think of the number of people with whom you might share these files and give a multiple of $.99 for each song you download. If you don't have a means by which you can use PayPal or if you're opposed to the burgeoning online drain of your credit, feel free to send a dollar in the mail to Juliana at Ye Olde Records, P.O. Box 398110, Cambridge MA 02139."
1. Jane Sidberry [who apparently has recently changed her name to Issa] has been using self-determined pricing on her site for sometime now.
INteresting because she also shares the stats regarding how many people pay suggested price/above/below etc.
Avaerage price to date =1.14
http://www.sheeba.ca/store/index.php
Posted at 4:06PM on Sep 6th 2006 by Rob