There are plenty of artists that would like to rollback the clock to the days prior to illegal music sharing. I have come to believe that this would be a colossal mistake. I don’t say this because I believe that illegal sharing is justified; in fact I am against the ‘attitude’ entirely. Confused yet? This post is going to bring up a pile of unanswered questions like how would one solve the conundrum of enabling yet disabling? So please just consider the philosophical argument.
To eliminate or to throttle file sharing is an assault on your rights as an artists. Moreover, to eliminate or to throttle file sharing (in my mind) is an act that would reduce competition in the marketplace.
As detestable as you may think file sharing is, eliminating it or throttling it disables your rights to compete against other choices in the marketplace on the basis of price. And trust me, with a million songs being uploaded to the Internet a year, combined with advancements in music recommendation, you (the independent artist - and as a group) want to preserve every competitive option you have available to you.
Go back and read the about the Song Adoption Formula or the update to the formula titled Where Have All The Musical Geniuses Gone.
Any law, regulation or policy that prevents you or your songs from obtaining maximum listeners, spins, frequency or socialization - with the least amount of friction (translate: no perceived barriers between consumers and your songs) reduces your ability to compete (based upon price) against major label content.
You don’t want anything that prohibits you from charging whatever you want for your songs.
You don’t want anything that slows distribution, spins (within personal devices), frequency, or socialization.
Like I said at the top of the post, this brings up a list of other problems. However I would caution you all to truly consider if you want your government to act in a way that diminishes your rights.
I am traveling today. It may be hard for me to respond to comments.