CanadaJams

wenda atkin

Jon asked us to post this to invite you all...

"Big Music has for the past decade and more mischaracterised the hundreds of millions of men, women and children around the world who share music with each other online as hard-core criminals and thieves, claiming files shared equal sales lost.

A moment's thought puts the lie to this, even setting aside academic and other studies such as, say, Felix Oberholzer (Harvard Business School) and Koleman Strumpf's (UNC Chapel Hill) The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales.

It states clearly: "Downloads have an effect on sales which is statistically indistinguishable from zero, despite rather precise estimates" and, "Moreover, these estimates are of moderate economic significance and are inconsistent with claims that file sharing is the primary reason for the recent decline in music sales."

a2f2a.com is now online underpinned by the principle: Artists need to be paid, and fans want to pay them.

Billy Bragg and I founded it with three goals »»»

1. Help each community better understand the other;
2. Help find a practical and workable system which offers artists fair remuneration in exchange for access to material by fans; and
3. Help set the agenda for discussions about the role P2P can play within the online digital record industry.

Our initiative is based on two principles that are central to the beliefs of the p2p community. Firstly, there's no technological solution to the problems artists face as a result of the digitisation of music; and, secondly, P2P users are more than willing to pay for music if they can be sure their money is going to the artists whose work they enjoy."

If any Canadajams readers would like to get into this a little, or a lot, we'd love to see you over at the site."

Now's a good time to see how this is all unfolding - here is the link:

http://a2f2a.com/