Saturday, September 12, 2009

How to save the arts: An arts budget?

I just had a thought. One of those thoughts that I think could be somewhat revolutionary and want to expand more upon. I know it's kind of boastful to say this on a random internet message board:

Newspapers, tv revenue, music, it's all in decline and it's partially our fault. Sure more things are available for free, but that doesn't mean we have to take them for free.

I understand we used to get into the habit of saying, it's too expensive to pay for a song so we downloaded the song for free, but now so much is free that we are undercutting the very artists we love in all forms and the balance tips in our favor: writers, musicians, tv show producers and filmmakers.

We take the free content without paying for it often out of habit. The platforms that are giving out this free content like youtube are not servicing themselves financially (youtube's losing money for example) and not servicing their artists.

In order for anything to change, we need to take responsibility.

Here's a thought: I think we should allocate in arts budget within our disposable income. We used to go to the CD and buy CDs and that would be part of our budget. Let's each make it a point to spend that same amount of money on music in one way or another. I don't care how. Buy an mp3, donate to a band, buy a T-shirt if you know the proceeds will go to that band. Whatever it is, i think it hsould be seen that way.

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