Considering how difficult it is for music producers to force music listeners to pay them, we need to find an alternative form of funding. I propose that fans pay the music producers (musicians and recording studios) to release their songs and recordings under a liberal Creative Commons license. This business model is similar to those used by member-supported public radio stations, which could be a supporter of this project (for example, WYEP, http://www.wyep.org).

Public radio stations use the "challenge grant" to give contributors "more bang for their buck". This can be universalized with assurance contracts, as implemented by Fundable.org(http://fundable.org/). Each fan agrees to contribute a certain amount of money ONLY if the total contribution from all fans is enough to "buy" the music.

Once music is released under a Creative Commons license, bands can get publicity from radio play or from systems like Indy Radio (http://indy.tv)

One side effect of this program should be that income is more evenly distributed among musicians and more high-quality music should be produced-- we would have many musicians making $100,000 a year instead of having a few musicians making $10,000,000 per year.

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