But that situation is likely to change over the next couple of decades, as the Internet enables artists and fans to find each other and more directly interact. That interaction can (and more and more often will) include direct music sales without middlemen except where the middlemen are hired by the artist, just so he or she can avoid the mechanics of billing and shipping. Middlemen who are only handling the mechanics will get a much smaller chunk of the money than the traditional labels do; they will compete against each other in a cutthroat narrow-margin business because they won't have a lock on the artists.

At that point, copying music without compensating anyone may go from being a cultural norm to something that most people frown upon. They will want the artist to be paid, but just in such a way that the mechanism for paying doesn't get in the way of their day-to-day use of the music.

To continue playing devil's advocate on this issue, it seems that tariffs could be a way to accomplish that. Certainly a much better way than extensive, ultra-invasive copy protection, and also more reliable and less bothersome than tipping. Fans wouldn't have to do anything; they could get their music from whatever service served it most conveniently, and the artists would be paid according to the amount their stuff is listened to.

Check Matt for the other side of the argument.
9:33:54 AM