I believe that asking for donations is, indeed, “begging” for money in order to help continue one’s pursuit of making music as a primary activity in life. Since when is being an artist not a profession, one that results in works of art that should be sold, rented and/or licensed for use and not just given away with a meek thought like “oh please, if you like what I have created please consider donating some money to me so I can pay my bills (add appropriate tone of thought)”?

Of course, if your music and/or your ability to get it heard is not quite up to snuff, for whatever reason, then your income from it might not be enough to make a living mainly from making music, even if you are trying to do so (as is the case, of course, with most musical and other types of artists). That’s the way it should be and if you don’t like that you can move to a country where the government supports the arts and try to live off of grants instead. Again, if you are not good enough, whether it is your music or your social/promotional skills, you will not make it there either. OK then, get another job. Maybe music is not for you. It’s indeed a hard earned privilege to make a living as an artist, and so it should be. Keep it as a hobby and enrich (or irritate your friends or family. Just like in other areas of human life, like finding a partner, there are all kinds of skills that help you succeed. It should take quite some effort to make it as any kind of artist, and if you are lucky enough that you feel it was not so hard for you, well that’s great. But if it is not working out, don’t resort to begging for money because all you are saying is that your music is not worth enough for people to buy it, fair and square, if they are enjoying listening to it, or that you are not able, again for whatever reason, to make a living at it. And, by begging, you are hurting other musicians and composers by helping reduce the value of composing and performing music as a profession (something we really do not need right now). If you are providing ‘added value’ for the ‘extra’ money you are asking for, then that’s OK. Then it is not begging. Just simply asking someone for money to support your “career”, is. There are many ways of increasing the income from your musical career beyond the income from the sale of a CD or an mp3 file, without having to resort to ‘begging’. Today it is so incredibly simple, thanks to the internet, to get to know any artist’s catalog before committing to buying any of it, which you can also mostly do track by track, that there is no reason to do anything but buy (or, for productions, license) music and related extras, and thereby supporting the artist, through legal and artist friendly channels (another discussion, to be sure). In my opinion, that’s how artists should be ‘supported’, period

Frankly, I much prefer buying books/music used and supporting artists through donations. I have utterly no interest in paying intermediaries, marketing, distribution, etc. etc. because I do not want or use their services. What use would I possibly have for a CD? I want 100% of my money to go to the guy/gal who made the work – not a few cents. Good riddance if the publishers go out of business! I prefer digital for both books *and* music.

I think it’s great that you’re having success, congrats! Of course, your model actually has the “donors” getting something specific in return for their “donation.” That’s a long-standing approach with copyrighted works, it’s basically a new form of licensing. I think that’s a bit different from the charity the author is seeking in this post.

I’m not looking to pass judgment here or tell people what is acceptable or unacceptable, quite the opposite. Artists should be free to choose whatever model works for them and adjust as the situation warrants.

My issue is with folks who feel the Internet’s disruption is such that creators shouldn’t be able to have all of the choices available to them, that consumers should be able to dictate terms of their payment (beyond the power we already have of not buying). One model bandied about frequently is that creators give away the actual “content” and monetize non-rivalrous goods such as T-shirts. The donation button is often cited as a way of partially replacing the income the creator is walking away from. Again, let the creator decide if they want to do that.

We’ve been doing that exact thing for our upcoming album and have been pretty successful with it. Call it begging if you want, but we’re in the studio now thanks to this whole thing.

http://www.sinch.net/store/the-new-album

DataRevenue.Org is quoted as saying the government is basically responsible for the undermining of its own copyright system…….

“And so, it is the government that should help fix this mess on behalf of creators of copyrighted materials which is protected by the Constitution of the U.S. Although our government may have missed this opportunity via the “first edition” Internet they can get it right this time with the “second edition” Internet, Mobile Networks. After all, in time there will be many more Internet transactions done via mobile networks
and devices than tethered Internet transactions. Now’s the time to put these measures in place.