Ar, Matey

So, as we all know (because the RIAA, MPAA and their fellow travellers keep telling us) music piracy is going to destroy the entertainment industry, leaving us all with nothing to do but bang pots and pans together at night, right?

Not so fast. China is essentially the land the copyright forgot - most Chinese would laugh at the prices that westerners pay for music and movies (and well they should!) So how is the music industry doing in China? Funny you should ask...

Music pirating is so rampant and so entrenched in China that it's unlikely to ever be eradicated. Chinese consumers have come to believe that music is worth, at most, a few cents a song, and that copying and sharing music are totally acceptable. In all probability, no company will ever be able to sell $15 CDs or 99 cents-a-song downloads in the world's most populous nation....

But the biggest concern is that this will be terrible for artists. If artists can't earn money, economic logic says they might stop making music, which would be a major loss for society.

But is that equation true? While visiting USA TODAY last week, Roger McGuinn, who led the Byrds in the 1960s, said he earned just 0.0007 cents on each early Byrds album sold. ... thanks to the machinations of the recording industry, McGuinn has never made any real money on even his most popular recorded music.

Yet he's done OK and now has a forward-thinking business model. He has a Web site, www.mcguinn.com, where he posts free songs. McGuinn made his most recent solo CD by recording it on his laptop and paying to have copies produced and packaged. He sells the CDs online and at concerts and says it's the first time he's ever made a profit on an album....

Chinese rock stars aren't getting as wealthy as, say, Michael Jackson, but Quek raises an interesting question: Why should they? Only a relatively few American rockers ever sell enough CDs to get fabulously rich. Should society care if rockers can't afford to build their own backyard amusement parks?

The vast majority of music artists bob along in the middle. They don't sell enough CDs to earn out their advances. They earn a living on the road and maybe from publishing royalties if they write songs. Such artists would benefit if the industry shifted to a model that includes more — and more innovative — ways for artists to make money.

It's difficult to think of ways that actors (as opposed to musicians) could adapt similarly. Although, who knows? Maybe a return to travelling drama troupes is in the works. Embrace the future of live entertainment!