For everyone whose guilt over many a furtive, illegal music downloading transgression is still quietly burning a painful, dark hole in your soul: redemption is nigh.
New, legal album-swapping site La-La offers nearly two million CDs available for purchase at just $1 each…and 20% of the proceeds from every sale will go into a foundation that benefits the artists whose music is being traded:
Nguyen predicts that by next year the Z Foundation — which is currently setting aside $10,000 to $50,000 a week — will be disbursing between $10 million to $20 million to musicians in used-album royalties.
And the news only gets better: Not only will La-La provide artists with royalties on secondhand album sales — something they have NEVER received in the past — the site is also working to provide struggling music artists with badly needed access to health care and dental benefits.
Interestingly, the RIAA has “declined to comment” on the La-La business model, which appears to be protected under the “first sale doctrine” of the U.S. Copyright Act, which protects consumers’ right to re-sell or trade legally purchased CDs in any manner they like.
That probably means the RIAA lawyers are frantically digging through precedents and looking for loopholes, so they can hurry up and squelch a brilliant idea that actually benefits consumers AND artists at the same time.
Someone should get those guys a hobby.
