In the meantime it’s good news for independent artists, songwriters, composers publishing their own material. Like Malcolm Hume is saying, they can use this media moment to tell the world to embed their content without being charged by a collecting society like Buma/Stemra.

On behalf of many thousands of them I would like to say: thank you for the FREE (media) attention so far!

I don’t see what Mariko Peters is off about – nobody would force anyone to be a part of that organization. Independent musicians would still be able to promote their work however they want, give it away, hope for viral marketing, whatever, and even if they enter into an arrangement with a collection agency for compulsory licensing they can still draw contracts on a case by case basis or release stuff under a commons license or any license they see fit. That guy either doesn’t know what he’s talking about or he’s spreading FUD on purpose for political gain.

Fortunately, they’ve already abandoned part of this plan and announced they will not go after private internet users with non-commercial websites, because of all the public and political outrage. Still, they should abandon the plan altogether. All it does is hurt the music industry. The idiots.