Compensating philosophers

I had a thought about copyright and artist compensation. The whole system is a bit like rewarding philosophers. If we have a pack of philosophers sitting around thinking, we could pay them all a salary, but we don't actually know they're doing anything valuable. Therefore, we delay their payment until later. They struggle to survive in the meantime, but we know we're getting quality product. Then the whole thing becomes a bit more popular, so we take the payment scheme to the people and let them decide whether to pay the philosophers, because what we're really after is popular philosophy.

Now we have to realise that the philosophers are not producing anything that can be controlled. It's thought, not things. Therefore we are paying them not for what they produce, but for their productive labour. That's what paying for music is about - rewarding artists for their efforts, not (directly) for the music they produce.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Paying for copies of the music is, however, the easiest way to pay artists for effort.
PPS - The same goes for books, movies and television.