And to this question: Why should a musician who sells one million albums a year be paid so much more than the editor of a national newspaper that sells one billion copies a year?

Don’t newspaper generally have much larger staffs than your average album? Especially if it’s one musician who writes their own stuff, not a band (and even then). Plus there’s whole bit where they only need to come up with one album’s worth of material, and not new material on a daily basis. The analogy doesn’t work at all (unless he wants to talk about how both newspaper and album sales both dropped thanks to the internets).

I’ve bought plenty of Grace Jones records with money. I’d happily pay more money to see her play a concert. Did anyone from her label email me to say she was playing in London on a Thursday night when I was at home watching Bonekickers? No. They took my money and didn’t even get my name.. I know my ideas about privacy and not freely giving out personal information are so antiquated nowadays, but there’s way too many businesses trying to get info off of their customers already. Is it that hard to check on what shows might be going on where you live on your own?

Rock stars used to be “gods” because, much like the great and powerful Oz, most people had limited exposure beyond records and radio to the artists…This added to their mystique…now there are opportunities across a variety of mediums for artists to be seen and subsequently overexposed and de-mystified…

Considering what a java developer or hedge fund mgr can pull down I dont see how this comparison is a bad one. Back in my “musician without a day job” era, I would gladly have taken a career in music making 100K. Trust me that where I am located anyone who can spell Java is pulling down nearly $100K and those with experience actually architecting application development 25% to 50% more than that.

His argument seems to be sour grapes, like somehow artists should operate under a salary cap that fits his view of their perceived value…poppycock.