“Some people are excellent songwriters but terrible performers – and vice versa. Both sides of the equation need to be compensated. Could this work under a “work for hire” situation? Maybe, and there are some times when it does (studio artists or backup singers for performers, jingle writing for composers, etc).”

There is compensated and then there is compensated.
Compensated for work done and paid for it, it is all good and well, work compensated for eternity for every use under the sun is not.

“But the music industry is mainly set up as a “spec” system, where nobody gets paid until the music is sold. Blaming songwriters for this is a lot like blaming salesmen because they work on commission.”

Every one has a choice, they could make different choices but they don’t and they finance groups like ASCAP, RIAA and the MPAA, so no I do believe they are guilty and weather it is by incompetence, apathy or greed it really doesn’t matter the end result is the same, trying to take their ass out of the line and blame some imaginary set of rules is not convincing.

“But think of it this way. iTunes is selling music downloads. They have every right to do so. Who, exactly, do you think should get the money? The labels, iTunes, or the artists?”

iTunes. they are the ones creating the market, they are the ones doing the promoting, they are the ones who found a market others should try to emulate them or die trying but not have part of it and that is because I don’t like Apple, but I do like less the people who can’t make a business work for themselves and need to keep creating rules of what is moral or imoral, what it is just and not and don’t want to work for it.

If it was up to me music would have no licenses and everybody could sell it or distribute it or play it in public, artists specially musicians still have other means to make a buck and songwriters would just be paid like reporters, that don’t hold copyrights on their writings, maybe reporters should start claiming copyright and ownership on the news would that make sense?

“Currently, only the labels and iTunes get the money – because they’re treated like CD’s, and we all know most artists don’t make a dime from selling CD’s. This just gives the artists a stake in the game, and I’m not opposed to that.”

Neither the labels nor the artists deserve any money from the work done by others just like artists shouldn’t have to pay others when they create something from sources they found in the public space. People try for years to create markets and vultures come in and try to take it away, that is how it works today, and it is a shame.

“You can’t sell anything to “the public” once. You can sell to individual members of the public, but that’s the business model we have now. Unless you mean accepting one lump sum to put songs in the public domain – but in that case, who would pay? The government?”

Really, people pay once for the song and can do with it what they like?
No that is not what happens people have to keep paying forever and that is not only unsustainable is just ludicrous a bubble of entitlement that some trully believe in, unfortunately they can’t defend it, it just doesn’t work that way in reality.

“In practice, “work for hire” songwriters sell their music to their clients. But the clients then own all the rights to the work, regardless of the songwriter’s intent. Being businesses, they are generally even less inclined to let others use that work than the songwriter.”

That it is true about business that is why this was a social failing, we fail to compete with business, but programs like kickstarter, slicethepie and others are remedies to that, is not “work for hire” is the license scheme called copyright that give vasts rights to people who really don’t deserve any the so called “copyright holder”. I’m ignoring the attempted bill referenced because it would make work for hire a reality but it wouldn’t reduce the copyright rights that enable it to be so bad, so I don’t see the relevance, work for hire is not a problem. expansive copyright is.

You do not seem to have an appreciation for song writers, perhaps you should write your own songs. song writters take time to develop a work and if a songs lives on forever , becuase it is a good song, then of course they should recoup royalties. I have been developing song wrtting skills for over five years and im not about to hand them over to some one else to make lots of money form. oh this is to the guy who said song writter should be for hire. well they can if they want to. but im not about to hand over my gold for a few pennies. You have to be kidding.