billso.com

One of my favorite bands, They Might Be Giants (TMBG) answers questions about DRM, from MSNBC:

“Q: Is this the way you see things going in the future - artists securing digital rights?

A: It was a strange negotiation. Extracting them was not as simple as it sounds, and most people don’t go to the effort of holding on to that stuff. I feel like in some ways we’re just a couple of beats ahead of the general curve. It remains to be seen how great it will be. I wouldn’t be surprised if paying for recorded music becomes an obsolete idea in general.

Q: How would you eat, then?

A: That’s my problem. Being a musician is an unreasonable idea anyway. The life expectancy of a professional career in music is five or 10 years. That would be a long run. It’s not something you do because you’re being sensible. We’ve been curiously blessed with an audience that was interested in what we’re doing in a pretty sincere way. It’s hard to say why we endure. I think the sad thing is that we’re going to see a lot more actors making records and the whole thing is going to seem like a bad superprovincial version of rock.”