We’ve already posted how pleased we are that Amanda Palmer is a class act and did the right thing by recognizing her error in not wanting to pay her local pick-up musicians. The part of this story that really excites us however is that the creative community came together to effect positive change. No part of this story involved the RIAA or the MPAA. No part of this story involved an evil record label (unless you include Palmer as the Label). This story was very simply about artists expressing sadness and anger at the continued exploitation of their labor. The swift movement started with one letter, in a single blog post by Amy Vallincourt-Sals of Classical Revolution Portland.

The most important take away here is that many artists added their voices to this discussion for fair compensation, even if they were not directly effected. It’s time for more artists and creators to learn from this experience and support each other as a community. As we posted last week, many artists are being affected by an attempt from internet corporations to weasel out of paying royalties to artists on sites like Pandora.

Now artists are faced with the intentionally mistitled “Internet Radio Fairness Act” which is designed to be a transfer of wealth from artists to internet companies in a wall street style bail out attempt to prop up their failing business models on the backs of artists. We hope that all artists and creators see this as a community issue and not one that just effects musicians.

We’re excited to see the community of creators, artists, and musicians recognizing that we are all in this together, and when we work together we can create positive change as witnessed by Amanda Palmer rethinking her position this past week on paying her musicians.