The MUDDA manifesto

The Magnificent Union of Digitally Downloading Artists

WHY? - Transform creativity.

- No constraint, editing or external control over what is released.
- No time limit on the length of music.
- No more waiting for an album cycle.
- Be creative with what you sell and how much you sell it for. For example, release several stages of the process, sell a process, the evolution of a song and not just a single ‘piece of product’.

WHY? - Full, fair and fast payment.

- By allowing artists to become their own retailer they can be at the top of the food chain, not their traditional place at the bottom.
- The official artist Website is a great place from which to see your catalogue, so why not allow fans to buy downloads from this site.
- Sales can be monitored instantly.
- Artists' share of retail can be accounted for monthly.
- Where artist can license directly (on any project where there is no record company) artist can get the full dealer price as well as a percentage of retail.

WHY? - Reasons to be cheerful.

- We can put music back in the hands of musicians.
- Artists can take some ownership and creative control of the output and delivery as well as the content.
Artists can negotiate from a position of strength.
- With enough artists acting together it's not too late to transform the music business to be one of partnership - not just contract and servitude.
- With good filtering and easy access, we can use the technology to compete with free.