God bless Stephen Page.  Well, not just Stephen. 

Fronted by the PR mugshot of Stephen Page, the group includes Barenaked Ladies, Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlan, Chantal Kreviazuk, Sum 41, Stars, Raine Maida (Our Lady Peace), Dave Bidini (Rheostatics), Billy Talent, John K. Samson (Weakerthans), Broken Social Scene, Sloan, Andrew Cash and Bob Wiseman (Co-founder Blue Rodeo).

They have dubbed themselves the Canadian Music Creators Coalition and they’re here to save the day.

Finally, big name Canadian artists are speaking out intelligently about the fundamental changes taking place in the music industry.  The best part is that they actually agree that their own best interests as professional music makers are very much aligned with the best interests of their customers.  Of course, this naturally puts them at odds with the stubborn, lethargic, bloated industry middlemen like major labels, collecting societies, and CRIA who think that sueing more teenagers is the answer.

I won’t bother copy-and-pasting their position here since it’s in plain, easy-to-read language on the homepage of their website.  Please take a couple of minutes to read it though, and educate yourself on the truth about how the artists really feel when it comes to digital music, downloads, copyrights, digital rights management, and most importantly building and maintaining relationships with their fan base.

These musicians understand that their fans pay the bills.  If it weren’t for a fan base, they would never make a (VERY profitable) living writing and performing music.  They understand that fostering a long term relationship with a fan is the best way to optimize the lifetime value of that fan.

To Stephen and the rest of the gang, good on you!  Don’t stop with a press release, a byline piece in the paper, and some morning show interviews.  Let’s make sure that real change happens.  Sustainable change.  Mutually beneficial change.  I think your best bet is to bring me on as Marketing and Communications Director for the Coalition.

As you might expect, this movement has garnered a lot of attention.  I came across interesting posts by D’Arcy Norman, Rob Hyndman, and Kim Siever while I was doing some digging around.