Is this it?
http://pocketgroovesgso.blogspot.com/
If so, I read the latest blog on the site about "Session Players vs Free Musicians". I was going to comment on that blog, but I guess I'll comment here instead since I think it's relevant to this crowd.
We've come a point in technology where "it" (technology) places into the hands of "non-professionals" tools that give them access to professional output. That doesn't mean they have an eye or an ear for what professional output IS, but they are able to wing-it from home and this is going to create a shift in how art is percieved so hang on tight.
Let me explain from the perspective of my wife who is a professional photographer - she studied her art in school, was taught by her parents and worked in the field for over 25 years using traditional film photography. There was a time when if you needed a wall portrait, you had one option - visit a professional who had access to a lab with the equipment to touch-up, create and package a 24" framed wall portrait. Photography in the day paid special attention to lighting, poses and focus.
In the past decade, the rise of the camera cell-phone, digital camera and computers has changed the availability of photography to virtually anyone who owns a cell phone or a computer. You will be hard-pressed to find a lab these days that actually takes FILM and develops it. Everything has gone digitial, including the traditional Hausalblad wide format cameras.
Now, as this has happened, the next generation are exposed to an increasingly wide variety of "non-traditional" poses - that is, pictures are now journalistic in style, free form, not posed but more candid. Colors, be because of digitital photography and LED screens have become less rigid, more neon (to the professional eye) and as such, younger generations are incapable of seeing quality as defined by older generations. The art of traditional photography, has in effect, passed away unawares by the general population. How people view photographs these days is entirely different than just a decade ago. Culture has changed it's taste, and now traditional photography is no longer a dish people are willing to pay big money for given the fact anyone with a cell phone can do a wedding session - and, because people have no comparision to gauge that cell phone picture with a quality picture, the old saying "ignorence is bliss" applies.
Back to music. I've read a discussion on here about the superiority of vinyl and tape (analog) music to that over digital. See the similarity? The art of music, and people taste perception of music is changing at society level. People who have never experienced traditional photos will no less miss it than people how have never experienced tape/vinyl.
Digital in both respects puts at the fingertips of otherwise non-professionals, and elevates them to a status than they otherwise could have been, but because they haven't studied the art/medium/style/quality, they are quite satisfied with what comes out and this is by no means an isolated event - this is society wide.
So when I hear people say "people shouldn't play for free", I think of the open source movement in software, the expanse in home-photography and home-recording and I think, how on earth can you avoid it? You certainly wouldn't want to legislate it would you?
It boils down, in my opinion, to two things you can do as an artist. Sell yourself on quality that the non-professional is incapable of because the non-professional is lost with out technology to make him, and secondly, expect where society is goin and hit that path first. Expect that music, photography, and all those areas of technology that put the general public in a position to do "otherwise professional only trade-worK', will do so as a hobby and therefore free.
Whether you like it or not, hobbyists are now equipped with professional grade tools and are quite willing to do their hobby at no cost. So you're going to have to come up with a creative way to beat the hobbyist. See where we're going first, then beat them there. I don't know what that looks like in the music world - i"m not a professional artist as much as I wish I could be, but in the photography world, selling prints just doesn't cut it because everyone expects a DVD filled with 300 "no strings/copyright" attached for use on facebook, etc.
Long story short, don't bury your head in the sand.
Thanks!
If you want to respond on the blog, that would be great!