Musician hears discord in statement

IN his article “Making It Easier to Get Your Phil” [March 17], Scott Timberg states that “musicians’ unions have been an impediment to recording American orchestras” and that “their efforts to share in any profits” -- what James Jolly, former editor of Britain’s Gramophone magazine, calls “ ‘a stranglehold’ -- might also hold back orchestras’ move to downloadable music.”

This indignation is extremely well placed but grossly understated.

Really, how dare those pesky musicians expect to be paid for what they created? Where do they get this insane notion that they deserve to share in any income generated through distribution of a product to which they contributed absolutely nothing, except of course for their exceptional talents and lifelong hard work?

Why shouldn’t people distributing the product pocket all of the money, without sharing any of it with people who actually made the product?

If this kind of chutzpah becomes contagious, perfectly reasonable journalists like Timberg and Jolly might start demanding that they too get paid for what they do. What an outrageously petty idea!

MARK KASHPER

Los Angeles

Kashper is a violinist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.