"Fair trade" music - just another cynical marketing term or a viable economic alternative? Only time will tell! For the moment, "fair trade" is the big buzz word on the Internet, with scores of labels and download platforms (many without the slightest ethical qualifications whatsoever) jumping on the FT bandwagon. Meanwhile, over the last decade or so - as the traditional record industry has slid ever deeper into crisis  - a number of forward-thinking entrepreneurs have started applying the principles of fair trade to music. Labels such as Reshape Music and Dyade Art & Développement began cutting out the middle men, working towards greater economic transparency and finding ways of achieving fairer pay for artists and fairer prices for consumers.

"Before I set up my own label," says Jeff Caly, the young Lille-based entrepreneur who launched Reshape Music in 2006, "I thought to myself 'OK, if we managed to conceive of a fair trade system for cotton and coffee, why can't we do the same thing with music?" Reshape Music, a small organisation that promotes and distributes a stable of around forty artists over the Internet, is run along strictly ethical lines. "We give our artists 50% of the public sale price," says Caly, "whereas a traditional record company would pay them a mere 3%." By the end of 2009, Caly plans to go even further, taking direct charge of the production end of things as well. "That's something we really believe in," he says, "but it's difficult to put into place. We've come up with an innovative solution to social economics, but we haven't found a way to make things financially profitable yet."

Meanwhile, over in Grenoble, in south-eastern France, the artists' collective Dyade Art & Développement has been operating according to the same ethical principles for the past nine years. Dyade regularly sends teams out to Morocco to record Moroccan musicians such as the Troupe Afrah and the Troupe des Aïssaoua de Meknès in their homeland, then distributes their records in fair trade boutiques in France. The organisation also arranges tour dates* for the artists involved. The main idea behind Dyade is that any profits are fed straight back into the local community in Morocco. "I believe it's important that artistic creation should have an impact on local life," says Nizar Baraket, co-founder of Dyade Art & Développement, "It helps increase musicians' standing in the community."

Baraket, who is a musician himself, is also a firm believer in cutting out the middle man. "The music industry is currently organised according to a 'Taylorisation' system, employing scores of ultra-specialised intermediaries down the chain and they all have to be paid along the way. That system may function OK for the industry's heavyweights, but it doesn't work at all lower down the scale." Forward-thinking French bands such as Les Ogres de Barback and Les Hurlements d'Léo have been campaigning to shorten that chain for years. Both bands now control almost every stage of the music-making process themselves, believing that musicians are better placed than anyone to defend their economic interests, their social rights and their artistic freedom.

Charlotte Dudignac, co-author of La musique assiégée, d’une industrie en crise à la musique equitable, believes that one of the greatest benefits of the fair trade system is allowing artists to assume greater control of their own work. "I think multi-national record companies have played a major role in infantilising musicians," she says, "Major labels have not always been transparent about how profits are divided up." Fair trade pioneers including Dyade Art & Développement and Fairplaylist ** have now drawn up an "ethical music" charter which, besides guaranteeing artistic autonomy and green production methods, stipulates that concert tickets should be clearly marked with what percentage of the sale price goes to musicians, to the tour organiser and to the venue. And Fairplaylist's Gilles Mordant is hoping that by 2010 an actual  Musique éthique label can be introduced, certifying that music has been produced according to ethical standards (the same way organic food products are guaranteed by labels such as AB). "Music should always be ahead of the game," he insists, "Music should show us how tomorrow's world could be!"