New Music Boss, Worse Than Old Music Boss 567
frank_adrian314159 writes "David Lowery, musician (Cracker, Camper Van Beethoven), producer (Sparklehorse, Counting Crows), recording engineer (Archers of Loaf, Lamb of God), and geek (programmer, packet radio operator, ex-CBOT quant) talks about the economics of the music business and how the 'old boss' — the record labels — have been replaced by the new boss — file downloading services, song streaming, and commercial online music stores. His take? Although the old boss was often unfair to artists, artists are making even less money under the new boss. Backed with fairly persuasive data, he shows that, under the new distribution model, artists — even small independent ones — are exposed to more risk while making less money. In addition, the old boss was investing in the creation of new music, while the new boss doesn't. This article is lengthy, but worth the attention of anyone interested in the future of music or music distribution."
Fairly well known issue (Score:4, Insightful)
Many indie artists tried the service for several months and when the payout time came, they found out they only got a few hundreds (if even that) from the service. It was serious degrade from their previous earnings.
At the same time, Spotify shareholders and investors include EMI, Sony BMG and Universal Music Group. Since Spotify only paid small share to artists, the labels profited from increased stock prices. Because of this, they didn't need to pay artists any share but still profited greatly.
So yeah, there you go. Do you really think you're wiser than these guys? Keep trying to get around them, and they will assfuck you even more. Seriously. Do it. If you want to destroy any nice music we have.
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:5, Insightful)
So where's this new boss? I see new method of old boss at work here.
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:5, Interesting)
You don't *need* the labels anymore. It's the known and comfortable thing, but if you change the business model from selling music to selling actual 'stuff' using the music now your potential market is as vast as the internet.
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:5, Insightful)
Spotify shareholders and investors include EMI, Sony BMG and Universal Music Group.
Aren't those the old music bosses? So not a good example.
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:5, Insightful)
Yup, and they've innovated a new way to rob artists blind.
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not even am original scam. It's just an extension of the "marketing your record costs lots of money" scam. Stealing royalties via exaggerated expenses and inadequate invoice management is hardly an innovation. Why do you think everyone from the Beatles to King Crimson have had to take legal avenues to even get accurate sales figures?
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:5, Informative)
New artists can't do that, because they don't have the funds upfront.
The old school recording industry was not only music discovery and production but also the finance arm/bank. It would be no different if a new act went to a regular bank, and convinced them to loan $1,000,000 (which wouldn't happen anyway) for 'production costs and marketing'. All but 'some tiny percentage' would go directly back to the bank to pay off the loan. The 'recording industry' just inserted themselves in as the bank. And profited heavily off of that function.
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, there is a difference. A bank will give you a loan and expect you to pay it back with a certain interest rate. When you've paid that back, you just have to pay your other costs, rest of your income goes into your pocket. With a record label you're forever stuck with only getting a small cut, and sometimes they even withhold a part of this to cover costs they think belong to the artist.
This is different. I don't think anyone would ever take a loan from a bank that demands that 90% of all future income from the investment go straight to the bank.
Also, the bank hopes to see you succeed(for obvious reasons), but can't really impact your success, and would be indifferent of your success if you went to another bank. Record labels on the other hand will try to block independent artists from breaking into the mainstream radio playlists(RIAA labels probably tolerate eachother though), unless they can force/convince you to sign, because you're their competition.
Re: (Score:3)
Actually, there is a difference. A bank will give you a loan and expect you to pay it back with a certain interest rate. When you've paid that back, you just have to pay your other costs, rest of your income goes into your pocket. With a record label you're forever stuck with only getting a small cut, and sometimes they even withhold a part of this to cover costs they think belong to the artist. This is different. I don't think anyone would ever take a loan from a bank that demands that 90% of all future income from the investment go straight to the bank.
Lots of people would if they believed the investment they made with that loan would make them rich and famous. Especially if they felt (whether correct or not) that they had no other options for getting the loan. And that only counts the people who understand what they are signing. Quite a few others would take it because the loan officer promised them everything they wanted while glossing over the details.
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:5, Interesting)
What I don't see is Starbucks able to get away with locking small shops completely out of competition based solely on not allowing competitors to rent the space, like the big record labels can do ("Can we buy up every minute of the day's radio signals and refuse to play nice with artists, period? Well sure we can!!").
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:5, Insightful)
Good post. The elephant in the room for this bank metaphor is that banks are not stupid enough to lend thousands of dollars to young musicians because almost every band ever started fails. It doesn't take a bank analyst to realize that young, unproven bands are an extremely high-risk investment. Aside from the possibility of flat-out sucking, there are plenty of other pitfalls for them: drugs, stds, changing tastes of the public, and the fact that touring is a wretched endeavor until you reach a certain threshold of popularity. From what I've seen, recording advances (i.e, MONEY) are much harder to come by today than they were 10-15 years ago. I might be blind, but I don't see youtube or spotify or rhapsody handing out money to cultivate new bands and yet they profit enormously from new music and old music alike.
There's an excellent book describing the economics of the music industry called "All You Need to Know About the Music Business" [donpassman.com] by Donald S. Passman. Don't let the bland title fool you. It's a good book and describes how lucky artists might get 15% of revenues after a label "recoups" their investment. It also describes typical advance amounts -- $200,000 for a band in the late nineties. This may sound like a lot until you realize a band (and their staff) have to create their recordings, pay rent, buy/maintain a touring vehicle, eat, etc. Managers and Lawyers are also likely to skim up to 25% for their services. And even if you are successful, the record label will tell you that they have to 'recoup' the cost of electricity to air-condition Jimmy Iovine's bedroom on his 3rd yacht before you get your 15%. Try housing and feeding 4 band members, roadies, etc for a year or two with what's left after all the other expenses are paid. Admittedly, this book is out of date now but it does provide a good window on the music industry as it used to be and some information is still relevant. The abiding lesson in it is to get a good lawyer to defend against nearly a century's worth of accumulated douchebaggery you can expect from recording companies and distributors.
What has not changed is that you still need these:
* A great song that appeals to some demographic with disposable income
* A great producer/engineer to make your recording
* Publicity so that the world knows about your song
* Revenue to survive and sustain the creative process
I'd love to see a business school analysis of the industry's outlook. I don't have an MBA, but I'd be willing to bet that the assessment would be that the potential for profiting in the music industry has diminished greatly in the past decade for a variety of reasons:
* Lower barriers to entry (lower cost to record music due to cheap new gear, lower distribution cost due to internet, etc.) will introduce lots of competition. E.g., new 'competitors' like Rebecca Black or anything recorded in someone's garage.
* Other low-cost forms of entertainment (e.g., facebook, games, youtube, netflix, etc.) will introduce competition for listener's time and money
* Both the music industry and the entertainment industry in general will become increasingly splintered as more bands make music and more types of entertainment proliferate due to aforementioned competition. Margins will drop accordingly.
* Changing user expectations and 'unauthorized' distribution of recordings undermine (eliminate?) the ability of a band to extract revenue from the recordings they make. I.e., the kids think music is free and give it for free to all their friends. No one really has to pay the artist for their song any more. The fact is that spending on music recordings today is voluntary regardless of any other agreements or DRM or terms of use or whatever. Because of this fact, recordings probably shouldn't be viewed as a product but rather as marketing.
At the same time, there are some factors working in favor of musicians:
* New recording technology (not including instruments, amps, and mic
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:5, Interesting)
yeah, but funding was largely a sham. Dave is right that studio time and agents don't get paid a percentage of record sales, but there are numerous errors in that chart he shows as well as his rebuttal of it, and I can see where this bass player was coming from. Fees for agents, studio time, and expenses all come out of the musician's pocket, not the studio's pocket. The chart completely missed the 10-15% songwriter cut, which for my band was a slightly larger share than share the entire band got (admittedly it was a bad contract, but we couldn't afford lawyers), divvied between all of us, but we never saw a cent of it - all those earnings went to pay studio time (primarily). Our singer songwriter made money on the album, the rest of us didn't.
All in all it wasn't a failure, though - the band actually made a meager living on the road, and I made a decent living by also playing in both a variety band and as a cellist (solo and quartet) at weddings. In the early-to-mid 1990s both of these gigs paid MUCH better than my band, and both were organized by my variety band's business - I was more like an employee, not an owner, unlike with the band (technically I wasn't an owner, but we divvied the profits) - I'm sure the owner took a large %age, but still $2k-5k (I made 5k twice doing both cello solo and variety band) a gig was pretty awesome. Unfortunately, variety bands ceded to DJs in the mid-1990s and I went back to school and finished my degree so I didn't have to live by random and becoming much more sparse income anymore. The band had broken up by then anyway (mostly over the financial dispute with the record label, and then refusing to make another album without renegotiating our contract - if this sounds familiar, it is hardly rare - see the Stone Roses as an example, and they were much bigger than we were).
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:5, Insightful)
"It would be no different if a new act went to a regular bank, and convinced them to loan $25,000 (which could easily happen depending on credit rating) for 'production costs and marketing'. All but 'some tiny percentage' would go directly back to the bank to pay off the loan."
This is how all small businesses start, and it's really not difficult to secure the startup funds, if you're not ridiculous about it or go in with a few trusted members (hmm, maybe your bass player and drummer?). The hard part is having a good enough product (in this case, music) AND the ability to market that product (in this case, concerts, air time, etc) to expand from there, and if you don't, well... you either find a new product to sell (change the band up, write new and more popular stuff, change genres, etc) or get a job.
I don't claim to know if this would work for musical artists, but I know for sure that it works for a vast amount of other entrepreneurs.
The most ridiculous thing is that in the music industry, these big old huge scary label companies are really just performing the services that normal businesses (small or large) have plain old marketing departments on the payroll for. Why on EARTH would you ever want a *marketing department* completely in charge your product, from R&D to shipping? Seems like it would lead to selling only the products that are easy to market instead of coming up with innovative and terrific products that could be tricky to sell at first.... oh, wait a minute here....
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Sadly only the biggest artists today can play the record labels, since the labels have so much control over the airwaves that unless they like you, you're FSCK'd.
People still listen to the radio?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Are we going t
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:5, Interesting)
Are we going to see millionaire musicians anymore? Absolutely not. Those days are done. But is music dead? Certainly not. But the record labels are no longer needed. An artists can make it on their own. Will they make the same money? No. But this is the point: yes it's less money than before, but it's either that or nothing. The old days are gone and people are going to have to accept it. But it's good because now the artists will own their own creations and can sell directly to the fans and keep all of the profits.
The problem isn't that we aren't going to see millionaire musicians anymore. The problem is that your statement that "an artist can make it on their own" is, for the most part, not true. Never mind millions -- almost no artists are making a basic living selling music anymore. I am a musician -- only an amateur, but I get around enough to know and meet lots of professional musicians, some of whom are pretty well known; and I nobody that makes enough money to eat and pay their rent/utilities from music sales. And this is pretty pervasive -- I've talked about this with lots of artists that are big enough to sell out venues that range in size between 500-3000 people and they all say the same thing: no artists, except those at the absolute top of the heap, are making a living selling their music anymore. You curse the big labels and champion the independence the modern era has allowed artists to have, and those are worthy sentiments to have, and I agree with them. But it's important to remember that perversely, the practical effect of these changes has been that only a small number of artists are making money from music sales, and by and large they aren't independent artists.
These days, to the extent that an artist or act is able to make enough money to continue to make music, that money isn't coming from music sales. It's coming from shows: what they make playing shows (including merchandise sold at shows) minus the costs of doing them. It used to be the other way around: shows existed to promote record sales, and record sales were where the money came from. Now, if you like an act and what them to continue to make music, the best thing you can do for them is go see them live and buy their stuff at the merch table. If I go to a show and I really, really like a band, I'll almost always walk out with a CD (even if it's music I already have -- I'll give it to someone as a gift) because I know that that's what will keep them going.
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:4, Insightful)
Then maybe you should pick a different career where you CAN make money. If there are too many musicians, just as there are too many hamburger & fry flippers, than the income will plummet and be crappy. So choose a higher-paying income, rather than being a musician or McDonalds employee.
NOBODY is owed a living just because they want to do something. *I* happen to like writing science fiction but I'm not stupid enough to think I can make a career out of it. The field of writers is waaaay too full. So I became an engineer instead..... something few people can do, so I get paid big bucks. You (and others) ought to try the same if music isn't working out for you.
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:5, Informative)
Then maybe you should pick a different career where you CAN make money. If there are too many musicians, just as there are too many hamburger & fry flippers, than the income will plummet and be crappy. So choose a higher-paying income, rather than being a musician or McDonalds employee.
NOBODY is owed a living just because they want to do something. *I* happen to like writing science fiction but I'm not stupid enough to think I can make a career out of it. The field of writers is waaaay too full. So I became an engineer instead..... something few people can do, so I get paid big bucks. You (and others) ought to try the same if music isn't working out for you.
Your response strongly suggests that you didn't actually read what I wrote. So just to make a couple of things clear:
1. I'm not *trying* to make any money in music; my "real job" is as a physicist. I'm paid just fine. My post wasn't about me or my situation in the tiniest bit.
2. In no way did I assert that anyone deserves to make money at something simply because they want to do it. How you got that out of my post, I'll never know.
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:4, Insightful)
1. I'm not *trying* to make any money in music; my "real job" is as a physicist. I'm paid just fine. My post wasn't about me or my situation in the tiniest bit.
I think cpu6502 means the plural "you," as in you artists in general, the people you're referencing in your post.... not specifically you individually.
2. In no way did I assert that anyone deserves to make money at something simply because they want to do it. How you got that out of my post, I'll never know.
You said "The problem is that your statement that "an artist can make it on their own" is, for the most part, not true. Never mind millions -- almost no artists are making a basic living selling music anymore." To which I and my GP say "So what?" No one is paid to do what they love just because they love it; they're paid to produce a product that has demand. If your friends aren't making any money, then there's either too much supply or not enough demand.
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:4, Interesting)
If your friends aren't making any money, then there's either too much supply or not enough demand.
Or too many people downloading valuable product for free.
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:4, Insightful)
Very few artists ever made a living selling music because even if the entire album cost was pure profit for the artist you'd still need to be selling 2000 a year to make a 30 grand a year, which isn't exactly rolling in cash, and that's in a dream world where you have no costs and can sell at $15 per album(which as a no name band you can't). Add to that the fact that unless you're producing an album a year which is fairly uncommon, you're looking at increasing that basic fan base by an proportional factor.
In reality you might sell your album for $10 on iTunes, you'd probably produce an album about once every 3 years, Apple would take 30% of that and probably at least half the rest of it would go into production costs. Leaving you with 3.50 per album and requiring you to have a fan base of 30,000 just to eat and pay your rent.
Getting 30,000 people who will buy your album is hard, and given the way that popularity tends to snowball, if you can get 30,000 people to buy your album you can probably get 100,000 to buy your album or even substantially more.
The big difference between the old system and the new system is that in the old system the record company took all the risk. A shitty band who got signed would get paid even if their album did incredibly poorly, which is why the RIAA takes such a big cut.
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:5, Insightful)
So are you saying you don't want new music, art, books, etc, or you are just too fucking cheap to pay for it?
No, he's saying he wants new music, art, books, etc, but if there's too much of it, he can't afford to pay for ALL of it. Someone's not going to get money. Basic supply and demand.
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:5, Insightful)
No, he's saying that it's time to come back to reality and realize that we can't all be fucking professional football players, ballerinas, astronauts, rock stars, movie stars, stand-up comedians...
I'm a amateur musician myself but I've played in a few bands that did live shows and even done a little work as a session musician for others in the studio. I didn't pick up the guitar when I was 10 because I wanted to be a rock star, I picked up the guitar because I wanted to learn how to play; the instrument fascinated me. I know I will never in a million years make a living playing music, but that doesn't mean I'm going to throw the guitar in a closet like a fucking child. I still play often, still record my own little ideas, and I do it for myself. If I never earn a penny on music again, I'm totally okay with that. I have a real job that pays my bills. I play guitar because I love it.
The people that "make it" in the industry (and while I know this is true in music, it's probably true in film and other arts as well) aren't necessarily very good at their given craft anyway. Most of the time, it's just a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Conversely, I've met some of the most ridiculously talented musicians busking for spare change on street corners and, from the looks of them, probably spent their nights sleeping on a street corner as well. This is just as much fault as the industry as anything else. Ask yourself, how many ugly pop stars are there? A person could sing like an angel and never do more than sing jingles in commercials because they weren't lucky enough to be born with the right set of genes for physical attractiveness while some empty-headed chick with big tits and a great ass will become the next Britney Spears thanks to Auto-Tune and the support of a major label.
When the hell did people stop creating art for the sake of creating art? That's what I want to know. All this bullshit about how "downloading is killing music"...since when? I'm still doing my thing, and I know many other musicians that are still out there creating music, many of whom don't earn a dime doing it...are they supposed to just throw in the towel because they're not going to be the next Metallica? Better yet, if they DO throw in the towel because they're never going to be the next Metallica, why the hell were they playing music in the first place? Go get an MBA and earn 6 figures with the rest of the clowns on Wall Street.
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:4, Interesting)
Wait, what? Why must a musician either be a millionaire musician or a bedroom noodler? Why can't indie artists make a decent living at their craft?
This idea that artists should simply suffer in obscurity for their art, that they should learn their place and not expect to earn a living doing what they love, is bullshit. That they should get a "real job", is bullshit. Of course, that's part of the American experience – as a culture, we don't value art – and artists – as much as the Europeans. We value invented royalty in the United States.
Getting the big money out of music is a lot easier than getting rid of that attitude. Digital music and streaming services have only enforced that attitude that music has very little value, and that the artists behind them don't need support and compensation for their work.
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:4, Insightful)
Why shouldn't someone whose music is listened to by millions of people be able to earn a living out of it?
Who fucking said that? There is an enormous difference between "earning a living" and becoming ridiculously rich. The people that get into music expecting to become ridiculously rich are retards.
The trouble with people like you is that (whatever your claims about being a composer) is that you don't take art seriously. You just think it's a hobby
Oh, fuck you. I take my music very seriously. I'm just not under any illusions that I'm owed a fucking living doing it. No other career choice comes with a guaranteed salary, so why the fuck should music?
Like I said in a previous comment, people are basically whining because so many new musicians out there are content to give their music away in order to gain exposure. They can't figure out how to compete with that. What is your solution? Ban giving away music? Force them to charge for their music? Yeah, right.
No matter how much the musicians of yesteryear can't understand it, there are just too many great artists out there that are willing to give their shit away for free and now, thanks to the internet, we can all find it just as easily as we can find their own overpriced shit. A garage band can now honestly compete head to head with the major label darling. For music lovers, there is absolutely no downside to that. For the assholes getting driven around in limos there probably is, but again, hard to feel sympathy for them. Not when some kid actually has a shot at getting recognized when, in years past, they never would have.
I bet, thanks to modern technology, there are far more people "making a living" off of their music than there ever has been before. They're not becoming rich doing it, but they're earning their living.
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:5, Insightful)
no artists, except those at the absolute top of the heap, are making a living selling their music anymore
This is fairly common in a lot of areas. No one makes money playing sports except the few at the very top. Actors are the same way. The issue is that anyone can do these things. Most of us can't do them overly well, we don't practice enough, but people play music for fun and can achieve a pretty decent level of expertise without ever expecting to be paid for it. In order to make money you need to be significantly better than the laymen that do it for free for their own enjoyment.
Want to make a living wage in a creative field? Go work for Disney, or Paramount, or some company that makes commercials, or any other established industry that needs those skills constantly. No, you don't get to decide what kind of music you're writing if you're writing the background track for a movie, but that's part of making money without taking a major risk.
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:5, Insightful)
In order to make money you need to be significantly better than the laymen that do it for free for their own enjoyment.
I disagree. There are many artists that make money that are less talented then artist who are not making money. I would say that it is more about who you know then what you know. Sure, you have to have enough talent to perform, but talent will only take you so far. You have to have the right connections to get to the point that you start making real money.
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:4, Interesting)
True story:
A friend of mine and I were at the 9:30 Club in DC circa... July 2006 to see Cracker play. The opening acts finish up and here comes this tall, lanky, scruffy-looking dude who is laying down cable and taping up mics. He's setting up guitars and stuff, roadie jobs. I turn to my friend between sips of beer and say, "You know, that's David Lowrey." At the 9:30 Club you're about 10 feet from the stage once up front, max. We've got a clear view of this guy and sure enough, it's David Lowrey, roadie.
As you'll read in the article, David Lowrey is a math grad. If he's calculated that his band can't pay a roadie to do set-up, then you know they're making next to nothing for these shows. I'm not saying he's supposed to have a designated cape handler like James Brown, but a roadie - sure.
Point is - I'm not sure they were making anything off this show. He was his band's roadie, and they drove Johnny Hickman's microbus to the show from Richmond. This was a harbinger of things to come.
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
I'd say naming his band Camper Van Beethoven was the harbinger of things to come. He's smart and witty, but Lowery's a not-great-looking guy who doesn't sing that well, and if we're being honest, never wrote a song after "Take the Skinheads Bowling" that had anywhere near as much commercial potential... probably on purpose.
I'd say he had a pretty good run. The music industry was littered with guys 10+ years into their careers, who played to an increasingly "more selective demographic," long before mp3 was
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:5, Interesting)
that money isn't coming from music sales. It's coming from shows: what they make playing shows (including merchandise sold at shows) minus the costs of doing them. It used to be the other way around: shows existed to promote record sales, and record sales were where the money came from. Now, if you like an act and what them to continue to make music, the best thing you can do for them is go see them live and buy their stuff at the merch table.
Most musicians made their living from live performance for all but 60 years or so of human history. It's always a pain when technological changes screw over the way you're in the habit of making money, but that comes to just about anyone in any industry - no reason for musicians to be immune. However, I think long term it will work well, and we'll have as many milionaire musicians as we've ever had (a few each generation), as any musician can now reach a vast potential audience, and it doesn't take much when you have 10 million fans.
Re: (Score:3)
Most musicians made their living from live performance for all but 60 years or so of human history
No they didn't, they made it from patronage; a wealthy aristocrat or lord indulging themselves by hiring Mozart to whip up a new fugue.
How many musicians do you believe received patronage, versus those who were travelling troubadours and minstrels or played music for touring theatre groups, churches and orchestras? Anyway, back then armies probably employed the vast majority of professional musicians.
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:4, Informative)
Historically patronage was like the few millionaire musicians today - yes, it happened to a few, but it was far from the norm, as there were only ever a few lords at any given time (that rarity being sort of the point).
That didn't stop ordinary performers from making a living, finding places to play for a meal and, if lucky, a little coin. The notion of a bar hiring a musician or group to entertain its customers is hardly a new thing, nor is the idea of a musician travelling from small venue to small venue to make a small living,
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I distinctly remember hearing more than one music artist say over the last 20 years that they made their real money on concerts and merchandise and very little on record sales. So perhaps this hasn't really changed all that much.
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:5, Interesting)
Quick question: how many people are selling entertainment? It seems to me that there's a glut of entertainment, which means that supply completely overwhelms demand. The result: very low prices for a product, with only a select few making lots of money in it.
That's the free market for you. If there would be only a few hundred musicians in the world, I can guarantee you they would make out like bandits. Put since there are a few millions, most live hand-to-mouth.
I think what happened with the new bosses is not so much that they are worse than the old bosses, but that there are now far, far more musicians around chasing that same entertainment dollar. Before, supply was artificially constrained. Now, it's not, and people find out that it is even harder to make a living - because suddenly, the competition got that much fiercer.
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That is not a problem, its a paradigm shift.
The musicians who are making a living are doing it by performing music, instead of by selling recordings of music.
Recordings can be infinitely copied for very little cost (once the original is created). The market recognizes this even if the industry does not. Thus selling recordings is no longer profitable. Performances are so much more than a recording, and a recording of a performance falls far short of the experience. The market recognizes this as well, an
Re: (Score:3)
That is not a problem, its a paradigm shift.
I think both are true. I agree that it's a paradigm shift. Where I think the problem lies now is that much of the music audience doesn't realize this -- doesn't realize that if you like an artist and want them to keep making music, the best path to see this happen is to go to shows and spend money at shows.
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:5, Informative)
So there's nothing new there. Live gigs were always the life blood of any musician in the "recording era".
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:4, Informative)
I've talked about this with lots of artists that are big enough to sell out venues that range in size between 500-3000 people and they all say the same thing: no artists, except those at the absolute top of the heap, are making a living selling their music anymore.
We bought our house from, and are friends with, a couple who are both symphonic musicians - she with the LA Phil and he with Long Beach. AFAIK they don't have other jobs, yet they are doing fairly well.
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:4, Interesting)
"Many indie artists tried the service for several months and when the payout time came, they found out they only got a few hundreds (if even that) from the service. It was serious degrade from their previous earnings."
In tradition of claiming problems without giving us any kind of reference, I still was kinda interested how big their previous earnings are and what kind of contracts they had with their publishers before going online? :) Just really want to know, already thanks for any reply.
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:5, Insightful)
However, the cost of creating recordings has gone down. I sure wish I could do a week's or month's worth of work and get paid for it over my entire lifetime (and maybe even my kids' lifetimes.)
They can always go live and get paid for concerts. The days of being paid for a lifetime over a month's worth of work is going the way of the do-do.
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:5, Interesting)
They can always go live and get paid for concerts. The days of being paid for a lifetime over a month's worth of work is going the way of the do-do.
Bingo.
The situation is similar with e-books. A few people can upload one book and make a million bucks, but the majority will make a few thousand per book, if it's well written and the writer isn't particularly unlucky. Which means they need to actually do a normal work week writing multiple books a year if they want to make a living at it.
Expectations are hideously skewed by the experiences of the last few decades, which are far from the historical norms. For most of history musicians did actually have to work for a living rather than perform once and go on vacation for a year.
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Fairly well known issue (Score:5, Interesting)
Jonathan Coulton was talking about this a few months ago in the TWiT podcast.
Streaming services pay garbage to independent artists because the big studios (the old boss) bullied them into accepting horrible terms or literally take them out of business.
Make no mistake; the big studios get a generous split of the Spotify profits. But for Spotify to survive with such a "generous" deal, they had to screw someone else: the indie musician that "can't really bully" them.
Mind you, in some ways, if all indies got together and left Spotify, they would suffer (right now they average their profits with a mixture of indie and big studio playbacks.)
I would not be shocked if the studios want it to work this way, to discourage the next gen of artists from pursuing an indie career.
Re: (Score:3)
So yeah, there you go. Do you really think you're wiser than these guys? Keep trying to get around them, and they will assfuck you even more. Seriously. Do it. If you want to destroy any nice music we have.
Music isn't going away, not even good music. Music has value and will be paid for and people will be able to make a living at it. It is a valid question to ask how individual artists are affected in specific cases, but probably no more than being concerned with how robots are now doing the jobs that assembly line workers used to do.
People will always pay for good music. In the bad old days, when no one but the richest could afford an orchestra or even a quartet, music was still made and it was damn fine
Dear Mr. Lowery (Score:5, Interesting)
Dear Mr. Lowery,
The Internet is so, so sorry if you are having a harder time because it exists. However, in general, it seems that it is easier for many other musicians because it exists.
Details can be found at the Techdirt article where you prove, in your reply posts [techdirt.com], that you're an idiot, in either your business skills, your public relation skills, or both.
Oh so sincerely,
The Internet
the problem is there is too much music (Score:5, Interesting)
the bosses aren't the problem, the problem is the amount of product
i like most rock from the mid 60s to present day. there are so many good bands to listen to that its impossible to buy it all on CD. too expensive.
recorded music is your advertising and you should be making money on live performances from the real fans
just like almost every line of business these days. break even or lose on 90% of your customers and make your profit on the rest. something like 4% of dropboxe's customers pay them, yet they make A LOT of money
Re: (Score:3)
just like almost every line of business these days. break even or lose on 90% of your customers and make your profit on the rest. something like 4% of dropboxe's customers pay them, yet they make A LOT of money
I really wish Hollywood would wake up and realize this, and stop fighting Netflix. They're ruining their own industry, and blaming it on piracy.
:P
What was the quote from Tywin Lannister when he heard they had killed Ned Stark? "Stupidity. Stupidity and Foolishness." Something like that.
Re: (Score:3)
there is no way hollywood can make money on $8 netlix subscriptions and letting them have first run movies before blu ray street date. and netflix refuses to have a tiered model
I don't know. They could stop paying 'stars' $50,000,000 for a few weeks' work on a movie.
Much of the cost of a big Hollywood movie is 'star' salaries, and those salaries are justified because they bring in more revenue than they cost. So if they're not doing that any more, just reduce those salaries to the point where you are making money.
I'm sure you'd find plenty of people eager to act in or direct a big Hollywood movie for a mere $1,000,000.
Re:the problem is there is too much music (Score:4, Insightful)
The amount people spend on music hasn't really changes by that much of a factor - it's just that there's more available artists now. The other 9900 artists that weren't popular enough to get in the record industry are now getting heard. They're just starting to get a cut now, via spotify or whatever
Re:the problem is there is too much music (Score:4, Insightful)
the bosses aren't the problem, the problem is the amount of product
i like most rock from the mid 60s to present day. there are so many good bands to listen to that its impossible to buy it all on CD. too expensive.
recorded music is your advertising and you should be making money on live performances from the real fans
This is quite right in my opinion. Roughly 2 years ago I read an article on the BBC's website where they interviewed Mick Jagger. He shocked them with what he had to say. This is not in any way, shape or form an accurate word for word account of what was said but my paraphrase covering the main points.
BBC: So what do you think of digital music such as MP3 files?
Jagger: It's not a problem for me. (note: The Stones were on iTunes long before the Beatles were and were serious about their web presence earlier too.)
BBC: (stunned) You don't think you're being ripped off by illegal downloads?
Jagger: Look. The truth is that for all of our years in the industry, for very few of them did we really make good money just from the music. There was a period of about 10 years from the 1980s into the 90s where we got paid a lot of money, but for most of my career the actual royalties from music sales have not really been all that good. We have always made the majority of our income from touring.
The music companies hate this because they don't make money from touring so they are still trying to make the old models work in a world that rejects them. Paul McCartney can't sell CDs any more like he used to but whenever he feels like playing a concert he regularly sells out 50,000 seat or larger stadiums throughout the world and I've not once heard him bemoaning the current state of the industry.
Re:the problem is there is too much music (Score:5, Insightful)
recorded music is your advertising and you should be making money on live performances from the real fans
Which kinda defeats the purpose of having fans from all over the Internet, there's many many bands that won't come to my little corner of the world and you'd have to be a pretty big fan to travel very far just to go to a concert. And even then they still only get one ticket. And maybe that one weekend they are there it doesn't work because you got another important event. You can't live off just a handful of fanatic fans who'll go to any length to see you.
just like almost every line of business these days. break even or lose on 90% of your customers and make your profit on the rest. something like 4% of dropboxe's customers pay them, yet they make A LOT of money
Where the analogy breaks down is that it's easy for everyone who wants to get dropbox's paid service to do so. With a live performance there's probably 4% that'd pay and 4% that easily could go (remember anywhere you hold a concert is where >99.9% of the earth's population doesn't live) for a total of 0.16% that actually came and paid.
Re: (Score:3)
recorded music is your advertising and you should be making money on live performances from the real fans
I was under the impression that it was always this way... that the records don't make you much, it's the gigs. Is that wrong?
Either way, those dirty fucks at Ticketmaster need to be next.
Partially true. The artist himself was not making much money because between loopholes and fine print tricks, the studios end up keeping nearly all the profits of media sale, in some situations some artist may find themselves owing money to the studios (since every cd sent to a radio station was/is fully expensed at a full retail price as a marketing cost that you are supposed to pay for from your profits.)
But media sales have always been very lucrative, an indie artist that refuses to give away his music i
Re: (Score:3)
This is second hand, but from a few people I know who are (kinda) in the business.. it used to be the exact opposite (the live performances promoted the music sales) but has now switched around to what is described. Best way to support your favorite band now is to see them live and buy an overpriced cheap screen printed t-shirt or CD off their merch stand.
But this is what 'we' want, right? (Score:5, Insightful)
But this is what 'we' want, right?
We don't want there to be multimillionaire 'artists', or hundreds of supposedly indie (but really signed with GenericIndieLabelX that's part of IndieGroupY that is a wholly-owned subsidiary of QuirkyMusicZ, a division of SONY Music Entertainment).
'We' want bands to be able to stand on the merit of the quality of their music - be that through being highly popular at the whim of the way the 'popular' wind blows, or through a devout share of followers who will buy merchandise and go to concerts. We want the remaining artists to perform music not for the money but because they want to perform it for their own joy (either out of performing or out of the reactions of the crowd) and any money they get out of that is just a nice little bonus.
'We' don't care if that means most current artists will just have to find something else to do, and others will just have to make it their hobby next to an 'honest' job.
And if that situation is not to particular people's liking, they would be more than welcome to become patrons of the (musical) arts if they have the wealth to do so.
As long as 'we' get to enjoy music for next to nothing or completely nothing, and certainly with as few middlemen as possible - because that is what the process induced by technology has allowed us since the days of the cassette tape, which the internet has merely accelerated.
tl;dr: Something about horse-and-buggies and all that.
Re: (Score:3)
OK, if you want two centuries of music in the mold of 1972 be my guest.
Ah, the zenith of popular music. All else since is garbage.
And please pull your damn pants up.
Competition? (Score:5, Interesting)
Futhermore, now we have videogames and other new media competing for our entertainment dollars.
Its not that artists are making less money. Its that there aren't as few mega "rock stars" as before. You don't have the beatlemania where people are going crazy for a particular one act, who effectively has a monopoly on popular music.
Finally, they can't force us to buy 12 song albums with 2 hits and 10 crap songs anymore. We've broken their hold on that business model. Now we expect to be able to pay
I'm so sorry you can't afford to drink top shelf champagne on your private jet anymore.
The bad songs subsidize the good (Score:5, Interesting)
You know, with all their creative vision, artists don't necessarily know which songs are going to be crap songs and they certainly don't try to write them. They still had to invest time and money into the songs you don't like: maybe one in five turns out good, and those good songs are what they make their living from. You're subsidizing their efforts to make more good stuff by also paying for the ones they developed but didn't turn out. The artist is assuming a hell of a lot of risk when you come out and say "I don't ever plan to buy most of what you make, and I won't know what I want until you put it on the shelves".
Publishers (Score:3)
Cut out the middle man, sell directly to consumers, keep all the profits, and probably end up making more money.
Marketing (Score:4, Insightful)
It's quite simple - in online, you have to handle your marketing yourself. If you just replace old model with new one, but keep old way of doing things, sorry, it won't fly. Online gives posibility to compete a lot more bands than old system. And in result of course you get less money. Don't like it? Then try to stick with old system. Didn't like it too? Do pros and cons then and see what's working for you.
Also sorry, while I recognize that artists should get something about their efforts - but only then if their art is "consumed". There's tons of music out there. Tons of CC (lot of them really good ones). And it's a pitty, but some of artists can crunch really high class stuff without any sweat, but some has to do lot of pushing. So maybe it's not worth then.
Collaboration and self-publishing are the answer (Score:4, Interesting)
Not to be prophetic or philosophical, but it will be in the end like it was in the beginning.
In the beginning, bands formed and recorded music in their garage, with the best equipment and recording technology that they could afford. The collaborated in the best space they could find (someone's garage) and they self published the recording they made. Maybe they made money, maybe they didn't.
Today, musicians can record with (nearly) the same quality in their house as they can in a major studio. Musicians can collaborate over the internet either directly or with the help of a collaboration service that helps musicians find each other and exchange / submit tracks. Musicians can publish their tracks on services where they either get money per track or as a donation model (see http://coryjohnson.bandcamp.com/ for a perfect example of this).
Musicians can self-promote on the internet, and perhaps reach greater audiences than they can through traditional media and distribution channels.
The musicians simply need to embrace these new ways of doing things and be willing to take on these tasks directly instead of having someone else do it (and probably rip them off in the process).
Re:Collaboration and self-publishing are the answe (Score:4, Informative)
Today, musicians can record with (nearly) the same quality in their house as they can in a major studio.
Just to be clear: they can't. The recording equipment has become much cheaper, but the the cost of making an acoustically designed studio has not. Nor has the cost of hiring an experienced engineer for the recording. I love what can be done with today's PC-based recording equipment, but a real studio is still a real studio and a garage is still a garage, even if the tracks ultimately end up on a Mac either way.
Re:Collaboration and self-publishing are the answe (Score:5, Interesting)
Just to be clear: they can, but I wholeheartly agree on having good engineer at least and/or recording producer for it. Having acoustically perfect studio is overblown. You can record vocals in it, but for rest lot of interesting tricks can and is used. Radiohead recorded their last LPs in various places, most of them wasn't studios.
But having good engineer at least is a must, because it speeds up things considerably.
Re: (Score:3)
I can believe it. (Score:5, Interesting)
The internet is hurting everybody, by making things cheap. DJs, singers, authors of books..... Correction: Not everybody; it helps the billons of people who are lower and middle incomes to afford buying entertainment and education online.
So it's a matter of choice: Do we choose to help the small 0.1% of singers, artists, authors by protecting their income with ~$15 CDs and ~$25 hardback books. Or do we help the other 99.9% by offering them cheaper $3 albums or $5 books that you can download from the comfort of your chair? (And also a lot of free material like college lectures.)
I choose the 99.9%.
Boo hoo (Score:3)
Cry me a fucking river (Score:5, Interesting)
Just because what you do is time consumptive and requires skill, doesn't mean that your somehow special and entitled to make large sums of cash. I mean the food that you eat is inherently more important than any music you make, however people slave at near or below minimum wage to produce it for you, and somehow you presume your labor is more important? Because you have the force of government on your side to protect your interests, because you end up lobbying them with massive amounts of money to do so? The idea that you should limit a limitless resource, so that you can extract alot more value out of it, sounds alot like extortion to me. Just because that sort of extortion is propping up our economy doesn't mean that its right, its a form of non productive consumption and people would rightfully so, switch to a form of production that the market finds more valuable and scarce otherwise.
Re:Cry me a fucking river (Score:4, Insightful)
As you might have noticed, its almost impossible to find an american who is willing to farm, because its hard fucking work. Which tells me that the wages for farming ought to rise, instead of allowing high unemployment and immigrant labor to produce it. Perhaps then americans will stop shoveling their fat faces full of food, and we can stop wasting money subsidizing the farming companies, which will make unemployment start to fall considerably.
Sucks to be in a industry? Change industries! (Score:5, Interesting)
This is rather fundamental to the entire copyright debate when it starts to focus on artists being unable to make a living anymore.
Well, how is that different from ANY other profession being unable to make a living anymore? In Holland it has been decades since the coal mines closed and not because of lack of coal. How would you, or indeed any artist, support any law dictating the installation of gas networks to keep the demand for goal high?
It goes further. With printing and the translation of the bible came the possibility for the faithful to get their fairy tales from outside the church and my my did the church hate that and not just try to ban this but committed murder on a massive scale to stop this.
Tech, changes, the, WORLD. It is not just about you holding a computer in your pocket now more powerful then early spaceships BUT it is about our very society changing because of tech. Anything from the pill, to the automobile and the post office box (before the post office box, women could not post without everyone knowing about it, mail became a great liberator long before the Internet).
And that change isn't always good for everyone. Modern artists have taken the bread away from many of their predecessors. Recorded music? Took the place of live music. Once every movie theater had a small band playing and of course movies took the place of real life artists on the stage.
You can't stop tech, well you can, red flag in front of cars and all that but ultimately, tech will prevail because for the majority, the good outweighs the bad. The Internet will continue to be. You can't stop the digital age just because you don't like that bits can be copied at near zero cost and be distributed for only slightly more.
And if you argue different then why do you care about artist who make millions while ordinary factory workers are unable to feed their families because that same tech has outsourced all their jobs? When those same millionaire artists flee the country to tax heavens and buy foreign goods?
Oh sure, not all artists are like that, they just dream of being like that one day.
There is still a normal average salery to be made as an artist, you just got to work hard, just like everyone else and not hope people will just buy your 1 good song with ten crap ones for what amounts to several times minimum wage EVEN if you had to perform it live. 5 minutes 1 dollar == 12 dollars an hour wage. Takes more time to write it? Take me more then 8 hours to keep an 8 hour job to and I know who is in more danger of throwing in his back.
The world has changed, either change with it or get steamrolled. If the artists cared that much about it all, let them strike. I will happily they get the same treatment as the coal workers around the world.
And if I sound angry? In Holland we have a recession, so how does the leftist (elitist) green party react? Impose taxes on public transport reimbursement payed by employers so you can make art and antiques have a lower tax rate. FUCK THAT.
And you might think I am extreme but when I voice this in real life, you see people going... well I don't agree, sure I don't buy any music anymore either and I am totally untouched by any plea from the industry or artists... oh wait... I do sorta agree.
Once people loved artists and were fans of record labels. Now that is no longer true except for the future burger flipper generation.
And if you don't believe me... do you have adblocker installed? Yes? So it is okay to steal from websites but not artists?
See? Once the people have been pushed to far, they can stand by and see a group destroyed with no remorse whatsoever. Human beings ain't nice and the world does not owe you a living.
This Part (Score:5, Interesting)
It took a while to find anything solid but these I considered informative,
Under the new digital model I calculate that most label artists get between 15%- 35% of wholesale. For example the most recent of my recording contracts says I should get a total of 20.5 cents on a 99 cent song (including mechanical royalties). This works out to 29.7% of wholesale. So this part of the new digital paradigm is about the same as the old record label system.
So when you compare share of revenue for artists on record labels under the new digital system to the old system it looks pretty good. At least until you consider the fact that the price of music has dropped. For instance, an artists royalty on an album is now calculated at 6.90 not at a $10.00 wholesale price as it was in the 1980s. . This drop in the price of music was inevitable. But the record labelâ(TM)s expenses fell considerably in the switch from physical to digital products whereas the artistâ(TM)s expenses (the recording budgets) did not. So this had the effect of reducing artists net revenues and shifting revenue towards the record labels. For the new digital distribution model to be as âoefairâ to the artist, the artist share of download revenue should have increased. It stayed the same or increased only marginally.
and
And then there is that iTunes store 30%. Seems kind of high to me. What is their risk? Today in 2012? Do they really deserve more per album than the artist? At least the record labels put up capital to record albums. At least the record labels provide the artist with valuable promotion and publicity. Historically in the music business when someone was taking more than 20% of gross revenues that had some âoeskin in the gameâ. They risked losing a lot of money.
This does show a problem with the economic system that the industry has set up. Consumers ran screaming from one oligopoly to another. Is it this really surprising that artists are still taking the brunt of it when you are still dealing with the same businesses?
And Amanda Palmer, And Steve Albini (Score:5, Informative)
I'm glad to see these issues starting to get major traction and hopefully change can come from without, since it will never come from within.
The Real Problem - Less Crap (Score:5, Insightful)
The real "problem" is that musicians and record companies con no longer make as much money selling crap as they used to.
Prior to iTunes and other legal methods of downloading music, there was only one way buy music -- you went to a store and bought an album. Whether it was a CD, vinyl LP. 8 track tape or whatever, and it didn't matter if half the songs where crap. That was your only choice. Period. And that was a great deal for both musicians and record companies because it meant that they sold a lot of albums and made a lot of money. And lets be honest. Even the all time greatest "classic" albums have some filler on them. Songs that absolutely nobody cares about. In the past, it didn't matter, you bought the whole album and the musicians'/record companies got the maximum amount of money
But now, that's no longer the case. Only like 3 songs from an album? You just buy those 3 songs. And the math is pretty simple:
-- A million people buy those 3 songs from the album -- the artist royalties from 3 million songs sold on iTunes is a lot less than 3 million albums sold.
-- A million albums sold with 12 songs per album = $1,080,000 in publishing royalties for the songwriter (9 cents per song). But if a million people just buy those 3 songs publishing royalties = $270,000.
In the end, it's really no different than any other technological change. You can't make a living delivering packages by stage-coach anymore either.
Re: (Score:3)
New boss still trying to copy the old boss (Score:4, Interesting)
A lot of his criticisms of the current "new" system are valid. But the fundamental problem, as I see it, is that instead of truly "breaking the paradigm", everyone is treating the business the same way it had been.
In short, they know the players have changed, but nobody's realized that the game can be changed. Artists still expect some form of publisher to pay for their studio time, they still go to some publisher to publish their music. And now they complain that the publisher is still taking too much money.
Here's an idea (and it's just that, an idea): Go completely, 100% independent
Use Kickstarter or the like to get the cash to record an album. Having a demo of one or two songs should suffice, if you can market yourself properly, and you can self-fund demos easily enough.
Once you have the album, sell it on your own site instead of iTunes or Amazon. Maybe Humble-Indie-Bundle it with other, *similar* bands, if that can give you more publicity.
Either use the profits from the album, or ticket presales (Kickstarter may work well again), to go on tour. Get merchandise to sell - t-shirts, physical CDs, posters, etc.
Make sure to have some sort of contact for licensing. If Hollywood Director Q wants to use your song in Summer Action Movie Part XIV, you shouldn't make it hard for him. Commercials. Radio play. Anything - if someone wants to pay you to use your music, it needs to be possible. And price yourself lower than the Big Media bands do (since there's no publisher to take a 90% cut, it should be easy).
Between album sales and concerts, it should be possible to make a good living. The era of the multi-millionaire superstar is probably over, but honestly, I won't mourn them.
There are some problems with this. The publisher is normally the one to do all the advertising, so you'd have to do that yourself. It means a band *will* need some sort of marketing person to succeed, from Day 1. Music critics will also have to do a much better job - they can't just look at the list of what Big Media inc. is publishing this month, listen to the CDs mailed to you, and write down 4 stars for all of it.
There's probably a million other problems, too, but we won't find them until someone at least *tries*.
How to make money in recorded music (Score:4, Funny)
Write songs that are catchy enough to be picked up by ad agencies to be used in TV commercials. Best if they have choruses about freedom, cars, or hair. Niche songs might obscurely allude to feminine pads.
He had me until... (Score:5, Insightful)
It’s usually after someone like myself suggest that if other people are profiting from distributing an artist’s work (Kim Dotcom, Mediafire, Megavideo, Mp3tunes,) they should share some of their proceeds with the artists.
Maybe I'm not hep to the way you kids are getting music these days because I have to spend time keeping you all off of my lawn, but these services advertise a way for me to access the music that I bought from any device anywhere that I happen to be.
Is he implying that Mp3tunes should be paying him to store my music and make it accessible to me from wherever I am?
Let's see...I have a SanDisk MP3 player. I have a bunch of music on it. Should he be getting paid by SanDisk? After all, SanDisk made a profit selling me a device to listen to their music. Without that music, why would I buy a SanDisk MP3 player? Shouldn't some of that go to the musician? How about that CaseLogic case I have to hold CDs? They made a profit from that. Shouldn't some of that go to the people who make the music that I hold in that case?
You made your money selling me the music. Now go away.
Giving up software patents? (Score:4, Insightful)
This guy does make some reasonable points, but for all that he thinks himself an uber-geek, he is apparently disconnected from the realities of the tech world today.
He thinks that technologists like software patents. Most technologists who are familiar with the issue are strongly against them; the only group consistently in favor of software patents is the patent lawyers.
The downside of his proposed deal, in my view, is not abolishing software patents (which would instead be of tremendous benefit), but abolishing music copyrights. For all that the strength of copyright protection has weakened in the Internet era, it is not zero by any means, and still plays its role of promoting the 'progress of science and the useful arts'.
The big problems come if you attempt to recreate, via stringent and draconian restrictions, the strong copyright regime we had before the Internet. These attempts are doomed to failure, and will create significant collateral damage while failing in their intended goal.
Magnatune gives 50% of gross to the artist (Score:3)
Controlling reality and entitlement to profit (Score:3)
This loss of control has nothing to do with the internet, it has to do with Labels losing control of prices, i.e. the loss of the price fixing case 10 years ago, and reduction in cost of entry into the market. Fifteen years ago, bands I saw had to work hard to get the money together to press a CD. Now most of the costs is studio time and marketing, which has also fallen Labels can't keep prices high, lower cost of entry means more competition, profit per item falls.
Then, of course, if the ludicrous idea that the new system is worse than the old system because less profit is generated in the new system. No one who creates a product automatically deserves to profit. At least in the US, we are guaranteed the right to pursue profit, but no one is guaranteed profit. With both conservatives and liberal trying to prop up failed models that is hard to remember, but it is the truth. If I put out an album, there is no law that says someone has to buy it, and no law that says some one has to buy it at a price where I can make a profit. That is why Walmart exists, and why so many products are no longer made in the USA.
So the question is can creators keep up with new market realities, not does the market have an obligation to prop up legacy suppliers. If an content creator is still making a profit, then all that matters is if the content creator leaves or stays. If the content creator leaves, is there someone who will be willing to work for prevailing rewards, and if not does it matter? For instance, if the rewards for pop music were so low that no one would want to do, would society fall. Note that for jobs that are critical to society, we often prevent these workers for asking for high wages.
So while i think the paper has some interesting content, the idea that we should pass laws or change society to guarantee a profit is simply silly. We have already critically wounded our democracy by passing laws that allow copyright holders to overwhelm the rights of arbitrary citizens. Let them make a product people value instead of insisting that god have given them the right to be rich.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
I haven't seen a single interesting comment here (Score:3)
I haven't seen a single comment here that wasn't rebutted in the original article. Of course, it's always better to mouth platitudes from talking points and say tl;dr than to actually read the thing and... you know... be challenged. It's the geek-arrogant way (also covered nicely in the article, BTW).
This is how cartels collapse (Score:4, Insightful)
My first problem is that you don't have a constitutional right to IP. It isn't in the Bill of Rights. It's in the power of Congress section. That means it is up to congress how to deal with IP. We could get rid of it tomorrow with just a plain old law no amendment needed.
Most importantly is the ignorance of economics. The author doesn't go far enough back in music history. Go back before there were recordings of any kind. How many people made a living being an artist? How many we're wealthy? It was the recording technology that let artists reach a large audience. Coping records was capital intensive so the recording and publishing industry was able to make lots of money.
But now technology advanced to the point where coping is nearly free. The recording cartel can no longer exist. Sure they will try to use laws to keep it alive but it's a losing battle. There will be no money to be made in recording.
The answer? You will have to work. That means playing for audiences, selling merchandise, and figuring out how to get people to pay you for real goods and services.
How many geeks here would live to return to the 90's where all you had to do is make a website and go IPO? Well too bad those days are over.
Anyone considered concerts? (Score:3)
My Experience (Score:5, Insightful)
I tried to start an indie label, partnering with a band that was well-liked locally and had some regional fame. We recorded at home with a TT-24 for digital I/O and monitoring and Logic 7 & Profire Lightbridge for getting it onto disk. Were able to do 24-bit 96khz and plenty of plugins. I had more multi-track channels and more processing power/virtual gear than any studio in the early 1990s. Grabbed a set of self-powered studio monitors for under $1000 (which blow away anything that was available for purchase in 1990).
We did the Tunecore digital distribution method, got into the local record shops, and generally tried to take advantage of any avenue we could.
Ultimately we lost money, here are the mistakes we made:
1. We pressed Vinyl. Granted, we got a good deal and it was a quality product (including MP3 download card using software I wrote myself) but the economics make it such that you need to sell at least a couple hundred to break even and there wasn't enough of a market for it. We sold over 100 in the first year, just from a few local shows and two local record stores. Come to find out this was more than almost everyone else - the local record store sold out (and paid us out) several times - the store manager was shocked to actually be paying money out as most of the indie albums don't sell enough to reach the threshold. Lesson: Don't press vinyl. Unless you can sell out a 5,000 seat venue in at least 10 cities you will lose money.
2. We thought CDs were on their way out so we didn't make that many of them. It turns out we should have - we sold through the CD run quickly and it was our biggest money maker, even at $5 each. This was in 2009 but still - people are more likely to buy CDs when out and about because they are small and easy to carry. Vinyl means a trip back to the car or having to lug it around town for the rest of the night.
3. Digital only works if you have access to some channel to get noticed - a friend with a very popular blog, a host of a very popular podcast who likes you, etc. There is too much music in the online catalogs - often good music. It is extremely difficult to stand out in the crowd, no matter how good you are. You should plan on about 1% conversion rate of people at the show to merch sales, so if 1000 people show up 10-20 will buy something.
4. Publicists and marketing don't work unless you can put a huge budget behind them. Thankfully we didn't spend a ton on this but others we know spent their life savings or thousands. Yes, they got local college radio interviews and blog mentions but none of it translated into increased sales of albums. It did bring a few people to shows but not enough to make up for the outlay in merch sales. This seemed to apply regardless of the genera.
5. We spent money on the launch show - it was a huge loser. If I had to do it over again, I wouldn't have bothered. It just takes too much money to put on a good light show so unless you have access to moving lights or projectors that you can borrow for free, or can play to a venue that already has the gear, don't bother. This leads into the next item...
6. Unless you are a well-known act, you will get screwed by the venues (who are often trying to squeak by themselves). Always charge a cover and make sure your deal is for the cover if you can (and have *your* helper work the door!). Local promotion is difficult - people are bombarded with Facebook notices, emails, etc about a ton of shows all the time so most people tune out. If possible, find out where the crowds already show up locally and make a deal to play there. It is much easier to make a new fan by going to where the people already are than trying to convince a bunch of strangers to come see an unknown band.
7. You must take credit cards. Period. Get an iPhone and Square and make sure you have signal. Make each band member get on a different network (VZW, ATT, Sprint) so you can be certain you will have coverage at the venue. Taking cards will often more than double your take vs not taking c
Re:STFU and give us free music (Score:5, Insightful)
you should me making music for the love of it, anything else and you're greedy
Here's the thing about it though:
Let's say I make good music. Right now I have a full time job to support my family, which means that any music I make is in the spare time between work and sleep and whatnot. If I can't make money off of the music I create, it will continue to be made only in the spare time I have. I will produce it slowly and sparingly. I won't be able to do that many live shows.
We don't need a system where I become a millionaire, but it does need to be enough that I can make music (or books, or any other form of art) my occupation rather than my hobby, if I'm good enough.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"We don't need a system where I become a millionaire, but it does need to be enough that I can make music (or books, or any other form of art) my occupation rather than my hobby, if I'm good enough."
But exactly why? Some people has very artistic talents, still, they working as clerks or programmers and play on stage on their free time because they enjoy it.
All acts I have seen in their breaktrough has been superbly talented and therefore their effort was just worth that. If you just below average - then you
Re: (Score:3)
Jesus Christ no!!!! We can't have diversity! Everybody has to have the exact same experiences! Our world would collapse if people started to live unique lives!
Re:STFU and give us free music (Score:5, Insightful)
...We don't need a system where I become a millionaire, but it does need to be enough that I can make music (or books, or any other form of art) my occupation rather than my hobby, if I'm good enough.
We *need* a system where everyone has access to shelter, food, water and health care. We *want* books, movies, music and other entertainment.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I feel like a lot of replies to your posts are missing your point, which is sad because it is a good one.
I believe the parents point is this:
If you WANT more music/art from someone, than a system that allows that person to spend the majority of their time working on it is beneficial to both of you.
Saying that someone doesn't deserve to be rewarded for their efforts and given the opportunity to pursue them full time will only result in getting less of what they have to offer.
I believe that's where you are right now! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
If I can't make money off of the music I create, it will continue to be made only in the spare time I have. I will produce it slowly and sparingly.
For a non-musician example, I'll hold up Pete Abrams [wikipedia.org], creator and author of "Sluggy Freelance" [sluggy.com]. (I have to imagine plenty of people here are familiar with his work.) Faced with the challenge of supporting himself and his young family several years ago while still trying to do the work he loved (and that was in quite a bit of demand from his fans), Pete mustered
Re: (Score:3)
Uh, we have such a system right now. Any janitor, plumber, or bus driver can name their own price. If they set the price too high they might not get any business. On the other hand, if you do not pay the price you don't get to ride their bus. On the other hand, with music you can wind up with literally millions of people who want your product, use your product, but find any excuse possible to not pay you for your product.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't think anybody, musician or otherwise, thinks that simply making a recording is going to make money. However, it seems like a lot of people, including you, want a completely one-sided relationship. You want the situation to be that a musician only makes money by playing live, but meanwhile you are not restricted to only listening to their live performance. How is that in any way fair? If you want to be able to listen to any song at any time, why shouldn't the people who created that song benef
Re: (Score:3)
Lots of ok music out there from people who do just that, but there is a reason indie music hasn't completely toppled the industry...
Hint: it's the same reason indie movies haven't toppled Hollywood.
There is still something to be said for those who actually devote all their time, not just the weekend, to producing content.. and who can afford the cheaper than before but still expensive pro gear.
And in general I agree with the sentiment in the argument. If the kind of distribution/creation model we've all bee
Re: (Score:3)
Graphic and other visual artists should also screw it and stop making art for money as well. Don't forget writers, because writing is art, too! Monetizing expression is evil and selfish, so let all the artists take college educations and enter careers they hate like the rest of us so they can spend what little time they have left making stuff for our pleasure.
Two birds with one stone (Score:5, Insightful)
Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.
If that is the moral then the article author might be in trouble given his stance. His last sentence is:
I’ll make technologists a deal, I’ll give up my song copyrights if you give up your software patents.
So how do we accept? More telling is that I think it shows he really does not understand the digital side of things very well. Outside major corporations or patent trolls I imagine many people would happy see software patents disappear.
Re: (Score:3)
I once heard a poet say that she loved poetry because it was the one thing that nobody had yet been able to commodify successfully. It's still worth absolutely nothing.