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They charged 15 dollars for most. Only give the artist maybe 70cents-1 dollar for each record sold.

I don't mind repeating this like a broken record. Eventually everybody will get it. Musicians usually get paid NOTHING for CD sales. Yes, by contract they get a small percentage, but that same contract also lets the record company first deduct all expenses of manufacturing, advertising, distribution, etc, etc, which usually leaves a ZERO net payment. For a more detailed explanation of how this works, read this article by Janis Ian, who has recorded more than 25 albums over nearly 40 years, and has yet to see a record company check with a plus sign on it.

The short version is: Musicians make money primarily from live performances, same as they did for centuries before recording technology was invented. What CD sales do for them is give them exposure, which generates audiences for concerts. They get the same exposure whether you buy a CD, download it, listen to it on the radio or find it lying on the sidewalk. Paying for the CD does not help the musician.

Record companies, on the other hand, make nearly ALL their money from CD sales. They justify all their business practices because they lose money on the songs that don't sell well enough to cover expenses. Essentially record companies are venture capitalists who seize all profits from a company until the startup expenses are covered, and then continue to get most of the profits after that.

Would you finance your startup like that? I didn't think so.

Interesting. I don't know what sample clearance or Sampling-Plus is. Janis Ian has some detailed essays about the workings of the business on her site. She writes her own songs, but says, "In 37 years as a recording artist, I've created 25+ albums for major labels, and I've never once received a royalty check that didn't show I owed them money." Maybe she's been doing something wrong.

People who post in these threads STILL think musicians make money from CD sales. They generally don't, because in a standard recording contract all the expenses of production, manufacturing, distribution, advertising, etc, etc, are taken out of the musician's share. That 1% or whatever "royalty" that supposedly gets paid to the musician gets put on a balance sheet with all these expenses and becomes a ZERO.

Musicians make money by performing live, just like they did for all the centuries before recorded music was invented. What they get out of CD sales is exposure, which leads to bigger and better paying gigs. They get the same exposure whether you buy a CD, listen to it on the radio, burn a copy from your friend, download it or find it on the sidewalk.

Keep that in mind when you read the recording industry's endless whining about "artists' rights." It's all smoke and mirrors, and accounting. So you might ask, why do people like Lars Ulrich preach against file-sharing? I don't know. Why did Lars publicly give credit to tape bootleggers for helping Metallica go from garage band to superstars, and then years later decide that file-sharing was bad? Ask Lars. But don't assume it's because he's a business genius.

For a more detailed explanation of how recording contracts work read this article by Janis Ian, a pop star of the 70s who has been recording for 28 years.

As long as the outdated concept of buying copies of music lives on, we will continue to fight the battle of the recording industry's rights vs everybody else's rights.

Anybody who thinks musicians make money from sales of copies of their music should read this detailed explanation of how recording contracts work. Briefly, musicians generally do not make a dime from the sales of CDs because standard recording contracts are written such that all the expenses of production, manufacturing, marketing and distribution get taken out of the musician's share of the money. So when you read that a musician gets 50 cents per CD or 10 cents per CD or whatever, that's their share BEFORE all the expenses get taken out. After the record company accountants do their job there is usually Zero actual money paid to the musician. I honestly don't know if online music sales work this way, but I can't see why they wouldn't. Record companies don't give up revenue streams to artists. They don't have to.

Working musicians make their money by performing, just like they always have, just like they did in the centuries before the recording business existed. What musicians get out of record sales is Exposure, which gets them more fame and better paying gigs. They get the same exposure whether you buy music on CD or listen to it on the radio or download it, paid or not, it doesn't matter. It only matters to record companies. Keeping them in business is the only reason to pay for copies of music.

We could continue to perpetuate the pay-per-copy mentality, paying not just for the music but for the enforcement of the various damn-the-side-effects laws that have been written to protect the record industry, and to live with all those side effects on how we personally use technology. Or we could evolve to a situation where musicians simply release copies of their songs to the public to get the exposure they want without signing away any rights.

The idea that copyright infringement takes food out of musicians' mouths is another of the recording industry's big lies. Musicians under record contracts generally get NOTHING from CD sales. The way contracts are written all expenses of manufacturing, advertising, distribution, etc, etc, are taken out of the musician's share of the profits, usually leaving ZERO. What musicians get out of having a recording contract is exposure which gets them better paying gigs. They get the same exposure whether you buy a CD, copy it from a friend, hear it on the radio or find it lying on the street.

Janis Ian, who has been making records since the 1970s, has a very informative essay about file sharing and the mechanics of being a recording artist.

Very good, Thanks Janis Ian for "At Seventeen", the original song. BTW see her web site http://www.janisian.com/ for some free mp3 of her music. Anyway, 17 is still some years off for Linux but by then maybe it will rule the world. :)

I've found that to be true myself; every time we make a few songs available on my website, sales of all the CDs go up. A lot. - Janis Ian

No, there is enough evidence at Janis Ians website to support this, and Baen Books have been making the same claim with regard to their free library, see janisian.com and Baen Free Library for more info.
[Note: Bean seems to be down ATM]

It's sad to see how closed the record industry is to innovation. As the article points out, unreasonable restrictions are being put on retailers. However, once again it is being shown that not all retailers are treated equally.

Remember how mp3.com allowed you to listen to albums that you owned? Apparently RIAA isn't concerned about that kind of thing anymore because they allow Virgin to have Mega-Play (see the article). The issue at stake in the mp3.com suits was that mp3.com didn't have a separate physical medium for every customer... What about Virgin?!

And then there are the issues of quality and DRM. Personally, I like my music as 320kbps mp3s that I can put on my mp3 player, burn to CD, etc. Consequently, I'm limited to ripping it off CDs.

Incidentally, my CD purchases have exploded since I started downloading music. I download to check it out, and then get the CD. Fortunately, some artists are better than others and provide more songs per CD.

Being in Germany, I'm stuck with exorbitant prices (e.g., the album Down From The Mountain which I purchased for $15 at Walmart in the US costs 32.99 Euros/~$40 over here). So I consider the purchases that I make. But as I mentioned, I still purchase at least 1 CD per month for myself - plus any I give as gifts. Just give me my music as I like it! I'm happy to pay!

But what about the out-of-print music that the labels are sitting on? I can't believe that the studios have problems with people downloading _those_! There are a number of CDs that I've looked for and that I would have been more than happy to purchase, but they are no longer being sold.

Janis Ian wrote an interesting article that generated a lot of feedback. She proposed that the labels should charge $0.25 per song for download of out of print songs, and put their whole backlog of songs online. That would be a windfall for them. I'm quite sure that that would more than make up for the downturn in record sales. However, it seems that RIAA has forgotten that the whole economy went south. So it's not just downloading that's breaking them, but they could easily turn it to their favor.

He seems to be talking about some "mid-level" artists or something. Most "unknowns" make almost nothing off record sales -- they make far more on live shows. Many of them can give the music away for free because it increases their listening audience, who go to their concerts and/or buy their merchandise (including paying for a better quality CD than downloaded mp3s). There's also the "older artist" category like Janis Ian who also get the same increase in audience & sales by giving music away. So it's not just big stars.

The money may "go to the RIAA", but in reality it's going to pay off the debts incurred by the bands.

So, once again: The RIAA members screw their artists at every turn.

Me, I only buy used or direct from the artist these days.

I have listened to freely provided mp3s (ah, the days of the webcaster and online jukebox) and received mix tapes (which they'd like to get rid of as well but settled with media fees). When I liked the artist, I went right out and BOUGHT THEIR MUSIC, not only CDs, but the sheet music. They are making twice the profit off of me for good work. I wouldn't have heard them if I hadn't gotten exposure through the mp3s or tapes to begin with. Good music is worth getting a good quality of (instead of a low quality mp3. A good stereo system will let you hear the difference). Bad music isn't even worth my storage.

Should we shut down used CD stores because the artists don't make a dime? I now purposely avoid new labels that the RIAA represents and buy used because of the crap they've thrown around.

There are other musicians who agree that mp3s are free publicity. The RIAA (as do many bad business models) just wants to force the crap they spew down everyone's throat and put the blame on someone else for why they aren't making money.

The same concept goes for the Baen Free library. I've read free books by authors I didn't know. The ones I like, I often buy more of. Why do restaurant fronts often have free samples of the food they are selling? Free music is more than a boon for consumers.

Your rant is entirely a tautology and you clearly have little or no experience as musician or producer of media.

Go and read janis ian
for a musicians perspective.

I can tell you, as someone who made a living as a professional music producer (yes you have heard my work) for 10 years that the industry is rotten. Thats why I got out and turned back to pure programming.

This is about far more than your childishly simplified poor starving artists yarn.
The RIAA, or more accurately the lables, distributers and other people they represent are screwing over everyone in the eqaution and destroying a cultural phenomenon - music!

We need to reclaim that culture, as a point of principle and outside of any economic or political context.

But if you added a better enumeration system for what actually got played, noting that the computer systems and network today make this almost trivial compared to the current sampling system and estimation based solely upon air-play (which is itself pushed and pulled by what amounts to payolla but isn't called that anymore), then it may in fact be fair.

The other thing to note is that there doesn't seem to be any movement to make this (levy) payment the only way an artist can get paid. I expect that many (more) will resort to self-publishing and doing e-commerce in the same fashion that Janis Ian is doing, adding value in the form of physical articles that go along with the purchase of the (digital) art in question.

Collectors, fans, wanabees and all sorts will pay for exclusivity - either first access, unique extras, etc.

The other thing that will continue to make the artists money is appearances - live music gigs for example.

What the whole change is doing is cutting out the middle men - the publishers - and I for one am glad they're going. Today, they add nothing and take much. They are the ones that want to implement DRM - so they can get paid to do what they no longer need to do - distribute.

Bullshit. CD sales drop do appear to match the economy, the correlation isn't right to blame sharing, their own numbers suggest the drop in CD sales is better attributed to CD prices, reduced production (and here), organized crime, and a bunch of other reasons. All of these analyses suggest CD sales losses are not due to filesharing.

So, I'm not sure where you're coming from with your "apparently quite rare" statment. The evidence shows otherwise.

Well, despite you anecdotal evidence, better evidence suggest that downloaders do indeed increase sales. So in short, you're just wrong.

This is also a straw man for a couple of reasons: first, CD sales are hurting, so any "benefit" to the industry or artists is being swallowed up

Wrong. You are assuming loss of CD sales is due to filesharing. As the above linked evidence shows, that's not true. In fact, following this one (and there are others), CD sales might be even worse without the gain from the "try before you buy" effect of filesharing.

Additionally, almost any illegal act, civil or criminal, has a "well, it COULD have a beneficial side effect" argument.

Except that this illegal act is illegal for the reason that it is assumed to harm sales, which the evidence above doesn't support. If it's not harmful, there's no need for it to be illegal. (I'm not advocating making it legal, but a different model is at least necessary.) Whatever other acts you are referring to are illegal for the harm the do cause. (If they don't, then perhaps they shouldn't be illegal either.) Also, the point is that the industry seems to be missing the concept (and evidence), that filesharing can be (or perhaps is) >helpful to them.

... if the goal is to feel better about what you're doing

You are making yet another assumption, that I am illegally downloading songs. In fact, I have never illegally downloaded a single song. I have nothing personal to rationalize. I am simply someone cursed with a love for logic and reason, not blind reactionism.

Lawyers can defend even acknowledged ruthless child serial killers, so complaining about their defence of the music studios is pointless; it's in the nature of legal argument to ignore all arguments against one's position and only focus on supportive ones, so the RIAA lawyers are deaf by design, by training. Likewise, the studios are doing as required by law in defending the income of their shareholders, so the most one can really complain about is the lack of vision of their executives. If you really want to get to the source of the current problem, you need to look at the artists themselves, because as long as they continue to sell their souls to the studio system, it follows as night follows day that the studios will continue to capitalize from it.

Buy a music mag and try to find any groundswell of opinion among artists in favor of their listeners and against the policies of the studios and against the actions of the RIAA. Once in a blue moon you'll find a high-profile celebrity like Janis Ian, but they're lone voices rather than part of a trend. There is no groundswell of opinion among the artists in favor of removing the studios from the loop. They continue to buy into the music industry hype, because it's the done thing in their world. They don't feel that they've made it until they're mentioned in the music press buzz, which is an inherent part of the studio propaganda machinery.

I don't know how this vicious circle can be broken, but it's being fed daily by countless signings of new artists to the labels, and trying to combat the RIAA and other symptoms instead of the root cause is not likely to be very productive.

"The fact that they do so anyway speaks volumes about both the relevance of the services music companies provide."

Most artists detest marketing. That's the primary reason any artist goes to a major label -- laziness.

"I am not aware of any band that became successful (as in, the average person knows they exist) without a record label."

When the major labels approached MC Hammer (who until then had been selling CD's out of the back of a van up and down the left coast), Hammer actually turned down their initial offer, because selling CD's out of the back of a van was making him more money than the contract would have. The label had to come back with a much more favorable (non-standard) contract, and he made $135 million in one year once that happened.

But don't take my word for it. Ask an artist who's been in the business for a while.

Following up on your own posts is lame, agreed, but this link to an article by Janis Ian is too good and relevant to not post:

The Beatles don't control Apple Records anymore .

Hmm I wonder if they ever did.

Have a look at these to know what I mean...
http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2002-09-15 -artists-rights_x.htm
http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
http://www.janisian.com/article-internet_debacle.h tml


In short: in corporate america the artists *PAY* the company for their work!

I think their creative math comes into play in how they measure "major offenders". I mean, they're suing anonymous young kids who probably aren't fully aware of the ethics involved, but I highly doubt that they're suing those who freely admit to and encourage illegal file swapping, like the article in Time that was posted on the front page of CNN today and included links to P2P software reviews by CNET. Or what about NARAS president Michael Greene hiring three teenagers to download music - who gave him a free ride? I don't think the RIAA has the authority to even authorize its own executive to "violate" its members copyrights en masse.

Could the threatened students and teenagers point to these as examples of discrimination or selective prosecution? Or does it mean that journalists and industry types are immune and everyone else should safely restrict their P2P activities to "special projects" - like researching how many songs can be enjoyably swapped and listened to over a series of annual periods (for later publication, of course)?

What I read of this is that the BBC is going to put these up on the net, and hope people will pay for them anyways... somehow, I'm not perfectly certain it's going to work the way we want it to...

Yeah, because the RIAA and MPAA both say it isn't true, and they'd never lie, right?

It's amusing to note that of the people who have tried have found that it does indeed increase sales.

I guess you don't realize that the RIAA not only gives their stuff away to people who don't pay for it, but actually pays people to give it away for them.

But if all the content is to be given away for free, surely these will die away?

Why? Besides the "it just will" argument I keep hearing from the likes of the RIAA/MPAA, anyone who's actually tried it claims the exact opposite effect (that is, that sales increased, not decreased.)

from the article:
"it's clearly a better deal than they get from piracy."

It's only a better deal if the musician's 12% cut of the download fee is somehow not covered by their recording contract. Normally all expenses of production, manufacturing, advertising and distribution come out of the musician's share, usually leaving zero. This standard recording contract provision is why musicians themselves don't actually lose money to piracy. They don't lose money because they don't make money from record sales. Musicians make money by playing gigs, and the exposure they get from record sales (or airplay, or downloads) generates more and better gigs. Downloading does not hurt musicians, it helps them.

For further explanation read some of Janis Ian's informative articles on the mechanics of the recording business.

According to one of the best articles written on the subject, it's a big step up.

Thanks for that link, it was one of the most insightful articles I have read on the subject in a long time. This is the sort of article that I would have like to see as /. story.

the artists get a measly 12 cents for each download.

From all the articles there have been about the artists under the RIAA, 12% is a hell of a lot better than the cut they get normally. Sure, it's measly, but it's probably a step up. Here's to hoping it'll increase.

Generally oranizations pursue legal tactics when they have no clue about their own business models or how to evolve them when times change.

How much does all this legal bullcrap add to the overpriced cost of music?

I kinda get the impression that the only reason they do this is to facilitate RIAA's own existance so they can say "see look what we are doing for artists?" What I say to artists is this... take a look at Janis Ian's website http://www.janisian.com/ she effectively uses the web to to keep her fans in tune to her music long after the recording companies (RIAA) found her to be "unprofitable".

I've said it before and I'll say it again... RIAA and the Record Companies do not make artists into stars, their Fans do.

RIAA bite my dingleberry-crusted ass, i'd rather sit in the dark and hum to myself rather than deal with your crap, that's why your sales have been lagging recently.

Stop hiding behind your lawyers and start listing to the Fans/Customers, peace = contentment, you want peace in the music bus make your customers content. Here's a little clue your attorneys are not the answer, didn't you get the memo?

The problem is that entertainment companies don't exist to promote or encourage the arts, they exist to make and sell copies. Period.
To them music isn't art, it's a product that they can own and profit from.

Musicians make money by playing gigs, not by selling records. Recording contracts are written such that all expenses of production, manufacturing, distribution and advertising a CD are paid out of the musician's share, usually leaving zero. What the musician gets from CD sales is exposure, which translates to gigs. Musicians know this, but most of them aren't convinced yet that they can make it big without a recording contract. Very few superstars have taken strong stands against file sharing. A few who are smart enough at business (Madonna) to get a bigger percentage and actually make money from record sales, and a few idiots (Metallica).

If you are interested in a long-time singer's in-depth details of working with record companies, read some of Janis Ian's excellent writings on the subject.

I've read the sentences numerous times. Read mine again. I do not claim duplicating == loaning. Using the logic that a duplication means money out of someone's pocket, then the use of a single copy for multiple people is just as equally economically depriving. I am not claiming copying is good or right, merely pointing out that if copying = depriving people of their hard earned money, then the logical conclusion of that limited reasoning is that libraries also deprive people of hard earned money.

While I might agree with you in concept, what the hell numbers are you quickly looking at? You got a great reference: sight it. Otherwise as far as I can tell you pulled that out of your ass.

One story stating musicnet as 75,000 subscribers, which is better than pressplay. Perhaps it would be better to say the public response to the variety of such ventures is lukewarm at best (excepting the iTunes store). BTW, the word is cite, not sight.

Bingo, this is the business world. They aren't there to protect your rights, just their interests. See the well know industry attempts at more percise crippling attempts: Palladium, Digital Rights Management

Exactly. This response was to a question about fair use rights of the consumer, and his answer was essentially a "we're concerned with our interests, not your your rights." Rather than give an honest answer, the response was that we want a technology that can determine your intent and prevent the "bad" kind, a task that is obviously impossible.

Finally, a reference. Here I'm just curious: does anyone really believe that as P2P becomes more common it wouldn't disrupt sales? The paradigm has shifted, thats the issue here. Does the Recording Industry have the right to limit our rights in order to protect an out moded business model?

Actually, I'm not sure how much it will disrupt sales. I submit that what might actually happen is a change in the breadth of what is bought, rather than an absolute decline. This is a point I am very open to discuss, yet my original point is that the riaa drones that maintain P2P is the cause of the sales decline when there I've seen no real evidence of that suggestion. You and I can sit here and debate the outcomes we expect, yet that will be as much meaningless blather as the drones in the absence of real data.

Who's the thief? I mean do you know who your stealing from every time you download? Are you sure you haven't downloaded anything self distributed? There are honest people in the music industry and dishonest people, what's your point?

The recording industry = the thief, downloaders = second thief. There are a number of highly publicized artists who've claimed that the real thieves are the record companies themselves. This was what the question was about, and taking the viewpoint of those artists, it becomes an interesting excercise in hypocrisy. If this group is essentially stealing from artists, and then blasting listeners for "stealing from artists," who is really harming the artists more? Again, I am not suggesting we steal, shoplift or illegally download to Fight-the-Man (tm), merely making a counter-point to the riaa drone.

Stealing a DVD is depriving ownership of an object, Copying a song is depriving no one of ownership.

..you make a cohesive point. But of course it is depriving someone of ownership: the record company and the artist.

of course? I think this issue is much more complicated than that. When I copy a file, I am

I'm pretty sure he was referring to Janis Ian.

but why aren't the benefits of lower production costs being passed on to the consumer?

On this planet the recording industry is pretty well known for being
greedy. I feel they have been ripping me off for years. When CD's came out they cost twice what an LP or Cassette did. They said that was because they had to build new plants to produce CD's and as soon as they were built and the quantities went up the prices would come down. Well maybe I blinked and missed it, but I never saw a major reduction and I think $18.99 for a single album is outrageous. I refuse to pay that much for a CD. I usually wait and try to find it in the cut-out or used bins.

A few years ago I was involved in a business that sold used CD's and we did some new CD's. From the distributor we could buy new releases for around $12 and super savers were around $10. I am guessing that the distributor only made a dollar or two so that means that the record company was getting $8-$10 per unit. From having checked into producing a CD I could have one made with quantites of 1000 for less than 2$. Therefore I would bet that they can produce the CD's for less than $1 for quantites > 10,000. So lets say they make $8 per cd. To me that's a pretty good profit margin.

I'm also under the impression that they rip the (non-superstar)
artists off.

Bottom Line: I'm not holding my breath waiting for a little savings on production costs to be passed back to me.

Do you honestly think that 90% of musical artists agree with distribution of their music without getting paid for it (regardless of whether they get a lot or a little)?

Well, if they listen to the august Janis Ian they do. Here's a woman whose been around the RIAA block more than once, has released a number of songs freely available for download on her website- and profited from it.

Read it, it's a good article. Also note the follow up link at the top of the page for later consumption.

The biggest flaw in this idea is that it is yet another attempt to solve the wrong problem: how to build a life support system for record companies. I wish these pundits would read and understand what musicians are saying increasingly in their writings : that the whole music piracy brouhaha is not about musicians, it's only about record companies, and that we really don't need record companies.

Most musicians by far make a living with paying gigs, not CD sales. Recording contracts are carefully structured so that all expenses come out of the artist's share, which ends up being zero. CD sales benefit musicians by giving them exposure which translates into gigs. A musician gets this same exposure whether someone buys a CD, listens to a song on the radio or downloads it from Kazaa.

Replacing the entire record industry with free distribution wouldn't deprive musicians of anything except the opportunity to let the record companies control their careers. And as an added bonus, it would mean one less source of big-money whispering into the ears of lawmakers.

Janis Ian's experiences
Advice for the aspiring musician
Baen Free Library

1. No DRM, beyond that which is already in my iPod, meaning I am free to burn CD's as I please.
2. Catalog choices. If the selection is limited to Top 40 hits of the past ten years, no way. But if the choices are wide and deep (and maybe even out of print songs as was suggested earlier, and
3. Previews, allowing me to edit out the album filler. $.99 is cheap, and most albums only have a max of 4 good tracks.

They are busy with their demands that Verizon
provide the name of a user who may have downloaded some music which may be
copyright and they are busy with their allegations about KaZaA music service,
a company which has the good sense to challenge the operation of the RIAA.

In the same manner it used in the Napster trial,
the RIAA is making wild assertions that gullible media, public and even legal
authorities appear to be accepting as fact. So far at least, it has managed
to give the impression that everyone apart from its members are to blame
for a slump in music sales. It can't be them - it must be those evil people
using the Internet.

No doubt the RIAA was emboldened by the judgment
against Napster and this gives it the feeling it can flex its muscles at
the world at large.

There is little doubt that Napster was guilty
of copyright infringement but only directly in so far as they themselves
copied music; that Napster had knowledge that users were infringing copyright
but only in so far as they could ascertain that copyright applied to certain
tracks; that they were guilty of contributory copyright infringement but
only in so far as they encouraged users to infringe copyright, and that they
were guilty of vicarious copyright only in so far as their income was dependent
on the use of copyrighted material.

That they themselves copied music from CD into
digital form is not clear. That they knew users were making illegal copies
is true, but the means of policing such action was beyond them if they had
no list of copyrighted works or any other means of checking. That they encouraged
others to infringe copyright is also probably true, but again the exact extent
of this and its influence on users is impossible to gauge. That its income
was dependent on copyright infringement is an accepted fact but again the
exact extent of this is impossible to determine.

For the record, Napster did not store music
on its own servers - it simply held the databases of music tracks that could
be accessed from users' own systems. The software they offered for peer-to-peer
copying between systems was also standard, although some minor enhancements
were made to improve the copying of large MP3 files. Providing something
as a legitimate use means it cannot be banned on the basis of possible
illegal use.

Findlaw.com has an archive of documents related to the trial and they
make very interesting reading. Time and time again, there are assertions
that Napster caused a slump in record sales but none of the many witnesses
- and there were many because the RIAA has deep pockets - presented any more
than circumstantial evidence.

How bad were the lies and distortions? The
response by Peter S Fader of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
provides an interesting rebuff to many of the witnesses. (You can find it
here.)

For example, one music storeowner near Syracuse
University in New York attributed a steep decline in music sales to the use
of Napster. He forgot to mention that in the time period to which he referred,
he had changed his emphasis from CDs to vinyl records and had moved to a
new store which was outside the main local shopping area. He later reluctantly
agreed that perhaps these were significant factors in his drop in income
and that perhaps he was making an assumption about Napster.

In a survey commissioned by the RIAA, the results
to open-ended questions (i.e. those with no specific choices) were interpreted
with a strong bias towards that association. This survey also concentrated
on college and university students then attempted to generalise the results
and paint a grim picture. More thorough surveys by other researchers indicated
that these "financially challenged" students were not typical Napster users
because more than 50% of users were over 30. Scattered through the various
submissions are all kinds of assertions that Napster was taking large numbers
of customers away from legitimate enterprises. Not one of these submissions
produced any incontrovertible evidence that showed a direct connection between
the use of Napster and a decline in music sales.

Several musicians who had been either ignored
or badly treated by record companies saw Napster as highly beneficial. Some
submissions are included in the Findlaw archive but other such as Janis Ian,
with 25-years in the recording business, chose to make their own public statements.
Janis's two postings can be found here.
She notes that Napster created a lot of interest in her work, far more than
before Napster arrived on the scene.

Other artists also commented on this phenomenon,
a point that dovetails nicely with numerous surveys - including some from
the RIAA itself - that showed consumers used Napster for sampling different
music. A shock horror tale in one pro-RIAA trial submission was that only
25% of the surveyed users went out and bought the CDs for at least 1 in 4
of the tracks they downloaded. Oddly enough, that corresponds well to the
idea of sampling. What a pity the same survey did not ask about deletions
of downloaded music too, because a large number of deletions within a few
days of downloading would further confirm this sampling.

Various surveys also supported these claims.
A survey by Jupiter Communications in July 2000 concluded that Napster users
were 45% more likely to have spent more buying music than non-users. This
survey was of 2200 online music fans and it found that the only people who
were not likely to increase their music purchases were 18 to 24 year old
"cash-strapped, computer-savvy users".

Jupiter Communications was certainly not alone
in these findings. The consensus was that Napster let people listen to music
that they would not otherwise made the effort to consider. As a result, musical
tastes spread. Another report mentioned that it made it easy to rediscover
artists or to find additional material by them. Both cases meant an increase
in sales of CDs and of vinyl records. There were several comments - of course
from people outside the RIAA - that Napster looked far more likely to increase
music sales than diminish them.

Another reason that students used Napster was
that it let them access one or two good tracks on an otherwise forgettable
CD. I am sure that we all have CDs that fall into that category. The attitude
of the RIAA seems to be that consumers must buy the rubbish in order to get
the few small jewels.

The fact that music sales were declining just
as the use of Napster was increasing presented the RIAA with the perfect
scapegoat, so absolving the music industry of blame and saving it the effort
to think there might be other reasons behind the slump.

After Napster died, the RIAA spouted the same
assertions about online music, whether or not such opinions were false, ill-founded
or unrepresentative.

Here's a typical pronouncement published by DC.Internet during February 2002. "The
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is blaming online piracy
and CD burning as the major culprits for a 10.3 percent slide in 2001 music
sales. According to RIAA data, total U.S. shipments dropped from 1.08 billion
units shipped in 2000 to 968.58 million in 2001. ... Coinciding with the increase
in copying music, the study found that ownership of CD burners has nearly
tripled since 1999: in 2001, two in five music consumers owned a CD burner
compared to 14 percent who owned one in 1999."

At the same time the RIAA declared the rise
in sales of blank CDs was further proof of music piracy, and that blank CD
sales should be curtailed.

Let's dispose of this whole nonsense about CD
burners and blank CD sales quickly and then move back to the more important
issues.

Computer security is not something that the
RIAA is very familiar with, judging by the number of times its own Web site
has been hacked.

Blank CDs are used to back-up computer data.
When one blank CD costs about the same price as one diskette but stores
about 460 times the amount of data, is faster to record and takes far less
space than the equivalent thousands of diskettes, it would be stupid not
to use CDs for backups. The RIAA was quite adamant that the 10% drop in
CD sales in the USA in 2001 as compared to sales in 2000 was purely due to
music piracy but this assertion has to be very seriously questioned.

Firstly, if the RIAA is correct, it would follow
that the general interest in music was unchanged and that attendances at
concerts would be about the same as previous years. They weren't. According
to MTV's reports on the web, concert attendances dropped off by about 15%
in 2001 and revenues were down. The average ticket price rose by about 7%
during the year but as usual it is difficult to say if this deterred ticket
buyers or generated the best possible revenue in a bad situation.

An article in the Miami Herald of March 2002 provides a more balanced
commentary about the slump in music sales than the RIAA's rants. It attributes
a lot of problems in the industry to the fact that the record companies were
under attack from many directions - the government was threatening investigations
into payola, the companies were suffering the excesses of the technological
boom and bust, costs were rising and recording artists were in revolt about
the terms and conditions of their contracts with the record companies.

The terms and conditions are normally that artists
are contracted to produce a certain number of CDs in a certain time - but
it is the companies which dictate what music is acceptable to be marketed
and the manner in which a CD will or won't be marketed. For all this, the
artists receive 10 to 20 percent of the profits of the sale, but only after
the record companies charge them for promotional and marketing costs. Janis
Ian has in fact described the situation as being like indentured slavery,
and it is therefore no wonder that some artists were very pleased with using
Napster to get their music more widely known.

According to the same Miami Herald report,
sales of Latin music were up by 9% in 2001 but "In Latin America itself,
riddled with economic hardship and rampant piracy, mid-2001 sales fell about
20 percent." At least someone made the connection between personal wealth
and piracy.

For a further commentary about issues within
the music industry that were contributing to its slump, try this article
which also provides a far better analysis of the situation that the RIAA's
allegations. This gives an indication of the tone of the piece: "Given the
slight dip in CD sales despite so many reasons for there to be a much larger
drop, it seems that the effect of downloading, burning, and sharing is one
of the few bright lights helping the music industry with their most loyal
customers. "

One obvious factor that seems to have been ignored
by the RIAA is the nature of the music being released by the record companies.
Let me throw some names at you ... Sex Pistols, Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd,
Rod Stewart, Moody Blues, Brian Ferry, Genesis, Elton John and Cliff Richard.
If you are old enough to remember them you will probably like some of them
but dislike others. That is not the point; the point is that they co-existed
on the music charts in the late 1970s and this kind of variation is a far
cry from the kind of music that has been dominating the charts.

The current number of "revivals" or modern versions
of old songs suggests that the music from the 60s, 70s and 80s had something
that is seriously lacking in modern music. Perhaps the record companies
should spend time figuring out just why this is so.

The RIAA's claims that piracy has caused a worldwide
slump in music sales are questionable. By virtue of its population size,
the figures for the USA distort the total picture. The claims also ignore
the fact that US music sells across the world - so if US music is unappealing,
sales will be down everywhere.

To refute the RIAA's claims, CD sales in the
UK actually increased by 5% in 2001 and in France by a similar amount. (The
BBC News report here has the usual comment about piracy but mentions
this very important point only as a final comment.) I would not be at all
surprised if the influence of US music on the UK and French was somewhat
less than for other countries - or that the locally produced music in 2001
was rather more appealing than US music.

To label all US music as unappealing is quite
unfair. Latin and Country music sales have been quite good - probably because
they offered variety, positive energy and far broader appeal than mainstream
pop.

The possible causes of a decline in music sales
go further than these reasons.

Potential music consumers today have far more
choice in their form of entertainment than just listening to music. They
also have other things on which to spend their money and in many cases, they
have less money to spend than they did a few years ago.

Computer games continue to improve and they
are a big leisure activity. Games cost money that might otherwise be spent
on music. Further, games have audio and there is little point playing a
CD if the game's audio will drown out the music.

DVD sales continue to be good and the availability
of "home cinema" systems with DVD player and high quality audio has made
this a popular pastime. Entertainment has become more visual, at least for
those with time to sit and enjoy it. Music videos themselves have increased
the emphasis on the visual aspect of music.

In the USA the price of movie tickets compared
to CDs shows a dramatic difference, with movie tickets reportedly less than
half the price of a CD. Recent reports also say that movie attendance figures
are very high.

Finally, mobile telephone use is on the increase
especially among teenagers who might otherwise buy music CDs. Music might
be aimed at this demographic but most of them are still reliant on pocket-money
and probably have to pay their own mobile phone charges. Little wonder then
that they cannot also afford CDs when some of them rack up bills equivalent
to the GDP of a small country.

The RIAA is under threat from a number of directions
and it is fighting, on behalf of its members, for continued monopolistic
existence. They are under attack from increasing diversions in entertainment
and for the would-be music buyers' money. And they are also under attack
from a new medium that threatens to drastically change the way that music
is distributed and to reduce their control.

They are also seriously concerned about copyright
law and fear that as copyrights expire they will lose significant profits
and, even more importantly, their control over music distribution.

Since the RIAA started raising a fuss with Napster,
the US copyright laws have been changed and the period for which copyright
applies has been extended. Depending on your source you will find that this
is either the eleventh or fifteenth extension of copyright period in about
forty years. One report also indicated that many of these extensions have
occurred as various Walt Disney characters were nearing the end of their
copyright. (For more details see here).

Those with an interest in extending copyright
are more organised and have much deeper pockets than those opposed to change,
and so can finance a greater amount of pro-extension lobbying than those
who are opposed.

In 1998, an extension to the copyright laws meant
that period would last 70 years after the death of the creator, while works
owned by corporations were extended to 95 years. The RIAA is pleased with
this decision because we would otherwise been nearing the time when certain
music from about the early 1950s - the early days of rock and roll - would
have moved to the public domain. Anyone would have been free to publish
it and equally free to take the profits.

This 1998 extension to copyright period was
challenged but in mid-January of this year (2003) the court upheld the earlier
ruling and the RIAA and its cohorts were able to relax in the comfort that
their various treasure chests would not be released to the public. Don't
forget though, when the RIAA was fighting Napster, this outcome was far from
certain.

Cynics among us look at the notions behind the
copyright law and shake our collective heads. The US law was first introduced
in 1790 for a 14-year period with the aim of encouraging creativity and ensure
that the artists or thinkers could enjoy the profits of that creativity.
Extension of the copyright period is only in the interest of groups like
the RIAA because it means they can rely on older material and can minimise
any efforts to find new talent.

The battle for copyright is not yet over because
European authorities do not kowtow to American interests quite so easily.
EU copyright protection lasts only 50 years, as opposed to 95 in the US,
and so music recordings from the 1950s are becoming public domain in Europe.
The 1950s were a boom in popular music with rock and roll exploding and a
big jump in the number of records being released. Elvis Presley's first
record appeared in 1956 and Chuck Berry's first just two years later.

US music distribution companies have indicated
that they will start to fight CD imports, declaring that the import of European
CDs would be an act of piracy and that customs agents have the authority
to seize these imports.

Make no mistake, the RIAA is under attack from
many different directions, some legislative, some social, some from their
artist "slaves" and others from technology. Loss of control of the music
business would mean a dramatic loss of profit for these companies and it
is for those reasons they are currently embarking on a scare campaign about
music piracy around the world.

Again, European authorities are not impressed
by this blathering. According to a recent BBC report here, the European Commission has only outlawed commercial
(i.e. for profit) piracy but has decided not to criminalise people who download
music from the Internet for their own use. Needless to say the RIAA, and
its international counterpart the IFPI, are up to their normal tactics and
alleging - on no proven basis - that this will cause losses of 4.5 billion
euros annually.

In the bigger picture, these organisations are
out to police everything on the web that just might be somehow related to
the copyrighted works that they jealously guard.

In July 2002 a bill was introduced to the US
House of Representatives to permit the owners of material under copyright
to hack into any computer that accesses or uses a peer-to-peer file transfer
service to see if it was holding any illegal copies of the material. It
was described as vigilante justice in the 21st century. I think I know how
commercial enterprises such as banks would view such intrusions!

It appears that they need no "due cause" which
is what even the various law enforcement agencies require for any similar
search activity.

Using similar wild claims about piracy destroying
their business, the RIAA and IFPI are embarking on what amounts to a marketing
campaign to protect their backsides. Unfortunately the assertions are getting
lots of press attention, and there is a danger of the old problem that if
a lie is repeated often enough it gets accepted as truth.

In their latest moves the RIAA and other are
trying to persuade legal authorities to hold ISPs responsible for any illegal
material that is stored on their servers. (For example, see this report). I am
not certain if the ISPs will be required to call out the rottweilers (i.e.
the RIAA) or to decide if a music file is public domain, copyright but authorised
or copyright and illegal, and then act as judge and jury to decide the form
of punishment.

As I have argued earlier, the ISPs should not
be held responsible because it is not their problem if a user wishes to risk
prosecution for whatever crime. I am waiting for the day when ISP operations
can be fully automated and there is no need for any middle-person who currently
provides a ready and easy target for legal authorities and those who pretend
they are legal authorities.

Already the RIAA has managed to convince a
US court into demanding that Verizon hand out the personal details of a user
who is supposed to have copied music files. I know of no other legal situation
where a middle party has been obliged to provide these details to someone
who believes that they may have been a victim of some crime.

Fortunately Verizon is already objecting to
this demand

This Verizon case was discussed in an Australian
article, which went on to blame music piracy for a drop
in CD sales (yet again) and make the typical kind of claim that we have already
seen from the neo-Luddites. "The finger of blame is pointed at the internet,
as industry officials cite a corresponding increase in broadband adoption
as proof that increasing numbers of people are stealing music and movies."

The truly sad thing is that the RIAA is not
acting in the interests of consumers or even their musical artists. It is
only protecting its members, but a lot of influential people are swallowing
the story hook, line and sinker.

I read through the article, and it seems pretty clear that NARAS has decided to embrace P2P, file-sharing, and subscription models without DRM as the primary form of music distribution. One of the arguments he made was that it turned out to actually profit many artists, and among those he cited was Janis Ian.

So I found it very interesting that the link off the article to Janis Ian's Internet Debacle quotes NARAS as follows:

The NARAS people were a bit more pushy. They told me downloads were "destroying sales", "ruining the music industry", and "costing you money".

Looks like NARAS has done a 180. But if they previously didn't believe in what this article is arguing for, why do they believe it now? Is it really just because they think they have to adapt to the new model? Or are there other motives which we don't know about? After all, I bet a huge load of /.ers are going to think "Yay, NARAS! Boo, RIAA!" after reading this. Are we looking at a power struggle?

In today's NY Times article "6 Retailers Plan Venture to Sell Music on the Web" Laura M. Holson writes, "a proliferation of free music-swapping services on the Internet has led to a decline in CD sales."

Ms. Holmes has either succumbed to the incessant propaganda of the big music labels or has an insight into global economic causal relations that would make even Chairman Greenspan envious.

During the same time period that peer-to-peer file-sharing networks have been active, several other factors have existed that seem as likely or more likely to explain the recent decline in CD sales.

1. The music industry has consolidated to such an extent that many radio stations sound exactly alike, reducing consumer choice and interest.

2. The music industry focuses almost all its promotional efforts on a few super-artists who have a chance to sell millions of records (Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Boy Bands, etc.) and so non-mainstream or non-teen-pop artists that would interest people over age 25 (with purchasing power) do not get the exposure necessary to attract new fans.

3. Consumers have more products competing for their limited dollars than ever before. DVDs, wireless phones, digital cable, broadband internet, PDAs and a host of other things soak up time and money that used to be spent listening to music and buying CDs.

4. The music labels over-charge for their products (and were even recently convicted of illegal price-fixing and they have not offered a reasonably priced alternative to file-sharing networks that does not cripple the downloads in some way (limited playbacks, unable to burn to CD, expires after a set time, etc.) It's not surprising then that when consumers don't get what they want, they don't shell out their hard-earned cash.

5. There is an overall slowdown in the economy, if no one has noticed.

In response, consider instead that:

1. Jupiter Communications did a study in 2000 at the height of Napster usage that showed Napster users bought MORE not FEWER CDs.

2. Actual artists claim that file-sharing increases their sales.

I would have hoped that a reporter for The New York Times would be more careful about so casually asigning a single cause to such a complex effect.

[snip personal info]

If published, please print name and city/state only.

You seem to think the band makes its money from CDs. Let's hear from a career musician.

From personal experience: in 37 years as a recording artist, I've created 25+ albums for major labels, and I've never once received a royalty check that didn't show I owed them money. So I make the bulk of my living from live touring, playing for 80-1500 people a night, doing my own show.

-Janis Ian

"Also, the article has the tone "P2P is here to stay"

That part I read the same as you.

""...and nobody will ever be willing to pay for a P2P file-sharing service", which I somewhat agree with.."

I didn't get that from the article. It seemed to me he was saying that the crappy P2P that the xxAA companies will try to use to supplant working P2P models will fail be cause nobody would ever be willing to pay for those.

I also don't agree with your feeling that people wouldn't pay at all for a decent P2P model of distribution. I know she's quoted a lot in the discussions of this stuff (but that's just because her writings are so well thought out), but Janis Ian's articles (second article here) talk a bit about possible ways of handling P2P distribution while still making a profit very intelligently.

"Also, the article has the tone "P2P is here to stay"

That part I read the same as you.

""...and nobody will ever be willing to pay for a P2P file-sharing service", which I somewhat agree with.."

I didn't get that from the article. It seemed to me he was saying that the crappy P2P that the xxAA companies will try to use to supplant working P2P models will fail be cause nobody would ever be willing to pay for those.

I also don't agree with your feeling that people wouldn't pay at all for a decent P2P model of distribution. I know she's quoted a lot in the discussions of this stuff (but that's just because her writings are so well thought out), but Janis Ian's articles (second article here) talk a bit about possible ways of handling P2P distribution while still making a profit very intelligently.

If you think the artists would stop making music if people stopped buying CDs, you haven't been reading what the musicians themselves have been saying lately. A good place to start is with these informative articles by Janis Ian. Musicians DO NOT MAKE MONEY FROM CDs. They make money from concerts. Standard record company contracts demand that all the production and promotion costs of CDs be taken out of the musician's share of the profit, generally leaving the musicians with ZERO. They tolerate this abuse because CD sales equal exposure, which translates to gigs, which is how musicians, even famous ones, make their actual living.

Whether music is sold on little plastic discs or given away on the Internet would not materially affect most musicians at all. At this point few musicians understand how to use the Internet to promote themselves, for the same reason I don't understand plasma physics or the investment banking business. It's just not their thing. What's more, getting a recording contract has been a mark of success for musicians for a VERY long time, and it's hard to change that culture.

But it will change. Once a few net-savvy musicians achieve fame solely by free distribution and are playing big venues and making lots of money, more will follow, and the record companies will die for lack of takers.

As regards most musicians, they still make their living performing live. Only the ones who have made it big enough to start their own label make enough from recordings to live on.

Check out Courtney Love does the math and Janis Ian's articles on this subject.

Here's a particularly relevant quote from Janis' second article:

Because I know that although RIAA and their supporting companies can afford to spend 55 million dollars a year lobbying Congress and in the courts, they cannot afford to alienate every music buyer and artist out there. At that point, there will be a general strike, make no mistake. Just one week of people refusing to play the radio, buy product, or support our industry in any way, would flex muscles they have no idea are out there.

On a related note..

Here is the "Human Masturbation Preventer".

On pg. 57 of the June 2002 issue of Performing Songwriter (i.e. the same issue that ran the print version of Janis Ian's internet debacle column) contains an interview with Michael Hausman about his new organization United Musicians. Their hope to a) help artists retain ownership of their masters and the copyrights on their songs instead of signing those rights over to publishing companies, and b) hire full time marketing people to help members get their CD's marketed. I think both of this is a great idea. Few indie musicians can afford a marketing person to get them national airplay, but a group of musicians could.

Personally, I'm almost weaned off the major labels, by chance, since most of my favourie artists are also going independent. I think Britney's or Eminem's albums should come with a government health warning: "Purchasing this major label album may be detrimental to the health of music and music lovers worldwide".

You may have some valid points in your rant, but, like many here, I tend to switch off when the personal insults start appearing. We don't need this, do we?

Personally, I'm almost weaned off the major labels, by chance, since most of my favourie artists are also going independent. I think Britney's or Eminem's albums should come with a government health warning: "Purchasing this major label album may be detrimental to the health of music and music lovers worldwide".

You may have some valid points in your rant, but, like many here, I tend to switch off when the personal insults start appearing. We don't need this, do we?

Janis Ian's solution.

--bdj

http://www.janisian.com/bio.html

I like the way this woman writes. I don't really know jack about her music, other than what I read on her website, but the articles are amusing and insightful. I particulary likely the Memorable Mistakes article. Overall it looks like some interesting reading.