MP3: On Artist Protection And Copy Protection

Every once in a while, it's good to have someone slap you with a reminder that conflicts which look simple or clear-cut from a distance may not be quite so simple to those in the thick of the action. In this case, artist Baptist Death Ray spills his guts about the problems that widespread MP3 traffic poses to small musicians, in the context of an industry dominated by giants (and remember, not yet equipped for convenient micropayments). Meanwhile, ewhac serendipitously points out one faltering step toward the encryption which is sure to be common in the future MP3 marketplace, and perhaps has a bearing on the musicians' plight Mr. Death Ray describes.

I think that if you spoke with most musicians, you'd be surprised to find out that we hold big record labels in very low regard. Big record labels, owned by larger companies, run by stockholders, are interested in only one thing, and it ain't music. And it ain't musicians, neither. It is, quite simply, profit, and whatever they can do to maximise that profit, they'll do it. I know I'm sounding like Jon Katz here, but in truth a lot of what he says about corporatism fits the music industry perfectly. At the top are rich fat white guys churning out pablum, or thinking up new and creative ways to turn good acts into pablum, because pablum sells more records.

The problem with record labels is, quite simply, that in order to ensure that they make the kinds of money they want to make, they won't take chances. And because they happen to control all the methods of physical music distribution, they're the only game in town. When the only game in town won't take chances, that means that if you want to play, you have to play their game, and you can't take chances either.

Before the Internet, it wasn't even possible to compete against the major labels -- but in the 80s there were still plenty of minor labels willing to cater to your needs. In fact, once upon a time there was a thriving indie music scene -- there were bands able to make a living doing what they did by working with labels who didn't mind challenging music. But something happened: the big labels found out about these small labels, thought they could produce more pablum, and bought most of them out.

Meanwhile, the record industry lumbers merrily along, stepping on all the talent it can find, robbing them blind, making them sign ridiculous contracts that give up most of their rights and bleeding them dry. And a few musicians get fabulously rich in the process -- that's the carrot -- but the rest of the musicians wonder what the hell happened.

That's the problem with the record industry. And one of the biggest problems with a record label is that, despite how much they suck in general, they are phenomenally good at distribution. They know how to get the word out to record stations, they know how to put your CDs in stores, they know how to schedule you on talk shows, they know how to promote -- and they can reach a much, much larger area than you can. One of the biggest selling points a record label has is saying "our distribution network can put your CD in stores worldwide." Every musician wants his music heard worldwide, even if he tells himself he doesn't care. It's part of being a musician.

Here's the theory: the Backstreet Boys have thousands upon thousands of fans in every town they stop in. The Baptist Death Ray, on the other hand, does not. The Backstreet Boys play music that is likely to be played in every city and every town all over the world. The Baptist Death Ray, on the other hand, is a more cultivated taste. So while thousands upon thousands of people in every town might like the backstreet boys, only fifty to a hundred people in every town might like the Baptist Death Ray.

With the Internet, however, this can cease to be a problem. No longer does the Baptist Death Ray have to worry about finding 100 fans at a time. The Internet is distributed, which means among other things that although in reality all of the Baptist Death Ray fans are scattered across the globe, the perception is that they're all hanging out at the Baptist Death Ray's Web site, the Baptist Death Ray pages on Listensmart.com, Mp3.com, MusicBuilder.com, Riffage.com, and Garageband.com. In effect, the Baptist Death Ray has found a viable audience for his music over the Internet that he could not necessarily find via geography.

That is what the Internet should do for independent musicians. And this, my friends, is a genuine threat to the big record labels.

So right now you have musicians like me who make some of our music freely available. We say "listen to this! This is what I sound like. If you like it, why don't you buy the CD?" Pretty simple, not sophisticated, but all new movements start out simple and unsophisticated. In time, this could grow into something the major labels can't stop, and that scares them a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot. Once upon a time MP3.com talked a lot about this, before they tried to become another music label themselves. They called it a revolution. They were right, but then they went public and stopped talking about it.

But here's the truth: to support yourself on the Internet all you need to do is sell 10,000 CDs a year at $8 a CD. If you're selling through a model like MP3.com's, you can make 40K a year -- not bad for a musician! 10,000 CDs is nothing to a major label. 10,000 CDs sold in a year means the label drops you and never talks to you again. Your album doesn't even go aluminum at 10,000 CDs.

This means that if the public could get used to buying music online, the major labels would be screwed. They're not willing to sell CDs at $8 a pop, and plenty of musicians are willing to sell them for less. That is a revolution -- a revolution where musicians are suddenly supporting themselves based on whether or not their audience likes what they do and buys their work.

Then there's Napster. Napster seems to follow the model where the plucky indie musicians put their music online and compete against the big labels toe-to-toe. The problem is, Napster doesn't compete against the record labels. Maybe the record labels don't know this, but it's true... Napster doesn't compete against the record labels, it competes against those plucky indie musicians.

It's no secret that despite the "rampant piracy" of people trading MP3s last year, the big labels sold more CDs than ever before. People tend to like buying CDs; there's a psychological difference between downloading an MP3 and going to a store and buying a CD. Consumers aren't buying music -- they're buying CDs, with cover art and liner notes and a little poster inside and a few hidden tracks and a few spoken tracks and perhaps a limited edition signed thingie wedged in between the cover art and the CD itself. The record industry makes big stars, and owning the things that a big star sells is part of the job of being a fan. Trading bootlegs is also part of the job of being a fan, but buying the posters, the CDs, the T-Shirts, all that stuff is as well. Record companies will always make lots of money from CDs, DVDs, and any other physical format that comes after.

So yes, while there may be a billion people trading Metallica songs online, Metallica's fans will still buy Metallica CDs, because to their fans, Metallica is the greatest band that has ever lived. Despite piracy, record labels will be able to make money, gobs and gobs of it. Napster doesn't compete with the major labels -- Napster promotes them, whether either side wants to admit it or not.

Who Napster does compete with, however, are the independent musicans. While independent musicians are trying to convince people that they don't need to buy from major labels, that they can buy direct (for less!) instead, Napster is showing people that they don't need to buy music at all. So on the one hand, you could buy ABCDEffigy at MP3.com, on the other hand, you could scour Napster for all the MP3s and have it anyway. After all, the Baptist Death Ray doesn't sell CDs, he sells music. CDs are freakin' expensive. Liner notes and posters and colored cds and limited edition doodads are the kind of promotional, artistic things that record labels excel at, that they use to justify jacking up the price.

Meanwhile, the consumer looks at a Web site where he or she can spend $8 for a CD, and then looks at Napster and sees the entire contents of the album online, free. Pay, or free. It's entropy, people, it all depends on what requires less energy. Right now, maybe spending the $8 is more convenient than waiting two days on a 33.3 modem. When high bandwidth lines are commonplace, however, that will no longer be the case. The worst part is not that Napster makes it easy to pirate music -- No, the worst part is the overwhelming feeling among Napster users that pirating that music is somehow morally justifiable. Most of the arguments I see say that they're not stealing from artists, they're stealing from record labels who don't pay the artists enough anyway. Well, I have news for you, the artists, even if they don't get the amount that they deserve, still get something with every music sale.

So how does the artist make money? Well, the common response from the free music movement is "touring." But you all need to know about touring. Touring is not a good way to make money unless you have a core audience of a certain size. A "core audience" is an audience that of fans who love your stuff, and will go out of their way to see you play. Now, go back to the top of this article and read the bit about the geographical limitations the Baptist Death Ray has, versus the geogrpahical limitations the Backstreet Boys do not have.

Ideologically speaking, the people who defend Napster may very well be on stronger ground than I am. Perhaps copyright and intellectual property has run its course. Perhaps its abuses call for the complete and absolute revocation of any claim that any artist has to his or her work. Perhaps pirating music through Napster is the just the kind of direct action that we need in order to show the labels who, in fact, is boss.

What I see, however, is the death of a revolution before it even had the chance to get off the ground. I feel that even if Napster loses its court case, it's too late to stop the way things are going. Napster and its supports will, one way or another, win. However, the result of that victory will be that artists will depend more than ever on rich sponsors, which is all that a record label really is. You thought mainstream music sucked now? Wait a few years after you've won. It'll suck worse.

Signed,

The Baptist Death Ray
(bdr@baptistdeathray.com)

And in related news, ewhac writes: "CNet reported about a week ago that AOL has announced it will incorporate copy-protection measures into an upcoming release of WinAmp, the hugely popular music player (upon which XMMS is modeled). The copy protection technology, intended to deter music "piracy," is to be provided by InterTrust Technologies, and is also intended to be part of the upcoming AOL 6.0 release. WinAmp was developed by NullSoft, which was acquired by AOL a little over a year ago for about $100 million in stock.

Personal Observation: May we now conclude that AOL is no longer a customer-driven company? Because I can't imagine a single user actually asking, "Please take away my ability to share stuff with my friends." Sounds like it may be time for a Windows port of XMMS ..."

Comments

How to host an MP3 site and also pay bands.

[SuperKendall]

Here's a simple way to set up a place like MP3.com that can allow people to easily pay for music.

First, you set up a site to host MP3's, with a collaborative filtering system like others have mentioned. This provides some value to draw people in.

Then make all of the users on the site sign up for PayPal (that's why you'd want some value to draw people in). This is they key factor - without an easy way to pay artists, no one will. Then you could let users download songs, and either throw a bit of money at the artist as a way of saying thank you, paying for higher bitrate encoding, or just buying a CD from the artist online by clicking on a link that would generate a PayPal payment through you to the artist.

On the backend, you offer the artists a choice - you'll be happy to host the MP3's for 10% of any money sent to them, or if they want to host their own music you provide a nice framework and links (and possibly caching) for only 1%. This would encourage bands to build their own websites, which is better for the band and for you.

If the site was really successful, perhaps you could offer artists with a lot of downloads and fan support some use of studio time in different cities across the country.

Why shouldn't artists make money?

[BaptistDeathRay]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying every musician should be a rock star. And I'm not saying that every musician should even be able to "make it" out there. But why is there an ideological problem with a musician being able to support themselves?

Making music does take skill, and time, and effort. Like every other profession out there, it requires that you practice and improve in order for your skills to be worth the time of other people.

How is it somehow ideologically WRONG for a musician to be able to try and making a living off their work, but it's ok for a teacher, or a programmer, or an automobile manufacturer to DEMAND that they be compensated for their time?

And how is it that it's ok not to pay for music but it's not ok to steal a novel or a painting? Writers, musicians and painters are all artists... some are just more "respectable" than others.

Q: What is the difference between a musician and an actor?

A: The actor gets paid.

Sure, I know that a lot of people "do music" just because they want to become filthy stinking rich, but why do you assume anyone who would like to make a living from their work automatically has that attitude?

+----------------------------------------------- -------

Re:$1 per song -- but how?

[ucblockhead]

It is really easy to say that something someone else created should be free.

But it's theft.

There's a profound difference between someone willingly giving something away (as in open source software) and someone thinking that they can take whatever they want, regardless of the author's wishes.

Too many people here are confused about this. To them, Open Source means "I get to take whatever I want". You can see it the way they bitch at people who put something out there that took a lot of work, free of charge and free for the usage. Pure selfishness. They should be thanking the authors for their work, not castigating them for trivial failings.

The music belongs to the musician. Not you. And while we may all applaud the musician that gives away his or her music for free, we have no right to demand they do so. That's selfish. It is the attitude of a spoiled little child.

And spoiled little children soon find that no one wants to give them anything. People will work for free if they get gratitude in return. If all they get in return is ingratitude, they'll just say "fuck it" and quit.

It is the difference between sharing and theft. Sharing is good. Sharing is people willingly giving what they have to others. We should encourage it. But encourage theft, and we devalue the producers. Do that, and they'll simply stop producing.

Record Labels Scare Me

[TheTomcat]

Here's an excerpt from an e-mail conversation I had with someone I met on /.:

I think it has a few major roles:
1) The label serves as a distribution channel, paying for the actual, physical media, the physical packaging, shipping to its retail outlets.
2) The label pays for artwork. The intellectual property that apears on the traycard, cdlabel and jacket.
3) The label pays for studio time and recording media for the band to actually get their music down into a reproducable form. This includes
production, engineering, mastering, mixing, etc.
4) The label pays for advertisements, television, PoP displays, radio spots, free distributions of singles to media outlets, internet ads, etc.
5) The label promotes and pays for tours, and special events/appearances which in turn, sell more CDs. They find sponsors, venues, do bookings,
arrange transportation, and all the other fun stuff that comes with touring.
6) The label pays for other media production such as videos, websites, and CDRoms.
7) The label provides management and public relations for the band.
8) The label serves as a screen, filtering out the music that won't sell, and contracting that which will. This gets rid of a lot of crap, but filters out some really good stuff.
(I might be missing something...)

The real kicker is #8. The others are a matter of money. #8 is a matter of function.

I think you mentioned mp3.com in your post on /. mp3.com is a GREAT idea. It's great because it's purpose is to provide a medium for independent artists to be heard. But it doesn't work. It doesn't work because there's WAY too much crap on mp3.com. I've spent hours and hours searching the HUGE archives of indie content on that site, and I've come away with maybe 3 bands that I actually found worth listening to. Others were plagued with poor recordings, sub-amateur production value, and
pathetic musicianship and vocalization. When a label functions as a screen, it gets rid of these 'musicians' who think they're great, but are actually terrible, and promotes music that sells.

Now, this has always worked for a label. It's great that a label can screen, but there has always been an element of greed, which usually
produces a mediocre product, at best. This has always been a theme that has plagued the music industry, but has become more dominant in recent
years. Think of the Monkeys and the New Kids on the Block, Milli Vanilli (sp?). Those bands were money makers.

If labels were eliminated, who would serve the function of filter? The role of the label will CHANGE in the near future. Perhaps they won't
even be called a label.

It's also very expensive to lay down tracks in the studio. Studio time is REALLY expensive, but this is a matter of money, so it isn't as
important to me.

---
[end excerpt]

The person who figures out how to make money from recordings without selling the music will be very very wealthy. There is already a great distribution infrastructure (the net) in place, but I believe that the key is filtering the crap.

Re:Record Labels Scare Me

[proub]

It doesn't work because there's WAY too much crap on mp3.com. I've spent hours and hours searching the HUGE archives of indie content on that site, and I've come away with maybe 3 bands that I actually found worth listening to.

All true, although there is of course some great stuff to be found on mp3.com. So who could serve as the filter? How about all of the visitors to the site?

Two words: collaborative filtering. You find a song you like or don't like, click somewhere to tell mp3.com your opinion. Soon, you can filter down to stuff that's enjoyed by people who share your love of Power Pop, your hatred of Smooth Jazz, etc. Works like a charm at moviecritic.com, et al. Hell, build the rating buttons into a branded player.

-paul

philosophy vs. stealing

[Staciebeth]

It seems that the people defending napster and its ilk fall into 2 categories. The first (which appears to be much much smaller) has a philosophical commitment to the free exchange of ideas and art and software and so on. The second, while claiming to be the first, is thinking "free music dude -- why should I pay for it if I can get it free." These are the sorts of people who justify shoplifting by saying "I'm stealing from Macy's (or whatever) not an individual" and who sneak out of restaurants congratulating themselves for getting away with something rather than thinking about the waitress they just screwed over. This is called stealing, and the last time I checked it was against most (all?) major religions, and the laws of most countries.

Boo-hoo.

[abe ferlman]

Musicians have no god-given right to compensation. If there's no money in music, the market will adjust and fewer people will make music. Boo-hoo. How many artists do you actually listen to? There must be millions. The market is saturated to sickness. Many artists make music because they love to do it, not because they expect to be compensated. See my web page, or look for my music on gnutella- everything I record I make available there whenever I'm on line. I make music because I like doing it, I like what I create, and I want others to hear it. If I make money off of it, cool, but that's not why I do it.

If you were trying to make a living as a rock star, you had to expect hard times to begin with. Well, the market is changing, adapt.

Finally. What are the implications of fewer musicians? Well guess who we're weeding out? The ones who are in it for the money alone. again, Boo-hoo.

Sausage King of Chicago

Who's really paying for the expenses?

[Elkman]

According to a recent article by Courtney Love at salon.com, the record company doesn't donate recording and touring expenses out of their own pocket. They recoup all those expenses from CD sales and from tour revenues (tickets, T-shirts, etc.) By her figures, the band is lucky if they make much money at all. Robert Fripp of King Crimson also has some choice words to say about record companies at Discipline Global Mobile.

That said, I agree wholeheartedly that labels spend a lot of time screening in order to find what's most likely to sell. It's a process that's guaranteed to generate mediocrity, really.

Re:Slashdotters bieng hypocritical?

[Robert Link]

The difference is that when I encrypt email to my friends to ensure that only they can read it, I am doing it with their complicity. They don't want someone else to read those messages any more than I do. Copy protection, on the other hand, is all about coercion. It's about forcibily limiting your ability to manipulate the data that you bought and paid for. There are two problems with that. First is that other, legitimate uses become collateral damage in the fight to prevent copying, and fair use becomes a thing of the past. Many (including me) believe that we all lose if we allow that to happen.

Second, and even more troubling, is that it is infeasible to enforce copyright through technological means. Any copy protection can be broken by someone sufficiently motivated to do so, and somewhere out there on the internet there is bound to be someone who is sufficiently motivated. All it takes is one person to break the protection scheme, and then the cat is out of the bag. Consequently, copyright enforcement turns to laws and the tools of law enforcement. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but we have to ask ourselves, if a law is widely violated by a majority of the citizens, then is that law really an expression of the will of the people (the ultimate force from which the law's authority is derived)? And if not, then should we really be enforcing legal penalties on those who violate this law that does not derive from the will of the people?

-rpl

Yeah, every once in a while

[dmccarty]

MP3: On Artist Protection And Copy Protection
Music | Posted by timothy on Friday July 07, @11:00AM
Every once in a while, it's good to have someone slap you with a reminder [...]

Yeah! Every once in a while is good! Like last week. And the week before that. And a few days before that And the day before. And the same day.

8 articles in June alone regarding MP3's, 17 about Napster in the last two months and 7 YRO articles in the first 7 days of July. Everyone is turning the MP3 topic into their own personal martyr for whatever cause they think is worthy. It's not a revolution of freedom of speech, it's not a culture revolution of the record label owners vs. the bourgeoisie everyman artist, it's not even about the UCITA and whether or not my license to my music gives me various rights, or doesn't. Let's not forget what MP3's are about: portable music. Nothing more, nothing less.
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