Janis Ian on the Internet Debacle

Datasage writes "Janis Ian, famous songwriter and artist, writes about her views of free music downloads, the music industry and the evils of the RIAA in this article." Yet another artist with substantial first-person experience speaking out, reminiscent of Courtney Love's speech.

Comments

Debate reveals artists' true colors

[patmandu]

This really boils down to "who's in it for the self-validation" vs "who's in it for the music." It seems that much of the response to the music swapping debate just goes to show where these folks' alliances are. Mettalica was in it for the prestige and decided to suck up to the record company who was promoting them and making them 'famous'. Janis Ian (and others) is showing herself as someone who is in it to make music, not to get famous.

The fame-junkies are going to ally with the record companies no matter how much or little they get paid. But to quote Bowie, "Fame...makes [someone] loose and hard to swallow."

The ironic part is, if they ditched the record companies and made a *real* effort to come up with an internet-based music distribution system with micropayments, they'd all probably make more money, AND get more direct control over their work...which is a much more 'real' power than the record companies' 'fame' they peddle.

Re:Debate reveals artists' true colors

[Lumpy]

the problem is that EVERYONE is getting way too greedy and is forgetting WHO and how they got sucessful.

The fans turned on Metallica like rabid wolves because they went directly against what they said and stood for. Bootlegs is what MADE metallica. Photos shot with crappy throw away cameras is what MADE metallica. the fans are what MADE metallica. not their genius, Lar's F**King drumming abilities (there are tons more and better drummers than lars) or anything to do with what they did.

The same is with current bands.. I saw Nickleback this past tuesday, they insulted and made mad a large number of fans as they over searched everyone TWICE looking not for drugs,liquor,or weapons but CAMERAS. enough to get a large group to complain about it.

it's time that people get tired of the crap that bands and the labels pull. Me taking a grainey/far away photo at a concert is not going to cost anyone anything.... not letting me do so costs a fan and sales.. as I will no longer buy anything that they are affiliated with and let everyone know that they are fricking greedy bastards.

hopefully more artists will have the moxy and arent corrupted too badly to follow Janis's view.

Some choice quotes

[Olinator]

[T]he music industry had exactly the same response to the advent of reel-to-reel home tape recorders, cassettes, DATs, minidiscs, VHS, BETA, music videos ("Why buy the record when you can tape it?"), MTV, and a host of other technological advances designed to make the consumer's life easier and better. I know because I was there.

The only reason they didn't react that way publicly to the advent of CDs was because they believed CD's were uncopyable. I was told this personally by a former head of Sony marketing, when they asked me to license Between the Lines in CD format at a reduced royalty rate. ("Because it's a brand new technology.")

[...]

You can't hear new music on radio these days; I live in Nashville, "Music City USA", and we have exactly one station willing to play a non-top-40 format. On a clear day, I can even tune it in. The situation's not much better in Los Angeles or New York. College stations are sometimes bolder, but their wattage is so low that most of us can't get them.

[...]

If the music industry had a shred of sense, they'd have addressed this problem 15 years ago, when people with websites were trying to obtain legitimate licenses for music online. Instead, the industry-wide attitude was It'll go away. That's the same attitude CBS Records had about rock 'n' roll when Mitch Miller was head of A&R. (And you wondered why they passed on The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.)

[...]

The industry has been complaining for years about the stranglehold the middle-man has on their dollars, yet they wish to do nothing to offend those middle-men. (BMG has a strict policy for artists buying their own CDs to sell at concerts - $11 per CD. They know very well that most of us lose money if we have to pay that much; the point is to keep the big record stores happy by ensuring sales go to them. What actually happens is no sales to us or the stores.) NARAS and RIAA are moaning about the little mom & pop stores being shoved out of business; no one worked harder to shove them out than our own industry, which greeted every new Tower or mega-music store with glee, and offered steep discounts to Target and WalMart et al for stocking CDs. The Internet has zero to do with stores closing and lowered sales.

And for those of us with major label contracts who want some of our music available for free downloading? well, the record companies own our masters, our outtakes, even our demos, and they won't allow it. Furthermore, they own our voices for the duration of the contract, so we can't even post a live track for downloading!

"You go, girl!"

It's interesting to note that this is not someone who could be dismissed by an RIAA flack as a no-name musician whining because the Internet might get her recognition that she's not gotten from "The Industry" -- she's had nine Grammy nominations, and her music has been recorded by just about everybody at one time or another.

Ole

An interesting article about record companies

[gowen]

and their competency with money, written by a minor popstar, appeared in The Guardian this weekend.

sing it yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

everything is free now
that's what they say
everything i ever done
gonna give it away

someone hit the big score
they figured it out
now we're gonna do it anyway
even if it doesn't pay

i can get a tip job
gas up the car
try to make a little change
down at the bar

i can get a straight job
i've done it before
never minded working hard
just who i'm working for

every day i wake up
write a new song
but i don't need to run around
i can just stay home

sing a little love song
all by myself
and if there's something that you wanna hear
you can sing it yourself

--

Give It Away
Gillian Welsh

Re:I fear

[HiThere]

They're too late for that goal. It's been years since I've encountered anyone who believed that the music industry benefited musicians (as a class, rather than as a particular selected individual). And I don't think I've ever met anyone who believed that it was run for the benefit of the consumers.

But it sounds like a good answer to a reporter, and won't usually be openly scoffed at. If for no other reason, then because the publisher doesn't want to offend a large advertiser.

I suggest a letter writing campaign...

[Dark Nexus]

No, not to the RIAA.

No, not to Congress/Parliment/whatever your country has either.

That's been done, and frankly, won't do any better now than it did then.

Boycotts won't work well either. They'll just blame it on piracy anyway.

No, I suggest letter writing to the ARTISTS.

If you decided to buy a CD or go to a live show by [insert artist here] after sampling some of their music, but wouldn't have before, let them know! Most bands have websites, with ways to send email to them. Send one letting them know that they got MORE of your money thanks to your being exposed to them through free downloads.

Maybe, just maybe, if enough people do that, then more artists will step up to argue against the RIAA claims that piracy is hurting artists.

Frank Zappa

[SerpicoWasTaken]

I recently picked up Frank Zappa's autobiography (The Real Frank Zappa Book) and he had a chapter on failure where he listed all the ideas he had that never took off. One of those ideas (and this was back in the 80s) was to have record companies sell albums using using modems connected directly to home recording decks. His theory was they lose the overhead of packaging and shelf space and would be able open up the industry to new artists (who no longer had to compete for shelf space with more well known people). In addition, there was no concept of out-of-print, and people could get better sound fidelity rather than recording of your buddy's crappy LP. While this probably has little to do with the article, I found it fascinating that this guy was thinking about delivering music directly to people well before Napster and all its clones. Further proof that the man was a genius

Re:I want an apology

[ScumBiker]

My CD collection vastly outweighs my mp3 collection. I mostly download mp3's to fill obscure bands like "Captain Beyond" discographies. I do sample *every* band before I buy their CD though, unless they're a local, then I "sample" them live. What the hell is the difference?

Congratulations to Janis Ian for the excellent article she wrote. As a musician myself, I completely empathize. I've said this before, I'm planning on starting an Internet on label. I could use some help. Drop a comment in my journal if you are interested in getting involved.

Sandman, that really strikes home. My other half and I frequently ask each other if our parents are coming home soon. Gotta love being 42...

Re:I fear

[wfrp01]

Basically, corporations such as Disney and industry groups such as the MPAA and RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) cannot seem to fathom the existence of a customer...

I would put the period right there. Too many corporations cannot fathom the existence of a customer.

I was watching some talking head on one of the tv money shows the other night. They were discussing, what else, corporate mismanagement. This guy was some kind of hot-shot investor, and he was all hot and bothered because company executives had forgotten their one true purpose: to serve the shareholders!.

WTF?!

The ignorance is so rampant, no frickin' wonder we're witnessing such a show of corporate suicide. What about the goddamn customer?! What about developing, manufacturing, marketing, distributing, and supporting a product that customers want to buy!?

The tail is wagging the dog. Customer satisfaction has taken a back seat to corporate profitability and shareholder value. Selfishness is regularly promoted as the root of all that is good and holy. It should be the other way around. Hence the expression "the customer is always right." - it used to be a maxim of good business practice. When is the last time you heard anything resembling that expression on "Money News with Pinstripe Boy"?

Look no further than that epitomy of self-serving capitalism - Microsoft - to see just how far awry this philosophy has taken us. If they can't compel people to buy their products because they want to, then damn it, let's force them to upgrade by continually changing file formats and protocols. Oh, and let's not forget lobbying Congress to create new laws declaring certain undesireable competitors criminals.

15% -- damn good results for direct marketing

[Reziac]

From Janis Ian's excellent article:

"When Napster was running full-tilt, we received about 100 hits a month from people who'd downloaded Society's Child or At Seventeen for free, then decided they wanted more information. Of those 100 people (and these are only the ones who let us know how they'd found the site), 15 bought CDs."

Anyone else notice this is a 15% successful direct sales rate? ANY marketer would be thrilled to have a 2% contact rate, and delerious with joy if only 5% of those contacts made a purchase. 15% is a solid testament to the power of "free samples" as a sales technique. Try the MP3, buy the CD.

BTW I had no idea she was such a good writer. There are lots of well-considered articles on her site, on all manner of topics. Gotta spend a day there sometime soon!

Ye. Freaking. Gods.

[Chris Johnson]

At my URL above, I have some rather uncommercial music. It's mostly just downloadable. I put a lot of effort into making CDs, though- they're 12$, which gets me a couple bucks over and above the cost of making it (I chose a pretty slick packaging, which is more costly).

I've sold one, for two bucks in 'royalties'.

That's two bucks more in royalties than Janis Ian has ever been paid for her entire major label career, by her own account. "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." I'm not even 37 years OLD, myself...

As if that's not enough, I can get CDs made pretty cheaply if I made 1000 or so, and can get them one at a time back from Ampcast for 7-10 bucks- and even at that, it's a better deal than BMG artists can get on their own CDs, should they wish to sell 'em at shows: "BMG has a strict policy for artists buying their own CDs to sell at concerts - $11 per CD."

This article is even more damning than the Courtney Love article. My jaw is just dropping, and I was far from uninformed to start with... and I never knew how well off I was as a starving indie with no sales. Funny how I'm owed more royalties than a multiple Grammy winner...

Re:I'll see your Bullshit and raise you a cow fart

[nomad_monad]

Here are some more grey edges...

Granted, if you download a song off a filesharing service that the artist doesn't want shared, and then burn it onto a CD and listen to it (or play it on your computer) fairly regularly, enjoy the experience, like it, yet never go out and actually buy the product in it's commercial form... yes, that definitely seems like stealing to me.

However, let's say you download a song, and you don't like it. Frankly, you think a series of farts you let out after eating a can of beans is more musical than the crap that this artist put out, and if you had actually paid for it, you would've felt ripped off. You never listen to the song again (or delete it from your computer), or only listen to it when you want to demonstrate to someone just how much this particular artist lacks in talent (in your estimation). Did you steal? Some people may still say yes, but I don't think so. You never use it, you don't listen to this song. Perhaps it physically exists on your hard drive or on some other media like a CD. But even then, the word physically is a bit of a misnomer, since music is pretty intangible -- the only physicality we speak of here is the recording format. It's not like taking someone's car and then never using it (which would still qualify as stealing since the original owner no longer has access to it, and has lost actual value). It's more like eavesdropping on someone explaining a new idea, but never using it. How have you stolen it?

You might say that you've reduced the artist's potential profit by not accidentally buying something that you would've never bought if you had heard it beforehand, and thus have stolen from the artist. Personally, I think as soon as you begin to vocalize that argument you realize how silly it is.

This is even more relevant when you consider one of the arguments in the original article -- filesharing is a boon because it gives immediate, unfettered, and near-universal access to *preview* songs and artistic material. If you preview something, decide you like it, keep it, but don't buy it, you're stealing. Anything less than that, I'd have to disagree.

Wow, that's almost too grey for me

[JudgeFurious]

Ok, I get that. I don't think it's the same thing here in that we are talking about (at least to some extent) the "value" in dollars and cents that the artist (or in this case the evil butt monkeys from mars at the record companies) might have/could have/should have made from the creation of the music.

I see it like this.

1. If I download the song and it's crap IMO then I am glad I didn't buy it and it appears to me that the artist lost nothing in my hearing the song and disliking it.

2. If I do the same thing and enjoy it, keep playing it, and don't buy the CD then the artist lost their tiny share and the record companies lost a few bucks. It's then stealing (again IMO).

However if you look at it like the record companies and some artists do then in the first example where I downloaded the song and hated it, was sorry my consciousness was ever touched by it's terrible sound, and didn't buy the record then I have still stolen it because they missed a chance to stick me with a lousy CD at a premium price and niether one gives a damn that I got the shitty end of the stick in the deal.

I've been on the wrong end of a number of bad CD's in my time and I refuse to give up the right to check out what I am getting in advance of purchasing the material. I further insist on the right to do it in my house on my time and think this is non-negotiable.

It's only a matter of time before record labels go the way of that old dinosaur and we find ourselves in a completely changed musical landscape. I don't imagine my children will have a clue what it was like to get a CD with one good single and 11 songs that sound like monkeys fucking grizzly bears in the rain. Lucky them.