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Artists Protesting Single-Song Downloads
prostoalex writes "The 99 cent downloads are stirring some discussion in the music community. Linkin Park, Radiohead, Madonna, Jewel and Green Day are protesting music stores' policy of single-song downloads and introduce some stipulations, requiring their work to be sold as albums. "The fear among artists is that the work of art they put together, the album, will become a thing of the past," says attorney Fred Goldring, whose firm represents Will Smith and Alanis Morissette."
Apple already reported that over half the songs sold so far on the iTMS were in album format. Aside from that, these people are missing the whole point of this service. That is the ability to preview which songs you like on an album and choose which ones to buy. If there is a CD that has one or two good songs and the rest are crap, do you think I'm going to spend $17 for two songs? No! But with the iTMS, the record labels make 1 or 2 dollars. If they go back to album only, they will make $0 from me.
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...on iTunes the artist CAN choose to have their music downloaded as the whole album for a lump sum or else no download at all.
Ok I am going to say that artists actually get half decent deals.
First getting 12 cents on the dollar is not bad when you consider the going rate for book authors. Authors traditionally get anywhere 5% to 20% from what the publishers get, which is traditionally 40% to 60% of the retail price. And guess what happens to royalities to foreign countries and book clubs... You guessed it, DOWN THE TUBES.
In other words artists get about 20% to 30% royalities. So if you do not mind, I am going to cry some crodile tears right now!
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Put together a "Work of Art" and I'll buy it complete!
Push out 1 hit + 9 filler songs and you don't deserve to argue this line!
For example, you would be a fool to buy singles off these "Works of Art":
Alan Parsons _I Robot_
Van Morrison _Hard Nose to the Highway_
Lucinda Williams _World Without Tears_
Jennifer Warnes - _Famous Blue Raincoat_
Instead of paying please support your artists that allow the free taping/trading of their music (either via P2P or other methods).
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Amazingly enough The Grateful Dead (The OtherOnes and now The Dead), Phish, and Neil Young/Crazyhorse) allow the free taping/trading of their music and look how popular they are and how long they have been around.
I want to see the day when we are still listening to Alanis 40 years from now while she's on tour.
Hey, but at least I got a playable Mac and PC version of Warcraft 3 demo on the CD, so the record labels at least didn't let all of the CD go to waste. But when I saw that, my first thought was, ah, any room left for any actual music? Yeah, a whopping 35 minutes worth.
And I agree with the artists. You wouldnâ(TM)t cut just they eyes out of the Mona Lisa and framed them just because thatâ(TM)s all thatâ(TM)s all you liked. A CD is a compilation of their âartâ(TM) even if parts of the art suck.
I would also agree that these should take a back seat to this argument. Letâ(TM)s get this âNew Industryâ(TM) up and rolling to SAVE the music industry. Then you can worry about what you sell on a CD. Hopefully this ânew industryâ(TM) will encourage more artists and better artists â" ones who can make a full 74 minutes worth listening to.
Seth
Also, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band - another set of songs conceived as an album, almost perfect.
"I will take the Ring," he said, "though I do not know the way."
Of the bands listed in the article, Radiohead is the only one who consistantly puts out albums as a "coherent work of art". All of their albums (at least since the Bends in 1995) have had a very definate theme that pervades all of the tracks on each album. Sort of equivallent to a symphony: most people only any one movement to any of Beathoven's symphonies, but whole symphony is really nessisary to apreciate the work.
Now I'm not saying that I should be prevented from downloading just one Radiohead song, -- they're quite helpful for seeing if the album is worth getting -- but Radiohead is somewhat justified in trying to keep their albums together as a single-work.
The advent of digital distribution could be a great thing for music in general. Pop-stars that only put out one hit per album can sell many more copies of that hit at $0.99 since customers won't have to balk at paying $17 for one song. Groups that really do put together coherent albums (of arbitrary length) can price those "artistic units" acordingly. Pretty much everybody wins. No more crap filler that is or needs to be produced.
"When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind." -- Bill Moyers
No, they don't.
The contract may state that, but it also states all the "expenses" that come out of the percentage.
Courtney Love did the math a few years ago, and it hasn't changed.
We must be alert to the danger that public policy could become captive to a scientific-technological elite. - Eisenhower
$0.12 per $1 isn't bad (in fact it's quite good). That said I don't think you really know what you are talking about. First I'm quite sure that just like book publishing, Musicians royalties are based off the price the price which the publisher sells the product, not retail. (And these prices are crazy, some sales channels pay more per unit then others... etc.)
From a book publishing POV (which I have quite a bit of experience), a large percentage of books published *loose money*! Most authors never earn out their advances, and often publishers don't recoup thier editorial and printing expenses. The publisher only makes money off of a very few best sellers. This of course has the effect of the few best selling authors occasionally making a fuss about how they get ripped off by the publishers.
Now the average author, often complains that they didn't make much money for the work involved (which is unfortunately often the case), 9/10 times here the authors still make more money then the publisher (infact they are usually the only one's who make any money). This is how the business works. There's no telling what will sell and for what reason, there are literally millions of great authors and great books that never ever sell. Why? Well if can figure that one out ahead of time then there's a future for you in publishing! If you are Steven King you can get 40% Royalties and Millions of dollars in advances, because a publihser can be pretty sure to make something off of it, everyone else needs to play the game, otherwise nobody *could* play the game.
That aside... there is one really hugh difference traditionally between Books and Music. With book publishing the author usually walks away with all of thier royalties (if they earn them out to begin with) minus a small reserve against returns (which ultimately the author gets back, if they remember to ask for it!). Any book marketing and publicity done by the publisher is paid for by the publisher. Most editorial and printing costs are paid for by the publishier too. In music almost everything is charged back against the royalties, and the marketing dollars that music publishers spend with artists money for "promotion" is crazy high, and in most cases eats up royalties and makes it impossible for the artists to get any.
BTW I don't feel sorry Artists, they should know what they are getting in to before the do it. They get to live doing what they love, and while they might all live like superstars the quality musicians get bye. Most of the big complainers are lucky to be where they are (Cortney Love, please!)
Of course the issue above isn't about any of that, it's about the musicians wanting to have a say in how thier art is conveyed. I think they should, the money thing aside, at the end of the day they created something, and they should have some say in how it's used. If they feel thier music should only be played as an album... well, whatever, they have that right (of course then turning around and releasing a bunch of singles and videos doesn't do much for there "artistic credibility", but oh well, hypocrisy or ignorance isn't a crime (though maybe it should be))
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Umm, 78s in fact. I have a few 78 "albums" myself.
Back in the days of the 78s, the really good ones only had one side with music on it. The other side had a trademark covering it.