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Ask a Music Producer/Publicist About Filesharing and the RIAA
Bill Evans is one of those people in the music business who doesn't get a lot of public exposure, but keeps the wheels cranking behind the scenes. He's not just a musician and techie, but a publicist whose clients include Numavox Records artists Kerry Livgren and Michael Gleason as well as progressive rocker Neal Morse; he's produced (among many others) songs for the Burning Annie soundtrack and the Kansas Tribute Project. Naturally, since he makes his living in the music business, Bill is not 100% in favor of unrestricted filesharing. But what might work? And what might not? Let's find out what this music biz insider thinks -- one question per post, of course. Answers to the "Top 10" questions will be published soon after he gets them back to us.
I'm a big advocate of the prosperity of music artists, especially small-time ones. I go to a lot of concerts. I like to buy indie music direct from the band. I generally try to avoid buying music from big-name production houses because I'm sick of all the gratuitous and pervasive advertisements and endorsements that come along with it.
That being said, my question is (and I hope you can even answer this): when I lay down my $15 for a CD, where does that money go? How much goes directly to the artist? The producers? Publicists and people in your position? Record company CEOs? Charities? Etc etc.
Basically I'm concerned that if I fork over $15 because I really like the music, I think that a big portion of that should go directly to the artists themselves, but in reality $14.95 is ending up making CEOs wallets fatter.
--j
One of the things that major media distribution companies (including music, video, games, etc) argue is that the only reason the prices are so high on media is that piracy of their product makes the prices go up. Many, however, are not convienced of this argument and think the prices would likely stay the same and the profits of the company would be the only thing affected (which is what I think annoys most of the users of the world: that the cost is so high when production costs are so low). Do you have a feel for whether on at least whether the music industry really would lower the prices on all its media if the piracy came to a sudden end, or do you think the prices would just stay the same?
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I'm a music graduate student, and many of my collegues are aspiring musicians in both traditional (classical), jazz, and popular music. Many of them are torn between unrestricted filesharing and protecting their music and future incomes, on the verge of signing to a major label. How do you propose that musicians are mass-marketed (e.g. the only real reason any sane musician signs to a major) if the revenue stream of the labels is purportedly dwindling due to unrestricted filesharing?
1- Why is the music industry focusing prosecution efforts on poor individual college students who are (a) difficult to track down and (b) not making any money on their endeavors when there are large organizations which are (a) centralized, so stopping them might do some good, and (b) profiting from their activities?
2- If free file swapping is so damaging to music CD sales, then why aren't mafia types trying to stop this phenomenon as well, given they have so much to lose?
The CB App. What's your 20?
I couldn't afford the price of a ticket, so I snuck in through the back. But I wouldn't have paid anyway, and no one was standing where I was standing, so it's not like I was stealing, 'cause I didn't take anything. Uh, Dude?
There's a crucial difference between music piracy and software piracy. Don't forget, for the vast majority of home computer users (the majority do not read Slashdot) Windows is the only option. Furthermore, sooner or later they will upgrade, if only to be able to run other software.
In other words, Microsoft gets no free publicity out of piracy, because it has pretty much saturated the market and very few people are now switching from other OSen to Microsoft, certainly not in the home user sector where the majority of piracy takes place
On the other hand, in the music industry there is a great deal more choice. People don't buy music out of necessity or because there is no other choice, but because they like it. In this situation there is a real benefit to giving away the product free. See the Baen Free Library for a more detailed rationale.
One of the lessons that seems to be "learned" time and again by the content industry is that the best way to combat piracy is to lower the price. For example: when I was a kid movies on VHS were fairly expensive ($60-80 IIRC), and everyone had at least a shelf full of movies they'd rented and copied, or taped off TV. Now that prices are reasonable ($10-15) nobody bothers to go to that trouble, and yet everyone I know still has at least a shelf full of movies, but now they're "origionals".
So, how does the record industry justify the current price of CDs? Doesn't it seem obvious, given the lessons of history, that the inflated price is the root cause of piracy?
I should note, perhaps, that I neither pirate nor buy CDs at this point. Why should I buy a CD when I can get a DVD of a major film, with all kinds of extras, for the same price? It seems to me that this has far more to do with the decline of CD sales than online filesharing.
Finally, I understand that CD prices were supposed to have dropped as a result of the recent lawsuit, but I haven't seen a difference in either record stores or mail-order record clubs, such as Columbia House. In fact, the prices seem to have gone up slightly.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
While Napster was online, CD sales were up. This is beyond dispute. People heard songs they liked, then went out and bought recordings, much like radio in its glory days. Best of all, Napster was a free promotion. No one had to cough up any payola to get songs listed there. Now, the recording industry has millions so angry that they don't buy CDs. So, why did your industry kill the goose that laid the golden eggs? Are you stupid?
How ya like dat?
Saying that getting a good recorded sound requires hundreds of thousands of dollars in a huge studio and a team of engineers is completely false. I have heard full albums produced in a bedroom using Pro Tools on a normal PC or Mac that easily rival major studio quality. The way that home recording technology is progressing, the major studio is going to be made almost completely obsolete. Check out someone like BT (he makes a kind of progressive electronic style of music) - his albums are 100% recorded, engineered, mixed, and mastered at his home studio using Logic 6. Tell me his music doesn't sound professional. Another great example - A Perfect Circle - their guitarist Billy Howerdel is a Pro Tools master and recorded their first CD at their own studio and probably the upcoming second one as well. Sure, people from an older generation like The Rolling Stones or other bands like that aren't going to understand how to use Pro Tools and the like, but current up and coming artists who've grown up with computers their whole life sure as hell are going to be capable. Industry executives have very good reason to be concerned - the only barrier remaining to a band that wants to be completely self-sufficient with their music is distribution. As soon as a system arrives that allows artists to securely sell their own music online and make a profit, it's going to mean the death of the old-fashioned recording industry.