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.

Comments

Where does the money go?

[stames]

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

Would prices really drop if there was no pirating?

[hardaker]

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?

The organized crime angle

[bennomatic]

It has been said that organized crime is responsible for the sale and distribution of billions of dollars worth of pirated (i.e. hard copy) music CDs worldwide. This begs two questions:

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?

Justifying the price

[MrResistor]

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.

Re:marketing

[macdaddy357]

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?