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Recording Deals In The Digital Age
cascadefx writes "There is a really interesting panel wrap-up over at the National Association of Recording Industry Professionals's website. The Incredible Shrinking Profit Margin panel discussion looks like it included some interesting discussion into the deals that are made with performers now that the rules have changed. These notes offer interesting (perhaps hopeful) business predictions about Britney Spears' career as well as answering the (new)-age-old question about just how much an artist makes off of an iTunes download. Check it out."
Why sell through the system at all anymore?
FP?
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
If you sell through the system, talent is optional.
If you sell outside the system, though, you have to succeed on your own merits.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
It isn't Britney Spears I fear, but what comes after her. Seems to me that each iteration of manufactured talent is more sickening than the last. (One reason I don't watch American Idol, which seeks out the next 'talent' that fits the cookie cutter.)
But consider that much of Spears' success was the performance. Sing, dance, strut about the stage, before spending the next few decades going from one failed relationship and addiction to the next until appearing on Good Morning America and announcing she's cleaned up, totally focused on life and ready for a comeback (no, not as a signer, but the next president.) Music downloads don't leave much room for performance, unless you plan to watchs someone frolic about on that miniscule screen on your cellphone. Admittedly, some acts have never had a top-ten song or little chart success anyway, but have enormous cult-like followings (i.e. Jimmy Buffet, are you a parrot head? ;-) and without enough curiousity or word-of-mouth, will people attend shows?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The music industry is changing, along with the movie industry. Distribution channels are changing, and as such the method of getting your margin is going to change too. The RIAA's job of seeming to try and protect what is soon to be an outdated distribution scheme is pointless for the long term, and irritating for the short. A slimmer profit margin is no big deal, when you consider that it's not a few hundred companies trying to support their insfrastructure, but rather a half dozen online firms supporting theirs. Let's not forget that online distributors will never get caught with extra inventory. It's hard to run out of warehouse space. They have to worry less about shipments. In short, thinner margins that are consistent fit the business model. It's nothing to whine about, though of course the RIAA always has to find some large stick to shove in the wrong place.
They just don't get it ... do they?
They charged admission to hear this great theory of business.
Oh, and you can get a CD of the proceedings ... for $20.
Quite accurately, they pointed out that their target audience just isn't buying records anymore. Oh the shock and horror of it all!
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results -- according to Einstein. Maybe that's it ... that's the answer ... the recording cartel (let's not pretend that it's an industry) is collectively insane. That's a much kinder, gentler (though less accurate) view than to say that the recording cartel is stupid and clueless.
Even though I'm outside their demographics (no, I'm not at the low end!), I'll continue to buy music I like ... from the artist directly.
That having been said, I think the music is crap. But you wont catch me downloading it. For music I like, the cost of the CD is nothing VS the amount of enjoyment I get from it.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Fair enough. But then again, maybe there's a distinction to be made between music that is produced as art and music that's produced as product.
A friend of mine was approached by Electronic Arts to record maybe a couple dozen songs for a Sims expansion and The Sims 2, at a rate of $1,000 per song (buyout, as cited -- all rights included). He accomplished this, with the help of a few local musicians that he paid very little, in roughly 48 hours of studio time. He did it as product; nothing more, nothing less. As far as he's concerned, he got a pretty good deal.
Now, this case is sort of an exception, because all of the lyrics to the songs have to be in Simlish. Pretty hard to find a market for that outside the franchise. But even if that weren't the case, is he really screwing himself, in your estimation?
As a magazine editor, I regularly publish lots of work by authors who give up all rights to the material they produce. Very few of them have ever come back looking to reclaim those articles. They did that writing for money, just like my friend recorded those songs for money. And I've done the same, and I don't really regret it.
Seems to me this notion of artists licensing their work to labels is just some kind of backlash to all this talk you hear about corporations wanting consumers to "license" their software and recordings. The way the corporation wants it, you never buy a CD, you license it. You never buy a disc of software, you license it. That sucks. So, great -- is the solution really for individuals to start acting like corporations?
Whatever happened to getting hired to do a job and doing it, or producing a product and selling it, getting paid, and moving on to the next thing with the satisfaction of being an ethical businessman?
Breakfast served all day!
Do please believe me: the last thing I am is a Britney Spears fan. I couldn't even remember a tune from her.
But to get things straight: She's been professionally singing and performing in Musicals on Broadway since about the age of 10. _professionally_, _singing_, _performing_, _age of 10_. Get it?
The age when us kind was gaming on atari or SNES and was at least 3 years away from even doing our first lines of basic. She's a performer and an entertainer, and, believe it or not, she's damn good at it. With the support of an uber-patient mother and father she's worked herself up from that girl next door to somebody who's got a licence to print money. 'Tell you what: Go eat your hearts out.
Bottom Line: I'd suggest the slashdot crowd quit babbling on stuff they can't summon the slightest shade of competence on (popular stage performance and entertainment) and go back to comparing sendmail and postfix. After all, that's what we're actually good at.
Thank you.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
The only problem is, that the Prince name itself has a huge value when it comes to (self)promotion, including fan base, existing connections and just in "brand recognition". I would say, it could worth easily a 7 figure. This is exactly the very similar marketing power the big labels use to promote their favourites. Not to mention, that Prince made enough money previously to self finance his next project.
Now, how does a no name garage band, with no capital compares to this?
I'm not sure if its worth mentioning, but the old line that "the theory 'eye for an eye' leaves us all blind" is still largely true. More disturbingly, it suggests that rehabilitation is completely impossible.
"Stumble before you crawl"
I know musicians who are in the self-publishing space. They don't have labels, or promoters, or any of that stuff, and they're not on iTunes. So, not only are their choices for distribution more limited, but what they get in exchange for doing all of this themselves is a whole lot less free time, in which to write/play/record. They may make a bit more on each CD they sell--and it's not a LOT more, since none of the things they have to do are any more free than they are for the labels--but it costs them time to do it, and they have to run their own business besides.
It's unfortunate that music is so popular that it requires an industry to feed it, and it's doubly unfortunate that the cost breakdown pays back based on the actual percentage expense of doing your part, rather than the effort, and triply so that that is abused by the labels, and I do hope the internet is going to change that, and soon. I think iTunes is one step along that road toward transforming the music business, but it won't happen overnight.