Slashdot Mirror
Some Bands Still Refuse Music Downloads
Zelbinian writes "Wired News reports there are a number of artists, ranging from The Beatles to Radiohead, that are still holding out on iTunes. Some feel that per-track downloads hurt the artistic integrity of albums as a whole; for others it's simply a matter of negotiation troubles. From the article: 'Since record companies have realized the popularity of iTunes and other sites, many reworked contracts to give artists less money per download. Andrews said while record companies once offered artists about 30 cents for each song sold, now musicians are earning less than a dime.'"
First, why is this under "Your Rights Online?" Second,while I prefer to be able to pick and choose tracks, I can see how a band might prefer that an album be sold as a complete "work" and not picked apart. I think the album that should be viewed as such is probably rare, however.
http://www.busyweather.com/
The Beatles? On iTunes? What happened to Apple v. Apple?
They can hold out as long as they want. If downloaded music sales start to eclipse that of normal CDs, then I suspect those artists will begin singing a different tune.
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
It aint the artists, it's the labels.
How we know is more important than what we know.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
"It's amazing how many people go there," Andrews said of iTunes. "We're hoping albums work there." Andrews said he wasn't sure if Apple eventually would allow the album to be kept intact.
I've seen a bunch of tracks that weren't available unless you purchase the entire album. The albums usually have 1 or 2 tracks for sale individually but the rest require you to buy the album. I understand the artistic concerns, but if you would release some of the songs as singles for play on the radio, why not make them available as downloads? Or do artistic concerns end when you want a hit single so the album sells well?
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
Can you really blame them? The new contracts take away any monetary incentive that digital formats offered. What I dont get is Itunes delivers the tunes at their cost, the publishers have no packaging, promotion or media costs, so where does the money go? Maybe im a tin-foil hat type here, but it seems to me that the labels are just attempting their best to make sure that digital downloads are no incentive to the "artist" in order to keep their control over the industry. If it isnt cost effective, artists will stick with cd's and big labels as they see that as the only path to success. Too much success in digital format would show the artists that the labels were not needed in the modern age so from the labels perspective thats something best to avoid.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I remember when CDs came out. The labels pulled all sorts of renegotiation tricks to pay less money on CDs compared with vinyl. One of the excuses was that it was a "new technology".
If the RIAA really wanted to go after music thieves, they would be sueing the record labels.
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
You deserve one; you post here all the time!
I would recommend that artist negotiate a seperate contract for digital sales. My band is unsigned, but we get 91 percent of the iTunes cash (after Apple takes their cut). What band could be against that deal? iTunes is a potential cash cow for forward-thinking bands.
Are they performing the albums in their entirety at live performances?
Or selling singles/releasing singles to radio?
Seems they are defeating their own argument.
The bands who have concerns about their art being sold as a complete work have fans that go buy the CD anyway. If it's really a good album band (not just a one hit wonder) I want the physical media in hand, full quality and with all the artwork.
It's strange how Radiohead have chosen to do this, considering they were one of the first major bands to offer MP3 downloads to the public. Kid A was released for free online before in stores, and they found it advantageous. This was at the same time as their refusal to release singles or advertise the album in order to sell it purely on its merits.
Radiohead made Kid A top the charts, both here (UK) and America, through online publicity.
Perhaps it is since the culture of iPods is to create playlists and to "shuffle" that they wish to avoid it, and their release on the internet was in the idea that people still listened to music, downloaded or not, as a whole work, as if on CD.
Often called pretentious, the desire to have your work viewed and heard as a whole appeals to an older perception of music, one that I personally still subscribe to. It holds the idea of an album as a progression, as something that has a beginning and a conclusion, such as one might expect from a traditional symphony.
It can be very discouraging to an artist when an entire medium is practically devoted to destroying that construction. And if they care more about their artistic integrity than making further sales, I can only applaud them.
It's not like Beatles and Radiohead albums are hard to come by, both new and used -- who cares if they're sold on iTunes or not? Is there anyone who wants to buy the Beatles catalog who hasn't already purchased them on CD?
Online music stores (especially the subscription ones) are great for discovering new or obscure music, and they're ideal for buying a single on an album that's otherwise lousy, but the Beatles and Radiohead -- the most common holdout examples used -- don't fit any of those descriptions.
Since record companies have realized the popularity of iTunes and other sites, many reworked contracts to give artists less money per download.
The irony is that with online distribution, artists don't need to go through their record company middlemen anymore. They can sell their music directly through services like iTunes and claim their profits for themselves. All that's needed is for a few musicians with some guts to stand up to the people holding their leashes.
...but I use CDBaby.com to sell my music on iTunes. I actually make more money per song than I would per song per physical CD sold, which is how it should be. I also get paid per play on subscription services. And while that's just a fraction of a cent, it does tend to add up if someone likes a CD and listens to it often.
I chalk this one up to major labels just being bloated and greedy.
vk.
All of Radioheads catalogue is available on warchild. It's like iTunes but it all goes to charity.
Whoever said iTunes needed to get all the goods.
http://www.warchildmusic.com/
1 5&artist=304
http://www.7digital.com/stores/listing.aspx?shop=
For musicians, it's another way to resell their entire catalogs to fans who want the songs in multiple formats, he said.
Musicians my ass, this is being driven by the media companies. They are dying for a change of formats like album to CD. Album to tape did not do it for them and CD to lossy format outside of DRM and device maker collusion won't either. Yeah, I'd like the artist to get their fair share too. Reselling DRM'd versions of the exact same thing every 10 years is not my idea of a fair share. Only a few RIAA poster boys think iTunes is really a fair deal.
The device collusion is not happening, so it's all a dead issue.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Unselfish actions pay back better
I tend to buy whole albums simply because I'm a music pack rat; however, I can't stand musicians who complain about people not appreciating the entirety of their albums.
Give me a fucking break. Most top 40 artists already prescribe to a 3-6 minute song model, segment their album for radio play, and don't maintain any overwhelming unity between tracks. Moreover, they've been doing this for DECADES.
People have grown accustom to picking and pulling individual songs. We been promoting this model long before iTunes came around. If respecting the whole GD album was so damn important everyone would be producing albums like The Wall and releasing them on 8 Tracks.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
First, you are completely wrong, second... What makes them idiots?
If you listen to albums that are simply a collection of songs made in a certain time span for a certain end date, then those artist will likely not care if it is sold in bits and peices on the internet. However, the bands that will take exception are the more progressive ones that see music as more than easy money. Frank Zappa devoted a large portion of his songs to making fun of people like you.
I doubt very much that Radiohead really cares about the extra money they lose because a handfull of people like you will not give them your extra 10 cents to listen to Creep. There is a reason for that too. It is because they are the artists, and the really good ones who deliver consistantly good music don't really care about marginal increases in profits, they care about making something that they feel is worth producing. They actually had an idea, and if you only listen to a small portion of their idea, they would rather you not listen at all. May seem like strange reasoning, but I guarantee a large portion of the greatist creative minds throughout history would echo Radioheads sentiments.
They created the work for us to enjoy, not for themselves to tell us how to enjoy.
Actually, many good artist are pretty damn narcisistic. They probably would rather someone like you die than enjoy one of their songs, just due to the principle of someone who "doesn't understand art" shouldn't be dancing to their backbeat.
Basically, what it comes down to, is while I agree that it may be their loss in some ways, they probably don't care about it very much. And that is what makes them different, it doesn't make them idiots.
You take it, I don't want it...
How much is a dime?
So I see you're asking a rhetorical question.
What type of smartass reply would you like to your rhetorical question?
* Semi-appropriate mainstream movie quote - "More than you can afford, pal!"
* Ignorant American - "ur so dum! we invented munny!"
* Witty American - "How much is a dime?! More like "How much is a liter? Am I rite?! rofl"
* Straight cut geek response - "10 Cents."
* Family Guy quote - "Swing and a miss, Peter."
Just fucking with you. With the answer being "The value of your average Slashdot post", the correct response we were looking for was "How much is a rat's ass?" We'll be back with more Jeopardy after the break.
That's just it. Whether the work is sold by track or by album, most people are going to miss a great deal of the point of the work as laid out by the artist. Insisting that people buy the entire album instead of a track makes as much sense as making sure that people take a test to ensure they grasp all the artistic points.
Just sell the entire 'album' as a single 'track', for $.99
Because they signed a contract. Basically if an unknown band wants to get big time exposure, they need to sign up for a label (at least right now, things are shifting though) and contract their next many years to them. If they are successfull they can't just start releasing their own stuff on iTunes, it would be illegal.
Sound pretty unfair? It is. But it is the way things work right now.
You take it, I don't want it...
I honestly can't think of many CD's that need to be played all the way through. Back in the days of records, songs would be arranged with the medium in mind. Often, each side of the album would be completely differrent, or the best songs were the first couple of songs on each side, etc...
I think it was easier back then because there were usually about 4 or fives songs per side. Its much harder trying to arrange 10 songs to be played in sequence. Our attention spans will not allow us to listen closely to 10 songs.
-B
PS Musicians make very little off of music. Thats not right.
Why don't they complain about audio quality? 128 kbps doesn't do it for me. In double-blind tests, I can tell the difference between 128kbps and the original around 90% of the time (depending on track), 70% for 192, 60 for 256, and falls to around 52% for 320. (100 trials, various tracks). (By the way, these are down with Sennheiser HD-650s, M-Audio Audiophile 2496 for source, DAC, and amp). I would never purchase an album on itunes for 10 dollars when I can pick up the CD at Barnes and Noble at full quality, with full media, etc, for 13. As a music lover, I agree with the album should be considered an artistic whole, but truly, how many bands even think of their music as an art form anymore?
"They probably would rather someone like you die than enjoy one of their songs, just due to the principle of someone who 'doesn't understand art' shouldn't be dancing to their backbeat." If it truly is "art" then once it is released, it should be the art appreciator's decision on how to view/listen to that art. Take any art class, be it music appreciation or modern film or great 20th century literature - they all have the same viewpoint in common, which is that a piece of art only means what the viewer thinks it means, not what the artist wanted it to mean. Did Lewis really mean for the Chronicles of Narnia to be a parable of chrisianity? Whether he did or didn't is irrelevant, what matters is what the reader chooses to believe. It should be the same way here. If a band has this grand artistic vision for an album, good for them, but once they release that album, its up to the listener to decide on how they view that album, or even if they want to go through all that trouble instead of just listening to the art that they enjoy and can appreciate as stand alone songs. These artists need to stop being so pretentious. It may be thier art, but it is not thier right to determine exactly how I appreciate that art.
Three days from now?? Thats tomorrow!! ~Peter Griffin
I'd agree and disagree, as this really depends on the album.
Playing the tracks of Pink Floyd's Pulse out of order or with tracks missing loses impact. Playing the good track of shitty-CD-with-two-good-songs without the crappy tracks is an improvement
Yeah, this is total speculation, but what better way for Apple Corp to say "fuck you" to Apple Computer than to make the release of the Beatles' music in electronic format in WMA, on the 88-cent-a-track Wal-Mart music store, as part of the Zune player launch?
And how much do you think Microsoft would pay Apple Corp to be able to say that Zune plays the Beatles, but iPod doesn't?
most people are going to miss a great deal of the point of the work as laid out by the artist.
And who is anyone to tell me how I should interpret art? Being able to not have to buy filler, or just stuff I don't want in general, is a huge advantage of iTMS and other shops like it. Shovel more stuff on me that I don't want (and force me to pay for it) and I buy nothing. You (the hypothetical artist/label/store) just lost a potential sale that way.
i am a soviet space shuttle
How much is a dime?
;)
Ten to fifty bucks, depending upon the quality of the grass, man.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I only by CD from the artist at the concerts I see them at. If we all do this we'll be supporting the artist and treating them the way they deserve to be treated.
"To be is to do." --Socrates
"To do is to be." -- Aristotle
"Do-Be-Do-Be-Do..." --Sinatra
Some feel that per-track downloads hurt the artistic integrity of albums as a whole
Then they shouldn't complain when I download the .rar of their albums :)
Or maybe these artists actually care about their art more than the corporate bottom line, and thus deserve enough of your respect to buy their entire album or none at all.
Honestly, if they're insisting that you buy their entire album instead of just the single, I don't think they care. A lot of artists still believe in some mythical ideal of artistic integrity, even at the expense of making more money.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
Being able to not have to buy filler,
Good albums don't contain filler material.
Perhaps. But don't you think that makes the complaint of "we aren't making enough from online sales" kind of silly? Maybe that's true because you're denying people what they want. You have to make people want to buy your music to make a go of it, and while most musicians do what they do because they love it, at some point you have to be mindful of making a living.
i am a soviet space shuttle
Good albums don't contain filler material.
And mediocre albums have great songs on them.
i am a soviet space shuttle
It's not just Weird Al who signed a bad contract. Nearly all artists get stuck with the same ridiculous clauses. All the major labels give you a simple choice: Sign the standard contract, or be a nobody selling your CDs at pub gigs.
Take a look at this letter from Steve Vai - it lists some of the many ways that the labels burden the artist with every expense, fair and unfair, but retain all ownership of the songs. They short-change them even the few royalties that are due, require large upfront costs for any auditing to check this, disallow auditing of crucial figures like actual manufacturing numbers, then typically "settle" with the artist for around a third of what the artist is actually due anyway.
Regarding iTunes, he says even a well-established and popular artist who is entitled to 15% royalties, would typically see only 4-5c per iTunes track, due to such creative deductions like 15% for "free goods" (there are none, for digital downloads) and the 50% "new technologies" deduction. After, of course, the label has deducted all production and marketing expenses for the songs they now own. Read the linked article, it's hair-raising.
Remember, this isn't some naive and ignorant wannabe speaking, he's been playing for 20-odd years, including many years with Frank Zappa before he went solo - he's been around. He still had no choice. The labels control the radio playlist (via illegal payola) and the shop shelfspace, so if you want to succeed, you have to do a deal with them, and they will only offer the same "standard", artist-raping contract.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
don't you think that makes the complaint of "we aren't making enough from online sales" kind of silly?
No-one is complaining that they aren't making enough money because people don't like their music. They're complaining because they receive a pittance from each sale, while record company executives and shareholders (and Steve Jobs) become rich.
at some point you have to be mindful of making a living
No. As an 'artist', you make the music you want to make. If you're lucky, people want to buy it. If you're not, it's kinda handy that you didn't give up the day job.
As a manufactured mass-market musical commodity, designed by committee like a Hollywood film, then you can be mindful of making a living. Not that you need to be, since you've got plenty of people doing that for you.
It's a very rare actor that can demand millions up-front. Most have to settle for a percentage of the profits. However, due to accounting practices "considered odd by any normal business standards", 95% of movies, even box-office hits, somehow fail to make a profit - as defined by the studio, anyway. This article lists many of the ways in which this is managed, including spreading of gross receipts amongst poorer-performing pictures, "distribution fees" far in excess of reality, a 10% "overhead" fee to be applied to all marketing expenses, tax breaks that are kept by the studios & not counted for the picture, and many others.
Stan Lee got nothing from the Spider-Man movie, because the studio claimed it did not make a profit, at least as defined by his contract. My Big Fat Greek Wedding was produced cheaply and was a huge success, yet somehow "lost $20 million". Even Babylon 5, which took in $500 million in DVD sales alone, is apparently "$80 million in debt". As the creator, J Michael Straczynski said, "Basically, by the terms of my contract, if a set on a WB movie burns down in Botswana, they can charge it against B5's profits."
Steve Vai says very similar things about the record labels' own standard contracts, not least their various bogus deductions for digital download sales. As the saying goes, the really creative people are the accountants.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Fine, but some artists do view an album as more than just a series of tracks. Can you be sure, in advance, which tracks are "filler" and which aren't? Why, when I was a lad, it was my pleasure to unearth an "unsung" album track with special meaning to me.
Radiohead is mentioned in the article: any thoughts about the overarching story told in the order of the songs on OK Computer? It's there, almost a hidden message that rewards careful listening, and it would be destroyed if the songs were Shuffled. My "unsung" song on that album is Let Down, one that got no attention and would be left out if I had bought the "singles" on iTunes.
You should try this with a book - after all, who the heck is the author to decide that Chapter 7 comes immediately before Chapter 8?
(this is not a
So if you buy the complete album, should they forbid you to skip some tracks?
Gescom and Autechre did this a while back http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gescom.
I would like to here the Jazz one though.
$ cat
cat:
But then again, you don't have publishing houses telling authors they need to write a book with not less that 50 chapters and not more than 60. With musicians, the labels tell them they need to produce three "sellable" albums with at least 11 tracks each. So the artist writes 5 to 10 catchy songs and spreads them out over the three albums with filler tracks for the rest. The albums will sell because of the catchy songs, but the rest of them are just to please the label which doesn't really care about the music in the first place.
I'd argue that while the infrequent band will write a full album that creates a cohesive whole, it's not what the majority of mainstream music is and it's not what people are used to expecting anymore (maybe they did back in the 70s, but those days are gone). Perhaps they could make a deal with iTMS to only sell the full album and not the tracks piecemeal. That would be an interesting test of the iTMS users -- will they buy an album if it's only sold like a regular CD and not by track?
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
On the other hand, I've listened to OK Computer many times, usually without random shuffle, and I've never picked up an underlying album-wide story and message.
On my portable music player I have 3-4 tracks from that album in my two most common playlists and love them as tracks; I almost never listen to the album itself.
Maybe there is a message and the album represents a coherent body of work. Frankly it's wasted on me.
So, each file currently costs about $1 to download. Consumers want to be able to mix-and-match songs across albums. Enter the artists that either want: 1) to sell more songs by bundling them into an album or 2) to maintain artistic integrity. In the latter case, let them bundle the entire album into a single file (to be sold for $1). Call the bluff and we'll see whether it's profit or art that rules.
think about it another way. If you are a painter having just completed your masterpiece stretching across a huge canvas, would you be happy if someone just took a detail from it and refused to see the whole work?
back to music how happy do you think beethoven would be to know that his epic works have been reduced to a mobile phone ringtone? and how good an understanding of his work do you get from only listening to that ringtone?
a lot of musicians are unhappy with people reading the lyrics when listening to the songs because they feel it detracts from their work. does that stop you from reading while listening? hell no!
does it mean that they don't have the right to ask how they would like their music to be listened to? again hell no!
Well, nobody is forcing you to do anything but, there are some albums which are created to listen to them in order (at least if you really want to enjoy it).
Just like films. Do me a favor, go to your nearest Blockbuster and rent any random DVD that you have not seen. Now, instead of playing it all select the "choose chapter" option and watch the chapters in the following order: "5, 4, 7, 3, 1", you skipped chapter 2 and 6 (and if there are more than 7 chapters, all those also). Did the movie made any sense to you?. See, some MUSIC ALBUMS are made the same way. Of course, for those albums the *song* element plays a strong role which will make you enjoy certain "chapter" without having to listen to the whole album just as what happens with video very often.
I always like to put as an example the Scenes from a memory cd from Dream Theater. If you listen to the 8th song "8. Scene Six: Home" and the lyrics will make no sense to you, they might even appear to be crap, but if you listen to the whole album at least once, you will *understand* the mood of the song AND the lyrics.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
I'd like to think a better example is how this painting (NSFW, as far as classical paintings go) is more famously known for the one foot in the bottom-left than any other portion of the painting.
Tluin natha Linux xxizzuss uriu olt bwael mon'tun.
Isn't that the point of this argument? That music is not like books? Either a song is its own entity, or it is not.
If Radiohead really wanted you to listen to the whole album, they'd make it one long track.
The REAL artsy bands (Godspeed You Black Emperor, I'm looking at you) do this.
Now, you can complain about lack of context, and certainly the artist should have the right to control their medium of discussion, but ultimately, there is no right answer. The artist is right; the listener is right. Nothing is true; everything is permitted. Et cetera.
Okay, given, but why should we care?
Art, music included, is not a pure expression of its creator, meant to be interpreted only as he/she sees fit, but instead how the viewer/listener/whatever sees that creation. Once a piece of art gets released to the general public, after all, it becomes, in part, the domain of that public body's imagination.
For example, if I like only two songs off of a Radiohead album, then why should the band dictate that I have to listen to all of the other songs on the album just to get to those two? What if I see those two songs as individually more enjoyable than the album as a whole? Is my preference any less important than the band's? And if so, how far are you willing to take it? Should we stop playing cuts from Dark Side of the Moon on the radio? Bundle songs into one huge (and annoying) track on a CD so that the listener can't skip anything?
So, frankly, I don't give two bollocks what the artist thinks. If they want to keep the precious "artistic integrity" of their work, then they can never release it to the public and keep it hidden in a vault somewhere. But if that's the band's only reason for not releasing already released albums on iTunes, then they should cave in and just do it, unless they're a bunch of pretentious wankers...
...oh, wait, this is Radiohead we're talking about...
Many Bothans died to bring you this sig.
While I can see what you're saying for most artists, Radiohead goes more into the realm of art than most popular acts out there (do we count Sigur Ros as popular or not?) so I can at least buy THEIR argument. I, uh, disagree with Metallica trying to go with the same argument, though. But I don't see why the artists can't ALSO make as much money as possible from touring. Besides mural art, I don't think there's anything about art that makes it necessary (or even better) to make it freely available.
HI, MY NAME IS ISAAC.
I'm just here to regulate Funkyness
The reason they don't sell on iTunes among other places is because they believe iTunes is not a great place to sell music since much of the world still doesn't access music via iTunes. That's straight from Thom Yorke's mouth. I'll try and find the interview later. Furthermore, they believe the music industry, at least as far as distribution is concerned is about to crumble and they'd rather wait and see what works out and then have control over it themselves.
Radiohead is actually happy they don't have to release albums anymore since their record contract is done.
Plus, I don't think they care. They sell out every show they ever schedule.
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -Homer Simpson
Music, is in the ear of the listener... not in the layout of an album... whether laid out by the artist or the label...
What and how I listen to whatever I chose to listen to is, and should be, up to me.
Precisely. Thank you. That's what I've been having to explain to every single one of the zillions of people who seem to be replying with nothing but "to hell with what you want, someone you don't know has views that matter more than yours do".
i am a soviet space shuttle
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -Homer Simpson
Ring tones are nothing new musically; they are merely a more ubiquitous form of what's been played in clock towers for hundreds of years. To be able to make a memorable musical statement in the space of 10-20 seconds is a significant accomplishment.
If the artist cares enough about the fans to make an album worth listening to, such as most Pink Floyd albums, I'll buy the entire thing. Afterall, who would want just "Another Brick in the Wall" without the entire album? If they just record an album with 2 good songs and mostly filler, I'm cutting out the filler. I suspect most fans will decide if an album is worth buying and if so, buy the whole thing. If artists want people to buy the entire album, they should make the album worth buying on its merits.
Most albums are 90% absolute crap, most tracks are meerely padding to get you to pay $15 for that one song you liked. Yeah, you can complain about the poor misunderstood artist all you like, but if the vast majority of them actually made albums that weren't 90% pure SUCK, there wouldn't be an issue, because people would want to download the whole thing and listen to it in order.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
The way I see it, if control of the experience is what they want [and that honestly is what defines true artists], they should be doing that at the concert level, not at the individual-album-sale level.
We are the fire that lights our world.. and we are the fire that consumes it.
if you consider the time it was written, Lewis' aims and beliefs, his arguments with Tolkein, etc.
I agree completely. You will get a better appreciation out of a piece of art by understanding all the things you list. My argument is that this knowledge is not mandatory. Lewis did not preface his books with a EULA stating every reader must learn about x and y before starting.
a painter delivers a triptych to a gallery with the instructions "all three panels to be aligned horizontally, positioned 3 feet from the floor, against a white wall, with 2 inches between each panel"
I concede this point, but with the disclaimer that I'm slightly anti-modern art for exactly this reason.
Three days from now?? Thats tomorrow!! ~Peter Griffin