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Study Suggests Music Industry Embrace Piracy
unassimilatible writes to tell us that according to the Financial Times, the music industry should embrace illegal file-sharing websites. A recent study of the recent Radiohead album release found that huge numbers of illegal downloads actually helped the band's popularity and, by extension, concert ticket sales. "Radiohead's release of In Rainbows on a pay-what-you-want basis last October generated enormous traffic to the band's own website and intense speculation about how much fans had paid. He urged record companies to study the outcome and accept that file-sharing sites were here to stay. 'It's time to stop swimming against the tide of what people want,' he said." Update 19:46 GMT by SM: Several readers (including the original author) have written in to mention that it isn't stressed enough that this study was engaged by the music industry itself, making the findings that much more interesting. Take that as you will.
Not saying that there might be some merit here, but this was hardly a scientific study. Someone simply looked at the number of downloads of a single album, by a single band and said "downloads == good." Sure, you can make statistics say whatever you want them to say, but this isn't even trying.
Secondly, it's no longer "pirating" if it's condoned by the copyright holder, eh? So, we're now expecting labels to just let everyone freely copy music? The problem here is that labels own the copyright and make their money from album sales. Merchandising and concert revenue, on the other hand, typically go into the bands' pockets. So of course there are bands out there that would love to use albums as a loss leader for their concerts. This kinda screws the labels though since the only reason so many people attend the concerts or buy the t-shirts is due to a heavy promotional investment by the labels.
I can't actually believe that I'm spending a few minutes of my life to defend major record labels, but we do need a bit of intellectual honesty and middle ground in this discussion.
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
How was the "In Rainbows" download stunt at all illegal?
People want *everything* for free. If you could get anything/everything you wanted without having to pay for it, wouldn't you?
... though it might be good if they are constantly reminded that they are hurting themselves by going against consumers rather than with them.
A recent study of the recent Radiohead album release found that huge numbers of illegal downloads actually helped the band's popularity and, by extension, concert ticket sales.
But the quote says:
Radiohead's release of In Rainbows on a pay-what-you-want basis last October generated enormous traffic to the band's own website and intense speculation about how much fans had paid.
So was the pay-what-you-want part illegal? Is there a law that requires you to charge for music? Damn...
Gotta go support the music industry and make comcast hate my guts.
The "Industry"? Surely not. Maybe the musicians and the artists themselves, yes, but certainly not the "Industry", which thives on artificial rarity...
Link Please.
Why would I want to give away my product when...I make money from what is otherwise given away; but do not make money from what is gained?
Record companies don't make money from the concert sales. They make money from the sale of CDs.
This comes back to the same ignorant licensing argument on Slashdot between GPL, BSD, and non-opersource licenses.
God forbid people make money to live on.
Not very many people know this, but the RIAA almost went bankrupt in the 30s with Radio, because they didn't have any licensing fees or "royalties" associated with it. And people stopped buying records because they could listen to it on the radio.
The RIAA should embrace technology. Because that is where the world is headed. Any idiot can see this. So instead of fighting, go with the flow, because you cannot change people. No matter how much you sue, how much fucking money you waste trying to convince people they are stealing if they think of the song in their head.
I hereby kick the RIAA in the nuts.
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish !!
As numerous others have pointed out in past threads, concert ticket sales benefit the concert promoters and (to a lesser extent) the bands, but really don't do much to bolster RIAA-member company profits, which are much more closely tied to labeled CD and MP3 sales -- precisely what illegal downloads are purported to compete with.
Conclusion -- Save your time, no need to bother with such nitwittage "analysis".
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
The article is making the (increasingly realistic) argument, albeit in a round-about fashion, that the recording industry needs to adapt or die. They've got just about zero chance of regaining the revenue streams they had pre-napster, and so its time to think outside the box. Not a newsflash by any stretch of the imagination.
It's a choice between figuring out how to continue to make money (redesigning your business model) or making none (continually declining revenues for major labels until they can't afford to pay anyone in any case).
Giving it all away sort of destroys the profitability of deceased artists and those that don't want to tour. Who's going to listen to something from a pink newspaper anyway?
A recent study of the recent Radiohead album release found that huge numbers of illegal downloads actually helped the band's popularity and, by extension, concert ticket sales.
Concerts aren't normally a big revenue source for the labels anyhow. That's one reason bands tour: because they make more money that way. The labels are all about album sales.
... if what Radiohead did had involved a file sharing site. In exchange for my $10, I got an http link directly to a ZIP file. Unless the UK user experience was vastly different, I call shenanigans on the story summary. Yes, the actual album was still torrented despite the fact that it was available, legally, for free. But what exactly would a record company learn from that besides that high buzz = more interest in illegal downloads?
The supposed "benefits" are for increased concert ticket sales. I have to presume that there are spill-over effects for merchandise like t-shirts and posters. Historically, this revenue has gone to the BAND - not the music companies. As I understand it, the music companies have typically kept revenues from album sales as their primary compensation. An argument can be made then that piracy is bad for music companies whose business model is based on the ability to sell recordings and control distribution of recordings while piracy benefits bands whose business model is based primarily on live performance.
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
Y'know though, the labels and record companies are really just middlemen and the artists make their money from concert tours and very little from actual CD sales.
So why are we paying for the middleman?
My submission was completely rewritten by the admin.
So was the pay-what-you-want part illegal? Is there a law that requires you to charge for music? Damn..
I think the point is that Radiohead wanted you to register with a credit card and get it from their site. I might be remembering incorrectly, but I think they wanted a minimum of 1 cent.
Regardless, just because a copyright holder doesn't charge money doesn't mean they cannot control other aspects of a work's use and distribution. Or have you not heard of a "GPL?"
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Why? Because most of the performance proceedings indeed go to the band. Some (large) bands are quoted saying that they make living only on concerts since their multi-milion-platinum-albums are bringing in nothing after record labels cut.
/. submitters need to read the articles a tad more carefully. The Financial Times did not express an opinion one way or the other was to whether the music industry should embrace illegal file-sharing websites. From the article (*emphasis* added):
This is an interesting news item in its own right. Ascribing positions haphazardly to organizations is not necessary.
Then again...the ridiculous amount of publicity RadioHead received probably didn't hurt either.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
'It's time to stop swimming against the tide of what people want,' he said
In other news, an in-depth study reveals that most Americans would prefer to get paid while sitting at home playing Wii. The business model of requiring people to come to a common location and perform seemingly arbitrary tasks while wearing less-than-comfortable clothing is completely outdated. "It's time to stop swimming against the tide of what people want," he said. "Money wants to be free!"
While I'm sure the business model used by the music industry could use some adjustments and updating, I detest weak argumentation that argues one or two points and then jumps to a conclusion. It's like saying: "1) this shape has three sides 2) one angle measures 60' THEREFORE this is an equilateral triangle." Well, you *might* be right, and if nothing else you're probably headed in the right direction, but your reasoning is not nearly as conclusive as you seem to think. Where did we lose our ability to argue reasonably and logically?
captcha: prospers
I"m not, viva bittorrent
They already have!
It helps their artists (and them as well), but it also helps artists who are not uinder contract with its members.
The RIAA has radio and empty-v to advertise its wares, as well as internet radio and P2P. Their competetion (the independants) only has internet radio and P2P. Killing internet radio and P2P is a blow against the indies, and since the RIAA has radio and empty-v, they can do without the internet. Their competetion can't.
What they are doing is blatantly illegal, but the government is their pawn. We, the People, are defenseless.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
you're all a bunch of clueless idiots.
See subject.
Especially when it is so easy and cheap to produce and distribute one's own 'CD' these days. The artists don't need the labels, and should sell CDs at cost (say, $5?), or give them away as promotional material while making their money performing. That's how all the local bands I go to see do it.
While one could contend that "music industry", in this case, means "musicians", the traditional use of the phrase is in reference to the big labels behind the musicians. And they will never embrace piracy even if it does mean their artists become more popular and sell out stadiums on a regular basis - labels make little from concerts. There's a reason why many bands tour constantly - that's their major cash cow. Now, for _musicians_, piracy is a good thing - if people are listening to your music, they are more likely to be a fan of your work and thus you call sell more of your t-shirts, stickers, concert tickets, etc., etc., etc. But, labels - "the music industry" - will never go for that. Because their business model is out-dated and they have failed to evolve for the new technological age. But that's their problem...
If only!
"and, by extension, concert ticket sales" - The artist makes the bulk of the concert ticket sales, the record makes the the bulk of the album sales. There is no business interest for the recording interest to increase concert ticket sales.
While the reasons given for supporting piracy such as better concert ticket sales are true and Radiohead did benefit from that pay-what-you-want system, the Record Industry do not benefit from such a system and thus woul try their best to stop p2p and illegal sharing.
The only way P2P could succeed, with artists getting their fair share through tours and sponsorship is if the Music Industry was bypassed.
As an idealistic independent musician, I dream of staying indie, making free music for the fans and having the fans support me out of the goodness of their hearts. And maybe it can happen.
On the other hand, I just recorded an album (not released yet), and I value the producer/engineer's work tremendously. I would also be ecstatic to have someone take over many of my business/marketing tasks for me. It would be worth it to me to pay those people - not 90% of my income, but definitely some.
Assuming fans will continue to be willing to support the music they love, I can see the industry moving from "labels employ artists" to "artists employ a business staff." Those people would cease to be middlemen, but they wouldn't cease to be needed.
Because the middleman offers promotion. Signal-to-noise ratio is very high on open fora.
The music industry (and the movie industry) has a business model where they control the conduit between the "talent" and the "customer." They make their money by controlling that conduit ... we have a number of laws that outline the dirty tricks used by these folks to control the distribution conduit, right up to the control interface on your wallet. The Canadian blank-media tax basically siphons cash out of your wallet regardless of your music/entertainment purchases, and gives the lion's share of the funds to ... wait for it ... the distribution cartels. They have a plan for distributions to artists, but that's after they've taken their cut.
Any proposal that lessens their ability to control the market will be opposed quite vigorously. They already know they're obsolete. What makes you think they're going to give up voluntarily?
The industry needs to realize that a person not buying their products is not their customer, whether it is a subsistence farmer on the African countryside or a frequent visitor to the Piratebay and that ilk. So they need to start focusing on the real customers to actually make money.
The difference is that the visitor to Piratebay is MORE likely to actually turn into a customer. So why chase him away through litigation? The fantasy that they are losing money (i.e. has money taken away) is a fallacy, there is just potential income that is less than if they had bought the album. So you want them to do just that.
Turning into a fricking monster is not the solution.
They make money selling items and merchandising the music.
Ticket sales and items sold at concerts benefit the artists directly as they are putting the most effort into it. And they can be big money losers for the label if albums don't sell and they band is pulling charge backs to cover tour expenses.
If this becomes reality, will it relieve the Customs & Border Protection/Patrol of something to ransack hard disks for? (Someone/some report somewhere alluded to the possibility that the movie/music industries wanted or arranged for the various G8/other nations' customs inspectors look for pirated music and intellectual property.)
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Throwing money into promotions and advertisements does influence the masses to buy; and money is what counts to business. The question is, how much of sales are based upon marketing?
Marketing leads to popularity. Popularity leads to sales. Sales leads to money. Money leads to power. Power leads to suffering.
Because no artist or publisher ever starved from having his works pirated, but many have starved because of obscurity.
If I don't hear your record I'm not very damned likely to buy it, now am I? But if Joe says "hey that new band Grosweil* really ROCKS", well, I'm not very likely to go out and buy it either.
But I might be likely to download it and give it a listen, and well, if it does indeed rock I'll be buying the CD.
*AFAIK there is no such band
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
I may be unusual, but I often pay or offer to pay money to amateur musicians (like yourself?) that create music that I like. I suspect that there are a lot of other people that would do this if the transaction could be streamlined. This would require several things:
If someone can crack this nut, a lot of money would flow to non-mainstream music, without need for live concerts, etc.
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
lol l2play an instrument then
As other posts have mentioned, the RIAA members control distribution to broadcast media and sales channels. As such, their last interest is concert sales.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
It isn't the record labels that need to embrace filesharing, it is the artists. A large record contract just isn't that necessary anymore.
Most of the bands I enjoy are on the big labels. Heavy metal, mostly European stuff. Bands that have deep contracts, yet you've probably never seen advertisements for (at least in the US), and have never seen radio airtime here. Yet their CDs cost me the same price as the current "hot sensation" that is advertised everywhere, always on the radio/tv, and has 3 racks at the store dedicated to it. I'd bet their label takes the same proportion of the cut too; they have to make a killing from the little bands that sell well without a drop of advertisement put in.
The internet (think Youtube, MySpace, Facebook, etc) makes advertising your band trivial. MP3-quality sound doesn't require hours of studio rental or a producer's time (hell, my little garage band has no desire to 'strike it big' but our meager gear already records a decent sound after vbr encoding). Digital distribution means no competition for shelf space, and services like CDBaby enable you to print up physical media if you desire. I'll admit I don't know the first thing about booking a concert tour, but you sure as hell don't need a draconian contract for it.
Piracy works because you get your music from a centralized source for a cheap price. Enable a way to legally do the same and make your customers-turned-criminals back into customers again.
"found that huge numbers of illegal downloads actually helped the band's popularity and, by extension, concert ticket sales."
Not quite. What the study said was that, regardless of the fact that Radiohead allowed legal downloads for "little or nothing", they got far more illegal downloads than legal ones. Not one word about "concert ticket sales".
It's not at all clear to me that the fact that illegal downloads exceed legal ones even when legal ones cost little or nothing is an example of good news. There's some widespread assumption in the /. community that getting lots of "popularity" from downloads somehow is just as good as getting money, and bands should figure out some way to get money other than selling music anyway, maybe somehow trading in on that "popularity". But it's not at all clear to me that a future in which all that a musician gets from music is popularity, and no money, is a desirable one.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
The OP was being sarcastic in the first paragraph.
I hope.
The problem here is that labels own the copyright and make their money from album sales. Merchandising and concert revenue, on the other hand, typically go into the bands' pockets. So of course there are bands out there that would love to use albums as a loss leader for their concerts.
Okay, but I think the most important implication of this post is that perhaps there is absolutely no need for there to be record labels anymore.
Recording studios aren't even a hundredth as expensive as they used to be. Many bands - Radiohead included - have their own.
So if enough people are inclined to listen to music without having it on plastic disks in physical stores - why bother with the labels at all?
Sure, a band needs to be promoted, but the logical solution is for them to hire a PR guy - not for their PR guy to hire them.
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
"This Machine Kills Fascists" was inscribed on Woody Guthrie's guitar.
So, we're now expecting labels to just let everyone freely copy music? The problem here is that labels own the copyright and make their money from album sales
It works for the indies. Note that Radiohead sold a lot of records. The industry should (if they weren't so dishonest and afraid of their competetion) embrace P2P and tout the CD's sueriority to lossily compressed files, and add "value added" value to the records like concert tickets, posters, etc.
Instead they'd rather sue their best customers - there have been studies going back to the outlaw Napster that show that ardent P2P users buy more CDs than anyone.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
What percentage of concert ticket sales does the record company get? It's obvious that musicians should embrace file-sharing, but the people fighting against it are (for the most part) record companies, not musicians. For a record company, alternative distribution channels really do threaten their control of the industry. And to some of these dinosaurs, control is more important than economic realities...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
The record companies first market the band, give them money to make their CD with top producers and expensive studios and pay for the music videos. Also, in many cases, payola to have their singles on the radio and articles on magazines.
This is nationwide stuff and no band do it by themselves.
Ticket sales come after being famous and everyone knowing who they are. Most people cannot name a few good local bands whereas they can name Radiohead, Weezer etc.
Problem: ticket sales only work for bands with existing fans. CD sales work for bands who impress whoever happens to see them. How can a band become popular enough for the former if they can't even pay for their gas with the latter?
I think reasonable fans will realize that bands need money to buy equipment, drive to concerts, and make recordings. If you want to hear more music, you need to find a way to support it financially.
Furthermore, your argument of "if it's free to copy, it should be free to get" is absolutely destructive to the movie industry. Did you like "Iron Man?" How about "The Dark Knight?" How would movie studios pay for those multi-million-dollar productions if theaters were allowed to just download the movie from The Pirate Bay?
I don't think creative people have an inherent right to earn money from their work. But I do think that fans should realize that their money is what enables the creation of new music and movies. If you don't pay for your copy, the next original may not get made.
what people want.."
And what do they want, they want FREE
Must really suck to be an emerging artist these days, your basically a whore in an industry filled with lawyers and trust fund babies with more money than talent or knowledge who wake up one day and decide to get into the biz after failing out of Event Planning in College. In reality most bands dont make a dime, the lawyers do and the remaining revenue is then spread amongst the shill organizations for various "services".
Then you have the fans who think they are entitled to your property for free
I like the idea of the record company monopoly falling but sincerely doubt FREE is anything near worthy to replace it with.
Prepare for musics dark ages
If only!
The kids these days and their newfangled cohm-pew-tahrs...
No. The record companies need to embrace fair use and stop referring to people sharing their personal property as "piracy".
as with any music genre, you have to be really, really, -really- good to get noticed. to get paid, you have to be even better. and yeah, i'm a bedroom electronic music composer myself, and have been really jaded by the whole "musicians make their money doing live shows, cds are just promotion" idea. and i've done a few of the live shows too, and yeah, even then there's not much money in it for us. not that money is everything, but it would be nice to quit the day job, etc. but either way, as a laptop-centric musician, you're not going to pack an arena. you might get $20 out of doing the little coffee shop/art gallery show, if you're lucky, or maybe some free drinks. it's not going to pay the rent.
the only reasonable alternatives i see are:
1) develop a community-centric site, either a label-style site or an em411 style site. give the music away for free and make money on ads and 'extras' (limited edition vinyl, t-shirts, merch, whatever for sale direct on the site). the only problem here is it gets you away from doing what you want, which is actually writing music.
2) write a lot of good music in many different styles and get it into a bunch of music libraries.
really, we can't expect to sell many cds, especially since most of our fanbase is computer nerds who will probably download your music for free before they even consider buying a cd. and the fanbase is small, and promotion is expensive, and with so much competition out there it's hard to make yourself stand out from the crowd. hell, half the fans i know are aspiring musicians themselves. the only real possibility for making a decent living off the music alone is to get it in libraries and get companies to pay for it to be in commercials/etc.
i spoke first hand with a certain prolific experimental electronic artist who received the equivalent of an entire years' salary (for me) by selling a few 30 second clips to a large corporation. you aren't going to find an easier payday as an electronic musician. we aren't all going to make 5 figure deals with major corporations but if we make enough smaller deals, make enough contacts, and build up a big enough library, then maybe someday we can supplement our retirement.
i've prettymuch resigned myself to this fate after about 8 years of pursuing this. and you know what? i'm really happy about it. i compose my music, i don't have to deal with labels and shows and tours and everything that comes with that, and people still hear it, albeit in a slightly less desirable context. and hopefully someday i'll actually make some money. ;)
the recording industry needs to adapt or die
Both of those options are perfectly fine. If the market changes and the recording industry refuses to supply what people want, then someone (or something) will step in and fill the gap. If the recording industry chooses to do so themselves, good for them. If they refuse, they'll just go bankrupt or become irrelevant.
Either way, people will find ways to get what they want. Therefore I don't really care whether RIAA & friends will 'go with the flow', or die a slow death. Do you?
your're an Anonymous Coward.
Hmmm, Clueless Idiots vs Anonymous Cowards.
Clueless Idiots to the left, Anonymous Cowards to the right.
3,2,1, Go.
I wonder why the elections suddenly come to mind.
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
Maybe the solution is for record labels to freely distribute and promote the music, and in turn they get a share of the revenue from performances and commercial licensing?
Benefit the bands more then the artists. That is where a lot of bands make their money.
Not that its a bad thing of course, they do the work, they deserve the cash.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I am not saying nothing they put out is not enjoyed, just most of it. At my age, I remember when I could buy an album on 8 track and casette and like most of the songs... ie The Eagles, Alabama, The Who, Queen, etc.... Now-a-days, I am lucky if I can find 2 songs on an album worth my time and money.
Note to RIAA, I buy when its worth my money. $20-$30 for one decent song is not going to make me a consumer of your wares.
God forbid people make money to live on.
Nobody said artists, or labels, (or software developers, for that matter) shouldn't be able to monetize their products.
The claim is that they should not continue to try to monetize them "in a specific way." In particular, by trying to collect money on every copy of the work transmitted over the Internet.
They can still make money. They will need a different arrangement to do so, of course, but they still can. In fact, many do, both in the open source world and in the entertainment world.
This study is missing something huge. Widespread downloading of music only works as a promotional tool if the music is actually GOOD. If it isn't then it will hurt album sales. I'm sure the major music labels are entirely aware of this(and that most of their product is definitely not good) which is why they are fighting piracy with a vengeance.
...would be:
Rights holders would create copies of their movies/music/etc. using a standard program that "imprints" it with a demo indicator. For video, this would mean a message appearing at the start, end and in the middle of the screen every 20 minutes or so saying this was an unlicensed copy and to license it, go to this website. For music, it would take the form of an audio announcement along the same lines at the beginning, middle, and end of the song.
When you go to that website, you can download an app for your particular platform. The app would be fairly simple, so there's really no excuse for not supporting Windows, Mac, Linux, and maybe even BSD. This app is like iTunes Music Store in that it lets you whip out a credit card and pay money for the music/movie. It then downloads from the server the diff that would take those announcement bits out and replace them with the normal audio/video. It also tack on to the beginning and end of any video the purchaser's name, with a short (less than 5 second) screen saying that the following movie was the licensed property of (purchaser's name). For audio files, it would probably be best just to have that put in the tags. Hopefully some place it would be obvious on playback/browsing.
And that's it. No more DRM. No phoning home, no device lock in for the stuff you already purchased. Just a simple screen to prevent casual copying (who wants to give other people stuff with their name and maybe city/state on it). The knowledgeable crowd will know how to fix that, but there's no point in trying to stop them, anyway. They'll always figure out a way around and you can save yourself millions of dollars in creating elaborate DRM schemes and lost sales because people don't like elaborate DRM schemes.
You charge VERY low rates for these files. We're talking 10 cents - 50 cents a song and around $1-$2 a movie. You make up for the price in volume, especially on the movies because now you can really give the movie rental places a run for their money. You not only stop trying to squash bittorrent, you embrace it. You get your imprinted copies on every decent tracker and you help seed them. You make it as easy to download your imprinted copy as it is to get a pirate one.
If you've got the money for development/bandwidth, you can also create your own iTunes-like store where they can directly download from you. But you keep putting it on the torrent sites, too, because this is all about making paying for content as close to as easy as not paying for it and only slightly more expensive. If you're a smaller player, you team up and do package deals. This would narrow down the number of sites that have activation apps that you'd have to download. I figure each of the big music labels would want to do their own (BMG, Universal, etc.) and then you'd get indie collectives.
The payment method could also be abstracted so that you never give your financial information directly to the companies but only get sent through other payment systems like paypal, Amazon, etc. Heck, maybe even the activation apps could come from these "trusted" third parties. The content owners could keep them in line (keep them from trying to take a big piece of the pie) due to the competition between payment systems.
The companies could keep a record of the media you own, so that you could get a new copy activated if your old one got deleted. This would be low traffic on their site if they want because you can get the imprinted media from a torrent.
Note: If doing the diff thing is too difficult (because of the way various codecs work), you can also just create a file where you take out 10% of the information required to play it, basically in a worm-like fashion throughout the file. Enough to swiss cheese it. And you include a standard bit at the beginning of the file that tells you how to "activate" it. Basically like the above but without the free preview.
So, any thoughts? Crazy enough to work? Content sellers just keep trying to build a
I would like to point out this article from David Byrne which I found highly instructive on different record contract structures. It's an older article, but still very good from someone who has been there, on both sides of the equation.
While some bands may chose the megastar option (at risk of loss of other things), a great many other musicians would likely do well on a number of different levels.
The problems with the Radiohead album have been multifold. First, there was a lot of publicity regarding "free" distribution. At release, the Radiohead website was generally considered cumbersome and difficult to use, and was suffering from outages.
The problems downloading the album from the Radiohead site drove many to download the files from peer to peer networks, with the media-driven misconception that this album was "free". Unfortunately, the extent to which the album was "free" was greatly over-exaggerated by the media, as it was not free for redistribution. This is a fact that likely eluded the average consumer not intimately familiar with copyright law.
Above all, a user will take the path of least resistance, legal or not. For some users, they find resistance in prices they cannot afford, but that is not the only reason for piracy. Other reasons include empty store shelves, DRM (digital rights management), and uncooperative websites (as with 'In Rainbows'). All of these barriers to legal ownership result in piracy.
Almost unfortunately, record companies have already realized this. Yet, they have decided to implement these ideas backwards. They are attempting to reduce the relative barriers to legal ownership by increasing the barriers to illegal ownership. This has been done via the legal system, with their infamous lawsuits.
I agree with the general idea of that record companies must adapt and embrace free downloads through peer-to-peer networks, as NiN has done with their release of Ghosts. NiN has released their Ghosts album free for download and redistribution under Creative Commons.
canceling moderation
The signal to noise ratio already sucks.
That's a big part of the problem.
There are no real DJ's anymore and payola has been dominating playlists for a long time.
We need to find some way to revive the old school disc jockey.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I got so fed up with it that the last show I played was a projection of myself DJ'ing, projected onto myself standing there, drinking
It's called "performance art." If youre too lazy to do it, it's not for you.
It's very difficult to make money doing music without a live show.
It's difficult for me to make money without showing up at work, too. A musician's JOB is making music, and musicians made a living performing for centuries before it was possible to record music.
If open source programmers had to tour to make money, programming live on stage while people danced around cheering, it would collapse
But many do the equivalent, which is support or training (etc) for the free product. Not unlike a musician going onstage.
Friends of mine who actually ARE serious musicians (not merely hobbyists) make money doing shows, selling stickers and tshirts, and selling CDs. Note their CDs are a lot cheaper than the RIAA fare; no middlemen. Most of them post MP3s (and shns even) on their websites or archive.org.
As to "trickle down economics", it's hogwash. Money doesn't trickle down, it flows up. Wealth is created in the cubicle, the factory floor, the cook's stove. The wealthy do not create wealth, they aggregate and control it. Investment does not create wealth, it merely lays the foundation for its creation.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Explain then the usually very high quality performances available on things like bt.etree.org or archive.org's live music archive. I often download bands I've never heard of, and I'm seldom let down by their performance. Audio quality leaves a bit to be desired, but that's to be expected from audience recordings.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
KMFDM has been doing it for 20+ years.
Stop fighting the pressure for music sharing and give customers what they want, but make money by injecting advertising into the songs/lyrics. The more popular the band is, the more people will share it, the more they will be exposed to the advertising in the songs. The same can be said for TV and movies.
If the customers don't want ads, then they'll stop pirating the music/videos.
Sounds like you are a composer not a performer. Composers would usually make money by selling thier music to musicians to perform. However, since your compositions do not require an actual performer... I'm not sure how it would work now. But I do know that you shouldn't be comparing yourself to performers. You are a composer, composers never made money on performances.
And people did math with abacuses before the computer for centuries. It doesn't invalidate the computer as a mathematical tool, not does it invalidate it as composition tool. An interest in computer music is not an interest in flutes.
Furthermore, there's a difference between being lazy and standing there doing nothing because the crowd is too ignorant to understand that when you are tweaking knobs you are pretty much doing the equivalent of air guitar. Yet, without the show you can't sell your CD or get press.
Good times!
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This is yet another pro-piracy article posted by Slashdot insisting that artists have absolutely no rights to their own music. According to Slashdot, if you make music, you don't have a right to sell it. You must give it away and hope somebody might show up to a concert (that's assuming you're a touring artist in the first place...if you're not, I guess you're fucked).
I'm at the point now where my eyes glaze over and I just scroll past any Slashdot piracy article. It's the same every time--demonize the RIAA, demonize the "music industry," demonize anyone who attempts to make a living. Meanwhile, the people actually making the music and putting it up for sale are purposely left out of the discussion because that would humanize the people you're ripping off.
As for groups like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails, they're well-established acts who already made tons of money over a decade ago. They can afford to give music away for free. They weren't giving their music away for free in 1995, now were they?
"Sufferin' succotash."
Don't want to rely on live concerts? Fine, not everything works in that medium. There are other models, though. For example, commissioned art. Probably not individually commissioned, but perhaps by a co-op or other organization funded through member dues. In addition to positive feelings and voting rights in the co-op, members would get first access to high-quality recordings, interaction with the artists, discounts on related merchandise, etc. Periodic contests could possibly work in place of, or in addition to, specific commissions depending on the genre.
Right or wrong, copyright infringement isn't going away. In my opinion, ignoring any and all the moral issues on both sides for the moment, the not-insignificant resources being spent trying to "put the genie back in the bottle" would be much better employed in finding a model that isn't at odds with the nature of the modern universe.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
Well, that's a pretty good trick. One's a movie, one's a song, and critics tend not to mix genres. Go to Rotten Tomatoes and find the ones who liked Howard the Duck. Weird Al's been making a comeback lately, so plenty of "crickets" chirp happily about him.
I'm too cheap to spend the 99 cents to buy a track on Amazon, much less a CD. But I just took a trip to see my favorite band $BAND in Toronto, and between tickets and merch I dropped about $100 at the venue alone. And as far as I'm concerned it was well worth it; my friends and I had a blast. More frequently I go to $5 shows in sketchy warehouses and such, which is a lot like what you're talking about. So it's pretty much like that everywhere I think.
Generally speaking, record labels never get a cent of concert revenues and bands rarely make money from record sales.
The concert revenues go almost entirely to the band and their team (manager, lawyer, roadies, etc.). They also typically keep money made from non-musical merchandise like t-shirts, hats, posters, stickers, etc. The band can profit greatly from wide exposure (like you might get from being popular on P2P).
The record label, on the other hand, usually doesn't get any merchandise revenue or revenue from touring at all. They have to make all of their money from sales of recordings. What happens in practice is that the label will give the band an "advance" so the band can make a recording. This advance might be $200,000 for an entry-level band and the band must use the money to create a suitable recording and buy food, clothing and shelter until it's time to make the next album--and the contract dictates a minimum time frame for this, typically 6 months or a year. The record label is usually entitled to 85% or more of revenues from the sale of record and under no obligation to release the album or spend any money promoting it. Before the band makes another dime off record sales, this entire amount (and any additional expenses the label might incur in getting the record to market) must be recouped from record sales. It almost never is because the label will bill things like air conditioning, coffee, dinners with friends, parties, etc. and because the record label has to pay to have the album pressed and distributed which can be quite expensive. My old record label was making something like $2 off every $10 record sold in a store because the store wanted a cut, the distributor (V2 records) took a huge cut and had to pay their sales team to place it in stores, etc. I think we were entitled to something like 25 cents per $10 record sold according to the terms of our contract. Try paying off $200,000 at that rate.
Given that most bands don't ever see a dime from sales of music recordings, I would imagine that P2P seems like a great option for them. Conversely, record labels are going to hate it because it means giving their product away for free or for optional compensation. It is possible to build a business on optional compensation but I wouldn't want to do it.
I see this helping bands in the long term because it means free distribution of records. I also see it hurting bands because record labels are whithering away - where is that $200,000 advance going to come from? You might see a lot of cheap-to-produce music (like house, rap, or punk) coming out of this situation, but you won't see records like Dark Side of the Moon (which took like 2 years to make) or Pet Sounds coming out of this situation. What you will see is an increasingly splintered industry with gazillions of bands and incredible variety. You'll also see the prefabricated, talentless stars like Miley Cyrus making boatloads in this scheme.
The situation is not totally gloomy because you don't need anywhere near $200,000 to record a good record today. You can get protools or logic for cheap. You can also whore yourself out to some rich patron for the big bucks to do a truly awesome recording if you don't mind a lifetime of indentured servitude which is basically the old way of doing things.
Okay, I made up that kitschy/pseudo-catchy headline. But this topic is full of clashing logic.
If your post is full of the "I'll never be known" variation of lamenting, and you "released your album for free", then you must be amenable for your music to "float around".
I'll say it clearly: Do I have permission to engange in Attribution based derivative activities with your music? There are tons of eclectic ways to do things with music once the artist has forsaken the RIAA's favorite Strait-Jacket model.
For example, I don't especially care for your exact handling of your music themes, but there's promise here.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
With the surging popularity of the internet, I do not see why bands cannot emerge simply from the internet it self.
Websites like myspace and ruckus already help to promote little known bands. I have a few friends who are into that kind of stuff and I know i have listened to all of their albums on some website that promotes small time bands, cant recall the site name.
In short, bands can gain popularity by selling themselves on the internet. As Amazon has learned, selling things in the internet is A WHOLE LOT CHEAPER.
Selling music on the internet is A WHOLE LOT CHEAPER. People like to stay home and surf the web for music, not go out and buy it.
Now if you offer music for free on the web, do you not think that people will listen in droves?
Mainstream exposure (such as a major record label promoting you) will be analogous to being on the front page of WWW.SICKMUSIC.COM... there is your exposure.. problem solved??
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If every artist followed the Radiohead model, or alternately released their songs for free at a reduced bitrate, then Radiohead wouldn't be unique. For one, they would no longer enjoy a price advantage over similar artists when competing for music consumers' dollars. But they would also suffer in a "public relations" sense. Radiohead's gesture generated a significant amount of goodwill toward the band. Among their fans, sure, but also among non-fans who just happen to want music to be free. Many of these non-fans or marginal fans may have downloaded the Radiohead album simply to reward Radiohead for taking a chance on the new distribution model.
I'm curious whether the apparent success Radiohead enjoyed is not so much due to the distribution model itself, but the fact that they're one of the few big acts to use that model.
It should also be noted that among the pantheon of artists out there, Radiohead's fan base is likely more 1) wired, 2) wealthy and 3) interested in the "politics" of music distribution than the fan base of, say, 50 cent or Carrie Underwood. If true, this would further boost the effectiveness of Radiohead's experiment beyond what an arbitrary artist could expect.
The whole touring live show is superfluous and exhausting, and it's not related to the process of music composition.
Yep - composition and performance are two different things.
Of course as an electronica guy you are a teeny-tiny minority where performance can be automated.
You could take a cue from the other guys and make performing more than just about music playback - put some hot chicks on stage to dance, you could even use that projector to project images and video on to the bodies of the hot chicks.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
concerts are the means they allow the artists to make money for themselves, because they let artists only make a few cents out of a $15 album. they wouldnt give a zit about concerts. unless its a huge event.
Read radical news here
Way back when this whole thing started in the mid nineties, I said to anybody who would listen (which apparently wasn't many ;) that the record companies should put their stuff out their in AM quality (64kb/s mp3/wma whatever) and put a bumper around it that said the artist's name and where to buy it. Essentially the same thing as a music video without the video part. When people would object, I pointed out that via the radio, they had been doing that anyway for decades. Then sell high quality stuff for 25-50 cents per song. Do a one-click like iTMS but without the DRM.
Instead, they thought (and still think) that the right way is to just sue people who like their music. That doesn't strike me as a long-term strategy.
Anyway, to answer your statement, yes, I believe they can survive by giving away some kinds of music and then making albums and singles more of an impulse buy so that people are buying CD's for $4 or if people are cheap, they can get the low-quality stuff with the built-in ad.
I don't think it even fundamentally changes the record company's business model. Well, perhaps that's not true. I'm convinced the old-guard at these places is trying to put a universal pay-per-listen system in place, but that's just a hunch.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
The need for a PR-machine depends on the target demographic. If it's for music enthusiasts, it'll get plenty of free PR. The enthusiast music media is always hungry for something they want to listen to themselves.
The need for professional managers and producers is also often very real. A lot of musicians can't handle those roles well. Mostly it's not good being your own producer. Those are real fulltime jobs.
As time passes since the innovative release of their album on the net, Radiohead has again and again proven that they are not really thinking outside the box. We musicians no longer need record companies or corporations such as Apple. I just recently released an album Politics Apocalypse available free to download at our website. It is licensed with the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Licence, which even lets you use it freely for commercial projects (so long as you give credit). We are also doing a name your own price CD (starting at cost price). Access to a members area with new music rewards donations, orders and creative feedback. Check it out and spread the word. Download and donation statistics at the website http://www.politicsapocalypse.com/
The music business is controlled by people who sell little plastic bits and they only see the music as a necessary evil that is in getting consumers to buy more plastics discs. They don't like the idea of millions of bands because stores have limited shelf space and the logistics wouldn't be profitable.
Com'n...admit it...yea...it is more of a jealousy than finding the right definition of piracy. There is a balance in the universe, money doesn't come cheap, something's gotta give.
No insult was implied, sir.
The intent of my remark was that there are a few interlocking logical loops of where each musician thinks they stand in the scheme of things. We all know the RIAA thinks it is about Big Name Artists on purported behalf of whom the RIAA feels threatened when someone makes a copy.
However, you declared your current inability to rake in lawn bags full of cash, so you value exposure more at this stage. (If you miraculously later became a Big Name, you could conceivably switch sides, or take a modern decision to 'remember the roots'.)
These things are all nebulous as long as said artist hasn't declared their position. My theory runs as follows:
A. Plaintive calls for "musical toolboxes" have begun to emerge. "How can we study if it's all locked up?". Thus, you can and are offering your music as study fodder. I was fairly careful to declare my intents as "Attribution-Based". So far I have not seen any problem with scammers pretending that music is theirs wholesale; they just want to do stuff with music and create mashups, remixes, etc.
B. The Internet Community at large is like an ant farm. Left to itself, people do their thing and no one really makes headlines. Thus, if my random projects gain four smiles and a "LolKewl", then you have lost nothing. If someone breaks the glass cage and riles up all the ants, then the rules change. Should I, by an equivalent miracle of my own Earn a Dollar, kicking me into "commercial" status, then I would contact you to show respect as a Fragment Contributor.
The important thing is that unlike a typical label contract, I am not obligating myself to produce any tangible benefit to you. This is where I see the UltraModern trend: Let people do things with your music at the exposure stage, and then negotiate if someone strikes "Internet Gold".
Best Regards,
TaoPhoenix
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Y'know though, the labels and record companies are really just middlemen and the artists make their money from concert tours
This is an absolute myth, a tour is the biggest expense an artist can have. It is a major marketing expense underwritten by the record company. For gigs of between around 300 (playing in a local pub) and 3000 (playing a major venue) fans, the label does not make a profit. Yes, it is true that live music is more popular than ever and some venues and concert promoters are making money but the bands you see playing anything bigger than a couple of hundred people are supported by a label. For unsigned bands to get noticed, at We7 we run a tastemakers challenge where bands can compete to make money from downloads and streams on our site. Take a look: www.we7.com
Steve Purdham
CEO - We7
www.we7.com
What about Ulrich Schnauss? I've seen him perform twice, once for free, and once for where I paid a ticket. All he really does is sit at a table, but I enjoyed his performance just as much if not more that bands with guitars. His music is that good, and he always has interesting visuals. In fact most of what he had on the projector was exactly the same both times. This is coming from someone who really doesn't like much non guitar music. On top of that I doubt I would have heard of Ulrich Schnauss, nor would he be having as much success as he is having, without all the p2p buzz. I would also be equally interested in any other similar performer I liked that much where they don't do much on stage. Kraftwerk is another example. I am only a mild fan of theirs, but their performance at Coachella was phenomenal, even though they aren't singing or dancing or doing much else besides standing behind their keyboards.
Concert sales = more money for band
Record sales = more money for big companies
Guess which one is more important to the music industry?
This comes back to the same ignorant licensing argument on Slashdot between GPL, BSD, and non-opersource licenses.
God forbid people make money to live on.
With your /.ID you've sure missed some longstanding points 'round here from even before my day.
/.'ers are arguing is that there are ways to make money without screwing people. If there isn't for a particular job, than it's probably not necessary because there is a better alternative. Capitalism, ya'know? All the record label company people could go make money with another job. Flip burgers, I don't care. The current stuff they're doing? Not really necessary. It's a lot easier to distribute information (and consequently become known) than it used to be.
It's perfectly feasible for a F/OSS company to make money. Redhat is usually the example here. What most
"A witty saying proves nothing." - Voltaire
I didn't miss them.
The missing piece here is the attitude shift that took place. At one time the idea was that people had the choice of how to license their stuff. The shift has drifted to the end user making that choice.
I'm right up there with the next guy complaining when the recording industry was making it impossible to buy music online from any mainstream artist. It's now possible to buy music online, in many cases without DRM bullshit.
The record companies, as corrupt and screwed up as they may have been, do serve a valid purpose. They act as a middle man for licensing, advertising and other forms of promotion. This has function and value for the artists. As such, they have a right to exist and a right to make money. (I refer back to my 'corrupt' comment however, they don't have an inalienable right to profiteer off the artists or the fans.)
That extra profit from the concerts goes to the artist instead of the RIAA. Of course, the RIAA isn't happy about that because they think the money should go to them instead. In other words, piracy is bad for the RIAA profits, but good for the artists profits, hence the RIAA hates piracy because it hurts their bottom line, while they don't care about the artist.
Because the album is NOT the product. The live performances are the product. Albums are advertising. Record labels are not needed any more - they don't need to produce any physical media any more. That can be done in any fab place that will stamp CDs. Record labels turned the album into a product simply so they can make money off of the artists. Their business model is not sustainable, as it is going to bring about their own end.
I agree that Radiohead is a poor measure of the success of "free" music distribution. They are a popular band with a tech savvy fanbase (they are the undisputed #1 artist on last.fm). They also rose to this level of success through traditional means (label support, brick and mortar sales, etc). They have done a great job of adapting to new technology and using their status to try (and succeed) at new ways of getting music to fans.....
BUT for this model to work with new artists there needs to be a huge shift in the way people think about getting their music. My band has made our music available for free and I've even seeded some torrent sites with our first demo, but at local shows kids still want to walk out with something physical when they buy music from you. We're planning on doing a digital release of our next EP and selling download cards (like gift cards) at shows that provide a code that lets you download the songs and album art from our site. This way there is a physical product to sell at shows but almost no duplication cost.
If people want a bands music there will be a lot of eyeballs on any place where they can go to get it for free. The music industry needs to adapt to this. There's money to be made if they don't fight it. There's still value in labels. They have connections to the rest of the industry and can make it easier to other means of revenue (movies, video games, commercials, larger festivals) and can connect you to the right people to help make your music (better studios, producers, etc) and advertise your music (magazine ads, national promotion, online ads, etc). Sure, maybe you could do most of that stuff DIY, but at some point having the roladex of an established label (be it major or indie) is very beneficial.
Steal my band's record! Seriously,
Thats a pretty weak argument, there's plenty of electronic acts which have taken their nusic live to a significant level think people like Massive Attack, Prodigy, Basement Jax, Leftfield, Ozric Tentacles, Sneaker Pimps, NIN, Crystal Method etc.
Just sequence less of it and play more.....easy.
I have discovered a truly remarkable sig which this post is too small to contain.
On a more middle scale, Reel Big Fish ditched their label about a year ago.
I suspect this plan works better for bands that either (a) tour extensively or (b) are in niches where promotion doesn't have the same kick. I wouldn't expect to see the next teeny-bopper make it as an indy artist, for example.
while album sales typically mostly go to the label. thus, this doesn't help the label that much, although it does help the artist a lot!