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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"
... though it might be good if they are constantly reminded that they are hurting themselves by going against consumers rather than with them.
Gotta go support the music industry and make comcast hate my guts.
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.
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
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People want *everything* for free.
Not really. It's barely worth my time trying to dig up enough iron, aluminum and other metals, as well as finding the oil and manufacturing the plastics, in order to build my own automobile. I would spend my lifetime doing this, and would nowhere near approach the quality of car available on the market today. I have other things to do.
However the perceived cost of a "song" - especially in the information age where anything digital can be copied an amazing number of times for virtually no cost - is very close to zero. Therefore that's exactly what I am willing to pay for it. Sure, the band had to spend a few weeks writing the thing, and a lifetime learning to play their instruments properly - that's why they get to charge willing customers for concert performances. Just like I get to charge my patients for the skills I have honed over the decades. However I don't become an overnight multi-millionaire just because I made a successful diagnosis with a single patient. It takes work, you know? The "entertainment" industry is long overdue for a "correction".
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
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
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.
People want *everything* for free.
I don't want everything for free. In fact I have very little pirated content in my music collection - there is some, but it's gotta be less than 10%, maybe less than 5%.
Much of my music collection was bought years ago, before downloading MP3 was even an option. These days, I only really "follow" a handful of mainstream artists and buy CDs when new ones are released. I do this only grudgingly, especially in those cases where the artist releases under a RIAA label. My preference is to buy indie music, preferably at a gig where the artist is playing and I can literally hand cash to them and tell them how much I enjoyed the show.
In general, my response to the RIAAs tactics - even though I'm not a "downloader" - has been to shun them and the bands they work with.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
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?
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.