New Music Boss, Worse Than Old Music Boss

frank_adrian314159 writes "David Lowery, musician (Cracker, Camper Van Beethoven), producer (Sparklehorse, Counting Crows), recording engineer (Archers of Loaf, Lamb of God), and geek (programmer, packet radio operator, ex-CBOT quant) talks about the economics of the music business and how the 'old boss' — the record labels — have been replaced by the new boss — file downloading services, song streaming, and commercial online music stores. His take? Although the old boss was often unfair to artists, artists are making even less money under the new boss. Backed with fairly persuasive data, he shows that, under the new distribution model, artists — even small independent ones — are exposed to more risk while making less money. In addition, the old boss was investing in the creation of new music, while the new boss doesn't. This article is lengthy, but worth the attention of anyone interested in the future of music or music distribution."

Comments

Fairly well known issue

[CAKAS]

Even indie artists have campaigned against these new services. For example, take Spotify, well known European free music service that gained lots of attention.

Many indie artists tried the service for several months and when the payout time came, they found out they only got a few hundreds (if even that) from the service. It was serious degrade from their previous earnings.

At the same time, Spotify shareholders and investors include EMI, Sony BMG and Universal Music Group. Since Spotify only paid small share to artists, the labels profited from increased stock prices. Because of this, they didn't need to pay artists any share but still profited greatly.

So yeah, there you go. Do you really think you're wiser than these guys? Keep trying to get around them, and they will assfuck you even more. Seriously. Do it. If you want to destroy any nice music we have.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Anonymous Coward]

So where's this new boss? I see new method of old boss at work here.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[TheLink]

Spotify shareholders and investors include EMI, Sony BMG and Universal Music Group.

Aren't those the old music bosses? So not a good example.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[arbulus]

The thing is, the old model is nearly dead. There are not going to be "rock stars" and big record company profits anymore. Those days are done. And it's a good thing. The record companies kept a strangle hold on the distribution of music for decades. They used that hold to make millions of dollars and made it look like they were a good thing for artists. But they aren't. And their hold is now broken. But instead of trying to adapt, the labels are taking more and more money from the artists.

Are we going to see millionaire musicians anymore? Absolutely not. Those days are done. But is music dead? Certainly not. But the record labels are no longer needed. An artists can make it on their own. Will they make the same money? No. But this is the point: yes it's less money than before, but it's either that or nothing. The old days are gone and people are going to have to accept it. But it's good because now the artists will own their own creations and can sell directly to the fans and keep all of the profits.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[MightyMartian]

Yup, and they've innovated a new way to rob artists blind.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Pecisk]

"Many indie artists tried the service for several months and when the payout time came, they found out they only got a few hundreds (if even that) from the service. It was serious degrade from their previous earnings."

In tradition of claiming problems without giving us any kind of reference, I still was kinda interested how big their previous earnings are and what kind of contracts they had with their publishers before going online? :) Just really want to know, already thanks for any reply.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[danomac]

However, the cost of creating recordings has gone down. I sure wish I could do a week's or month's worth of work and get paid for it over my entire lifetime (and maybe even my kids' lifetimes.)

They can always go live and get paid for concerts. The days of being paid for a lifetime over a month's worth of work is going the way of the do-do.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Dan667]

your example is the music industries reactionary response to itunes and the rest of the online music migration? There are lots of services that are not just more of the same from the big music companies where the artist gets a fair share like http://bandcamp.com/

Re:Fairly well known issue

[0123456]

They can always go live and get paid for concerts. The days of being paid for a lifetime over a month's worth of work is going the way of the do-do.

Bingo.

The situation is similar with e-books. A few people can upload one book and make a million bucks, but the majority will make a few thousand per book, if it's well written and the writer isn't particularly unlucky. Which means they need to actually do a normal work week writing multiple books a year if they want to make a living at it.

Expectations are hideously skewed by the experiences of the last few decades, which are far from the historical norms. For most of history musicians did actually have to work for a living rather than perform once and go on vacation for a year.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Tharsman]

Jonathan Coulton was talking about this a few months ago in the TWiT podcast.

Streaming services pay garbage to independent artists because the big studios (the old boss) bullied them into accepting horrible terms or literally take them out of business.

Make no mistake; the big studios get a generous split of the Spotify profits. But for Spotify to survive with such a "generous" deal, they had to screw someone else: the indie musician that "can't really bully" them.

Mind you, in some ways, if all indies got together and left Spotify, they would suffer (right now they average their profits with a mixture of indie and big studio playbacks.)

I would not be shocked if the studios want it to work this way, to discourage the next gen of artists from pursuing an indie career.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Bootsy Collins]

Are we going to see millionaire musicians anymore? Absolutely not. Those days are done. But is music dead? Certainly not. But the record labels are no longer needed. An artists can make it on their own. Will they make the same money? No. But this is the point: yes it's less money than before, but it's either that or nothing. The old days are gone and people are going to have to accept it. But it's good because now the artists will own their own creations and can sell directly to the fans and keep all of the profits.

The problem isn't that we aren't going to see millionaire musicians anymore. The problem is that your statement that "an artist can make it on their own" is, for the most part, not true. Never mind millions -- almost no artists are making a basic living selling music anymore. I am a musician -- only an amateur, but I get around enough to know and meet lots of professional musicians, some of whom are pretty well known; and I nobody that makes enough money to eat and pay their rent/utilities from music sales. And this is pretty pervasive -- I've talked about this with lots of artists that are big enough to sell out venues that range in size between 500-3000 people and they all say the same thing: no artists, except those at the absolute top of the heap, are making a living selling their music anymore. You curse the big labels and champion the independence the modern era has allowed artists to have, and those are worthy sentiments to have, and I agree with them. But it's important to remember that perversely, the practical effect of these changes has been that only a small number of artists are making money from music sales, and by and large they aren't independent artists.

These days, to the extent that an artist or act is able to make enough money to continue to make music, that money isn't coming from music sales. It's coming from shows: what they make playing shows (including merchandise sold at shows) minus the costs of doing them. It used to be the other way around: shows existed to promote record sales, and record sales were where the money came from. Now, if you like an act and what them to continue to make music, the best thing you can do for them is go see them live and buy their stuff at the merch table. If I go to a show and I really, really like a band, I'll almost always walk out with a CD (even if it's music I already have -- I'll give it to someone as a gift) because I know that that's what will keep them going.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[YrWrstNtmr]

It's all ass-backwards! The artists should be paying someone to market/produce their music, not wait for some tiny percentage cut of their sales to come back to them.

New artists can't do that, because they don't have the funds upfront.
The old school recording industry was not only music discovery and production but also the finance arm/bank. It would be no different if a new act went to a regular bank, and convinced them to loan $1,000,000 (which wouldn't happen anyway) for 'production costs and marketing'. All but 'some tiny percentage' would go directly back to the bank to pay off the loan. The 'recording industry' just inserted themselves in as the bank. And profited heavily off of that function.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[cpu6502]

Then maybe you should pick a different career where you CAN make money. If there are too many musicians, just as there are too many hamburger & fry flippers, than the income will plummet and be crappy. So choose a higher-paying income, rather than being a musician or McDonalds employee.

NOBODY is owed a living just because they want to do something. *I* happen to like writing science fiction but I'm not stupid enough to think I can make a career out of it. The field of writers is waaaay too full. So I became an engineer instead..... something few people can do, so I get paid big bucks. You (and others) ought to try the same if music isn't working out for you.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[w_dragon]

no artists, except those at the absolute top of the heap, are making a living selling their music anymore

This is fairly common in a lot of areas. No one makes money playing sports except the few at the very top. Actors are the same way. The issue is that anyone can do these things. Most of us can't do them overly well, we don't practice enough, but people play music for fun and can achieve a pretty decent level of expertise without ever expecting to be paid for it. In order to make money you need to be significantly better than the laymen that do it for free for their own enjoyment.

Want to make a living wage in a creative field? Go work for Disney, or Paramount, or some company that makes commercials, or any other established industry that needs those skills constantly. No, you don't get to decide what kind of music you're writing if you're writing the background track for a movie, but that's part of making money without taking a major risk.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[pedropolis]

True story:
A friend of mine and I were at the 9:30 Club in DC circa... July 2006 to see Cracker play. The opening acts finish up and here comes this tall, lanky, scruffy-looking dude who is laying down cable and taping up mics. He's setting up guitars and stuff, roadie jobs. I turn to my friend between sips of beer and say, "You know, that's David Lowrey." At the 9:30 Club you're about 10 feet from the stage once up front, max. We've got a clear view of this guy and sure enough, it's David Lowrey, roadie.

As you'll read in the article, David Lowrey is a math grad. If he's calculated that his band can't pay a roadie to do set-up, then you know they're making next to nothing for these shows. I'm not saying he's supposed to have a designated cape handler like James Brown, but a roadie - sure.

Point is - I'm not sure they were making anything off this show. He was his band's roadie, and they drove Johnny Hickman's microbus to the show from Richmond. This was a harbinger of things to come.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[lgw]

that money isn't coming from music sales. It's coming from shows: what they make playing shows (including merchandise sold at shows) minus the costs of doing them. It used to be the other way around: shows existed to promote record sales, and record sales were where the money came from. Now, if you like an act and what them to continue to make music, the best thing you can do for them is go see them live and buy their stuff at the merch table.

Most musicians made their living from live performance for all but 60 years or so of human history. It's always a pain when technological changes screw over the way you're in the habit of making money, but that comes to just about anyone in any industry - no reason for musicians to be immune. However, I think long term it will work well, and we'll have as many milionaire musicians as we've ever had (a few each generation), as any musician can now reach a vast potential audience, and it doesn't take much when you have 10 million fans.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Anonymous Coward]

I distinctly remember hearing more than one music artist say over the last 20 years that they made their real money on concerts and merchandise and very little on record sales. So perhaps this hasn't really changed all that much.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[NeutronCowboy]

Quick question: how many people are selling entertainment? It seems to me that there's a glut of entertainment, which means that supply completely overwhelms demand. The result: very low prices for a product, with only a select few making lots of money in it.

That's the free market for you. If there would be only a few hundred musicians in the world, I can guarantee you they would make out like bandits. Put since there are a few millions, most live hand-to-mouth.

I think what happened with the new bosses is not so much that they are worse than the old bosses, but that there are now far, far more musicians around chasing that same entertainment dollar. Before, supply was artificially constrained. Now, it's not, and people find out that it is even harder to make a living - because suddenly, the competition got that much fiercer.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[LandDolphin]

In order to make money you need to be significantly better than the laymen that do it for free for their own enjoyment.

I disagree. There are many artists that make money that are less talented then artist who are not making money. I would say that it is more about who you know then what you know. Sure, you have to have enough talent to perform, but talent will only take you so far. You have to have the right connections to get to the point that you start making real money.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Local ID10T]

That is not a problem, its a paradigm shift.

The musicians who are making a living are doing it by performing music, instead of by selling recordings of music.

Recordings can be infinitely copied for very little cost (once the original is created). The market recognizes this even if the industry does not. Thus selling recordings is no longer profitable. Performances are so much more than a recording, and a recording of a performance falls far short of the experience. The market recognizes this as well, and thus performers get paid, recordings get copied, and artists who want to make a living do it by performing.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[tnk1]

So yeah, there you go. Do you really think you're wiser than these guys? Keep trying to get around them, and they will assfuck you even more. Seriously. Do it. If you want to destroy any nice music we have.

Music isn't going away, not even good music. Music has value and will be paid for and people will be able to make a living at it. It is a valid question to ask how individual artists are affected in specific cases, but probably no more than being concerned with how robots are now doing the jobs that assembly line workers used to do.

People will always pay for good music. In the bad old days, when no one but the richest could afford an orchestra or even a quartet, music was still made and it was damn fine stuff too. The regular people probably didn't get opening night seats, but eventually everyone got the music.

Point is, the cat is out of the bag. The old boss is almost in his grave, and the new boss is worse. The question is: what do we do going forward? I would say that perhaps it may be a new idea that individuals band together and contribute directly to the music that they want to see. I think file downloads are less a call to destroy the music business and more a call for people to start taking into their own hands responsibility for what they listen to and what they see created.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Bootsy Collins]

Then maybe you should pick a different career where you CAN make money. If there are too many musicians, just as there are too many hamburger & fry flippers, than the income will plummet and be crappy. So choose a higher-paying income, rather than being a musician or McDonalds employee.

NOBODY is owed a living just because they want to do something. *I* happen to like writing science fiction but I'm not stupid enough to think I can make a career out of it. The field of writers is waaaay too full. So I became an engineer instead..... something few people can do, so I get paid big bucks. You (and others) ought to try the same if music isn't working out for you.

Your response strongly suggests that you didn't actually read what I wrote. So just to make a couple of things clear:

1. I'm not *trying* to make any money in music; my "real job" is as a physicist. I'm paid just fine. My post wasn't about me or my situation in the tiniest bit.

2. In no way did I assert that anyone deserves to make money at something simply because they want to do it. How you got that out of my post, I'll never know.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Apotekaren]

Actually, there is a difference. A bank will give you a loan and expect you to pay it back with a certain interest rate. When you've paid that back, you just have to pay your other costs, rest of your income goes into your pocket. With a record label you're forever stuck with only getting a small cut, and sometimes they even withhold a part of this to cover costs they think belong to the artist.
This is different. I don't think anyone would ever take a loan from a bank that demands that 90% of all future income from the investment go straight to the bank.

Also, the bank hopes to see you succeed(for obvious reasons), but can't really impact your success, and would be indifferent of your success if you went to another bank. Record labels on the other hand will try to block independent artists from breaking into the mainstream radio playlists(RIAA labels probably tolerate eachother though), unless they can force/convince you to sign, because you're their competition.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

That artists made any money from recordings was never really true, except for a few really big acts. Witness Roger McGuinn of the Byrds (testimony before the house judiciary committee) to name just one:

In 1973 my work with the Byrds ended. I embarked on a solo recording career on Columbia Records, and recorded five albums. The only money I've received for these albums was the modest advance paid prior to each recording. In 1977 I recorded three albums for Capitol Records in the group "McGuinn Clark and Hillman." Even though the song "Don't You Write Her Off" was a top 40 hit, the only money I received from Capitol Records was in the form of a modest advance. In 1989 I recorded a solo CD, "Back from Rio", for Arista Records. This CD sold approximately 500,000 copies worldwide, and aside from a modest advance, I have received no royalties from that project.

So there's nothing new there. Live gigs were always the life blood of any musician in the "recording era".

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting AC to not undo mods, but here is a point where I definitely respectfully disagree.

We have rock stars, but it isn't because they have popular music, they are created from the beginning to be actors and play rock stars, with millions behind them so they are "popular". Justin Bieber comes to mind.

In the past, people with different musical tastes could listen to a "rock" station, hear a new band and maybe have something common the next day at school or work, like the new song from this new group kicked butt, or it sucked.

We don't have that today unless one is in hip-hop or country. There is no real musical "watering hole" for people to go by these days to find cool groups. If I turn on a "rock" station, it will pay fewer songs than I have on my iPod Shuffle I bought in 2008, the most recent of which was from 1995. At best, there might be some new stuff from 11:00 PM to 12:00 AM on a Saturday Night/Sunday morning, but that is it. For the most part, people are left up to themselves to find new bands, or end up listening to the same shit that they liked in high school forever and anon.

The rock star is alive and well, but it is a created object, similar to a top budget movie where lots of money is put in to someone docile, and good lucking, for better returns.

I'd say the last "true" rock star who got to where they were (as opposed to being created) would have been Trent Reznor. The rest are just graven images carved by the labels with a predigested and cliched music mix made and created from the outset.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Luyseyal]

How you got that out of my post, I'll never know.

Quantum tunneling.
-l

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Bootsy Collins]

Related story: at a sold out Sebadoh reunion show I went to maybe a year ago, also in DC (hi neighbor), my wife pointed out when we arrived that Lou Barlow was working the merch table. I've seen a lot more of that lately -- big artists working the merch table themselves. It's probably good for all parties: fans get an opportunity to meet and actually talk with performers they love; performers save money on another person in the van during the tour, and likely sell more stuff because people enthusiastically come to the table and interact.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[P-niiice]

I'm glad your career isn't in reading comprehension.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[berashith]

this sounds like all the artists and painters that I know. They work more than 8 hours a day, every day, and hope to sell their creations. They have to very actively market themselves, and take up side jobs. Over time, the talented ones (at selling as well as producing) are building reputations and creating more valuable markets for themselves, but the work from several years ago that was sold at low costs is gone. It sure would be nice to find a way for residuals on everything that everybody does, but that just doesnt work out. Lowery's argument on how the sound engineer gets paid will be transferred to the artist and writer soon enough. The product will be purchased at a cost by a reseller, and payment will be complete at the time of transfer. The correct value to the artist may not be true in this case ( debatable), but it is more in line with the labors of the rest of the world.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Bootsy Collins]

That is not a problem, its a paradigm shift.

I think both are true. I agree that it's a paradigm shift. Where I think the problem lies now is that much of the music audience doesn't realize this -- doesn't realize that if you like an artist and want them to keep making music, the best path to see this happen is to go to shows and spend money at shows.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[MightyMartian]

It's not even am original scam. It's just an extension of the "marketing your record costs lots of money" scam. Stealing royalties via exaggerated expenses and inadequate invoice management is hardly an innovation. Why do you think everyone from the Beatles to King Crimson have had to take legal avenues to even get accurate sales figures?

Re:Fairly well known issue

[pixelpusher220]

The new 'boss' can be used to drive people to buy things from you that can't be freely copied. The 'boss' is you. Spotify are indeed just a revamp of the old, but the tools now exist for anyone to be able to produce/record quality music and distribute it far and wide at very little cost.

You don't *need* the labels anymore. It's the known and comfortable thing, but if you change the business model from selling music to selling actual 'stuff' using the music now your potential market is as vast as the internet.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[kiwimate]

Did you even read the article? Why am I asking - the answer is a resounding "obviously not". The author quite handily refutes every single item in your comment.

How about reading the part where he talks about the cost/income of doing concerts, based on a lot of work he's done and his wife's career as an agent? Read the parts where he says a four piece band in a ratty van might be getting $250 each for the performance, and a larger group with a tour bus had better sell out or they're losing money.

No, going live for concerts is really expensive (been there, done that). It's not a good way to make a living.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[xerxesVII]

Physicist. Psh!

Nice try, Bootsy Collins!

Re:Fairly well known issue

[gl4ss]

how much were they making from their old distribution channels and did that money disappear once they put their music on spotify?

streaming services like myspace, spotify, deezer, soundcloud etc etc etc.. they're promotion tools to find new fans and to have indication if people would like to come and see your gig(or buy some fan products like physical records). it's less of a risk to go on tour if you know people are digging your stuff.

there's now a zillion so so and a thousand good indie bands and making music is cheaper than ever(except the tfa writer thinks it's not). but on spotify they'll have to compete against nancy sinatra too..

btw. groupon sucks ass(it's relevant to article). the article is just half name calling and half bitching. '90s didn't make studio level home computers _cheap_. 2000's did. you can now have synths for pennies(well, dollars), high quality soundcards are pretty cheap too. memory is cheap. I'd go on and say that even guitar lessons are cheaper(if you account inflation).

"I’ll make technologists a deal, I’ll give up my song copyrights if you give up your software patents. Software patents are even less unique than your typical song. So this should be easy right?" -- hell yeah I'd take that deal, I'd even go further and give up copyrights on the software itself for that deal - it would make my life so much less complicated and would make it so much more simpler to make applications that use and distribute music. it would be doing many artists a favor - some would still profit, most would not. same goes for indie sw makers. but that's not why you do something creative.

for some reason the guy thinks that most artists were paid an advance under the old recording label model. I wonder how true this was, really? I'm pretty sure you can still get such deals if you're really, really, really popular. most artists are not and weren't under the old model either.

getting a loan for your recording expenses is hard from a bank now? well fuck I really doubt it being easy in the '70s too(unless you were so popular you didn't need the loan anyways). I don't think banks are that foolish. especially since you could record a really good demo with pennies if you could whip up the music, and no adjusting the mic position for hours isn't what defines if the music is good or not - it never did.

I think he's forgetting the most important part though, which is that people would be making music even if they didn't have the prospect of getting a penny for their troubles.. that's quite far from his world of getting paid in advance to record! would we really be so worse off without professional record seller pop artists ? money for nothing and chicks for free is a recent phenomena for musicians - and still most musicians if they make a living from music make it teaching(practically every elementary school has someone like that, yet not practically every town has a professional touring&recording artist, some hobby guys sure but not professional). I think he's pissed because under the old system he was given guaranteed money - he belonged to an extremely exclusive group of people who were getting paid no matter what. but very few people were in that group - I don't think his definition of indie is even the same I have.

btw. copying doesn't directly take money out of somebody's pocket - it would if someone would have instead paid. how often do I see that play out in the real world? well, not too often. I could always go back to listening .mod's - and other _real_fucking_indie_music_.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[timeOday]

It is a valid question to ask how individual artists are affected in specific cases, but probably no more than being concerned with how robots are now doing the jobs that assembly line workers used to do.

But that is the question of our age. We have a huge underclass emerging, of people who simply are not economically "necessary." They have made a massive shift towards low-paid servant jobs (service industry) yet still, unemployment is high.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Anonymous Coward]

So are you saying you don't want new music, art, books, etc, or you are just too fucking cheap to pay for it?

No, he's saying he wants new music, art, books, etc, but if there's too much of it, he can't afford to pay for ALL of it. Someone's not going to get money. Basic supply and demand.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[next_ghost]

Yes, new artists CAN do that. Financing your own music production is not a problem. Getting around recording industry is. Recording industry isn't profiting heavily from financing music production. They're profiting from their position as mass media gatekeepers. If you as a musician want to get on TV or big radio stations, you either sign up to them and become a star almost overnight, or you don't get there at all and stay practically unknown for a very long time. The Internet has undermined the gatekeeper position of recording industry but the change is coming very slowly.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[AngryDeuce]

No, he's saying that it's time to come back to reality and realize that we can't all be fucking professional football players, ballerinas, astronauts, rock stars, movie stars, stand-up comedians...

I'm a amateur musician myself but I've played in a few bands that did live shows and even done a little work as a session musician for others in the studio. I didn't pick up the guitar when I was 10 because I wanted to be a rock star, I picked up the guitar because I wanted to learn how to play; the instrument fascinated me. I know I will never in a million years make a living playing music, but that doesn't mean I'm going to throw the guitar in a closet like a fucking child. I still play often, still record my own little ideas, and I do it for myself. If I never earn a penny on music again, I'm totally okay with that. I have a real job that pays my bills. I play guitar because I love it.

The people that "make it" in the industry (and while I know this is true in music, it's probably true in film and other arts as well) aren't necessarily very good at their given craft anyway. Most of the time, it's just a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Conversely, I've met some of the most ridiculously talented musicians busking for spare change on street corners and, from the looks of them, probably spent their nights sleeping on a street corner as well. This is just as much fault as the industry as anything else. Ask yourself, how many ugly pop stars are there? A person could sing like an angel and never do more than sing jingles in commercials because they weren't lucky enough to be born with the right set of genes for physical attractiveness while some empty-headed chick with big tits and a great ass will become the next Britney Spears thanks to Auto-Tune and the support of a major label.

When the hell did people stop creating art for the sake of creating art? That's what I want to know. All this bullshit about how "downloading is killing music"...since when? I'm still doing my thing, and I know many other musicians that are still out there creating music, many of whom don't earn a dime doing it...are they supposed to just throw in the towel because they're not going to be the next Metallica? Better yet, if they DO throw in the towel because they're never going to be the next Metallica, why the hell were they playing music in the first place? Go get an MBA and earn 6 figures with the rest of the clowns on Wall Street.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[natophonic]

I'd say naming his band Camper Van Beethoven was the harbinger of things to come. He's smart and witty, but Lowery's a not-great-looking guy who doesn't sing that well, and if we're being honest, never wrote a song after "Take the Skinheads Bowling" that had anywhere near as much commercial potential... probably on purpose.

I'd say he had a pretty good run. The music industry was littered with guys 10+ years into their careers, who played to an increasingly "more selective demographic," long before mp3 was a file format.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[CastrTroy]

I'm not the parent poster, but I would have to say it's a little bit of both. I'm willing to pay for new music, but not at the rate it's being produced and the price being asked. There's way too much music coming out for me to even keep track of, and at the current price for music ($10 an album) I can only really justify buying an album every few months, and even then, only when it's something really good. If the album was cheaper (like $2) I might be inclined to buy more albums, because I'm getting more music for less money. In the '70s people didn't have a whole lot of entertainment choices, so people bought lots of music. Now we have a lot of new things that we spend money on. Cable TV, video games, cell phone bills, internet bills. All this stuff costs money, which means we have less money to spend on music. That and the ability to get music for free (even if you just count legitimate services) means that people won't be willing to spend so much money on music anymore. Personally, I'm a big fan of subscription services like Netflix and RDIO. Pay a small monthly fee and you get access to a huge library. I end up spending less, and still get access to a huge amount of content.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Bootsy Collins]

That artists made any money from recordings was never really true, except for a few really big acts. Witness Roger McGuinn of the Byrds (testimony before the house judiciary committee) to name just one:

In 1973 my work with the Byrds ended. I embarked on a solo recording career on Columbia Records, and recorded five albums. The only money I've received for these albums was the modest advance paid prior to each recording. In 1977 I recorded three albums for Capitol Records in the group "McGuinn Clark and Hillman." Even though the song "Don't You Write Her Off" was a top 40 hit, the only money I received from Capitol Records was in the form of a modest advance. In 1989 I recorded a solo CD, "Back from Rio", for Arista Records. This CD sold approximately 500,000 copies worldwide, and aside from a modest advance, I have received no royalties from that project.

So there's nothing new there. Live gigs were always the life blood of any musician in the "recording era".

I think from the late 60s into the early 90s, it was true for more acts than just a few really big ones; it just simultaneously wasn't true for many acts that you'd expect it to be the case for, because (to put it very simply) they were being screwed by their labels. Much of the over-the-top pagentry of the stage shows for arena rock bands from the 70s (e.g. Electric Light Orchestra's spaceship on the Out of the Blue tour) was intended to serve as promotional material; Parliament/Funkadelic even took a loss on their tours for years, despite selling out most venues, for that very reason. I agree, though, with the general notion that even then, the pendulum eventually swung back in the other direction as you looked at smaller and smaller (in terms of popularity) bands.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[kiwimate]

Most musicians made their living from live performance for all but 60 years or so of human history

No they didn't, they made it from patronage; a wealthy aristocrat or lord indulging themselves by hiring Mozart to whip up a new fugue.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Missing.Matter]

1. I'm not *trying* to make any money in music; my "real job" is as a physicist. I'm paid just fine. My post wasn't about me or my situation in the tiniest bit.

I think cpu6502 means the plural "you," as in you artists in general, the people you're referencing in your post.... not specifically you individually.

2. In no way did I assert that anyone deserves to make money at something simply because they want to do it. How you got that out of my post, I'll never know.

You said "The problem is that your statement that "an artist can make it on their own" is, for the most part, not true. Never mind millions -- almost no artists are making a basic living selling music anymore." To which I and my GP say "So what?" No one is paid to do what they love just because they love it; they're paid to produce a product that has demand. If your friends aren't making any money, then there's either too much supply or not enough demand.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Similar story, different bands:

Karnivool and Fair to Midland. Saw them play the Troubador in LA a few years back, and while those certainly aren't the biggest names in music, they we playing to a packed house (unsure what the capacity is there, but it's a small-ish venue... I'd guess 400-500.) Sure enough, who is out laying their cables, doing instrument and mic checks: the bands themselves. It looked like they had a few helpers to get it all done quickly, but the majority of the work was done by the band.

It was fun though, to see band members actually doing the things that musicians are supposed to do. Waving at the sound-booth guy to turn certain mics up or down, tuning all their instruments, everything else ...

Plus, it was a damn good show.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[KhabaLox]

I've talked about this with lots of artists that are big enough to sell out venues that range in size between 500-3000 people and they all say the same thing: no artists, except those at the absolute top of the heap, are making a living selling their music anymore.

We bought our house from, and are friends with, a couple who are both symphonic musicians - she with the LA Phil and he with Long Beach. AFAIK they don't have other jobs, yet they are doing fairly well.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Grishnakh]

Sadly only the biggest artists today can play the record labels, since the labels have so much control over the airwaves that unless they like you, you're FSCK'd.

People still listen to the radio?

Re:Fairly well known issue

[dadioflex]

Being a great singer or musician is relatively commonplace. You see hundreds of new ones every year on those talent shows on TV - most will never make a career in music. Being a great composer or song writer is a lot less common. Being a great singer-song-writer, now that's how you make money.

I read that entire article and it's just some guy complaining about how everything was better in the old days, without offering any alternatives. You don't say that Apple SHOULD pay more to artists and SHOULD invest in new talent because if Apple can get away with it they'll actually want to pay less. They won't do it unless they have to, and he doesn't provide any suggestions for making them have to.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[million_monkeys]

Actually, there is a difference. A bank will give you a loan and expect you to pay it back with a certain interest rate. When you've paid that back, you just have to pay your other costs, rest of your income goes into your pocket. With a record label you're forever stuck with only getting a small cut, and sometimes they even withhold a part of this to cover costs they think belong to the artist. This is different. I don't think anyone would ever take a loan from a bank that demands that 90% of all future income from the investment go straight to the bank.

Lots of people would if they believed the investment they made with that loan would make them rich and famous. Especially if they felt (whether correct or not) that they had no other options for getting the loan. And that only counts the people who understand what they are signing. Quite a few others would take it because the loan officer promised them everything they wanted while glossing over the details.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Grishnakh]

I don't see how this is substantially different from what came before. Back in the "old days" (a couple decades ago), almost no artists made a basic living selling music either. They had to have a "day job". They only became self-supporting when they "made it big", and started playing big concerts and having hit albums and singles. Even lots of them ended up going broke because of the record company shenanigans; they lived high on the hog for a short time, but it was really funny money, loaned to them by the record company, which they had to pay back afterwards, and didn't because the record company kept all the profits from record sales, so they went bankrupt and went back to their day jobs. Only a lucky few got to actually become moderately wealthy with their music, the ones at the "top of the heap" as you say. Regular artists had to live in a van, play gigs in small bars, etc. to try to get to that point.

At least these days, artists can sell their music directly to the public either at shows or on sites like cdbaby.com, since they're able to cheaply record and manufacture their music which they couldn't do before.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[dadioflex]

Most musicians made their living from live performance for all but 60 years or so of human history

No they didn't, they made it from patronage; a wealthy aristocrat or lord indulging themselves by hiring Mozart to whip up a new fugue.

How many musicians do you believe received patronage, versus those who were travelling troubadours and minstrels or played music for touring theatre groups, churches and orchestras? Anyway, back then armies probably employed the vast majority of professional musicians.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[lgw]

Historically patronage was like the few millionaire musicians today - yes, it happened to a few, but it was far from the norm, as there were only ever a few lords at any given time (that rarity being sort of the point).

That didn't stop ordinary performers from making a living, finding places to play for a meal and, if lucky, a little coin. The notion of a bar hiring a musician or group to entertain its customers is hardly a new thing, nor is the idea of a musician travelling from small venue to small venue to make a small living,

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Creepy]

yeah, but funding was largely a sham. Dave is right that studio time and agents don't get paid a percentage of record sales, but there are numerous errors in that chart he shows as well as his rebuttal of it, and I can see where this bass player was coming from. Fees for agents, studio time, and expenses all come out of the musician's pocket, not the studio's pocket. The chart completely missed the 10-15% songwriter cut, which for my band was a slightly larger share than share the entire band got (admittedly it was a bad contract, but we couldn't afford lawyers), divvied between all of us, but we never saw a cent of it - all those earnings went to pay studio time (primarily). Our singer songwriter made money on the album, the rest of us didn't.

  All in all it wasn't a failure, though - the band actually made a meager living on the road, and I made a decent living by also playing in both a variety band and as a cellist (solo and quartet) at weddings. In the early-to-mid 1990s both of these gigs paid MUCH better than my band, and both were organized by my variety band's business - I was more like an employee, not an owner, unlike with the band (technically I wasn't an owner, but we divvied the profits) - I'm sure the owner took a large %age, but still $2k-5k (I made 5k twice doing both cello solo and variety band) a gig was pretty awesome. Unfortunately, variety bands ceded to DJs in the mid-1990s and I went back to school and finished my degree so I didn't have to live by random and becoming much more sparse income anymore. The band had broken up by then anyway (mostly over the financial dispute with the record label, and then refusing to make another album without renegotiating our contract - if this sounds familiar, it is hardly rare - see the Stone Roses as an example, and they were much bigger than we were).

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Grishnakh]

Then you're listening to some crappy bands. All the concerts I go to sound rather good (taking into account the acoustical limitations of the venue), and frequently significantly better than the CDs thanks to the excessive compression used on those by recording "engineers".

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Anonymous Coward]

This is entirely due to the old system. The old system is a bastardization of supply and demand.

When you manufacture "artists" with no real talent, you have to TELL PEOPLE they want the music. You do this by creating an atmosphere of celebrity. Make it seem like that "artist" has EVERYTHING the consumer could want/dream in their life. The consumer idolizes and looks up to said "artist" and pays for the stuff other people wrote and performed, but with the "artist's" name and face plastered on it.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[carcomp]

I feel that an artist has to do one of two things these days to make money... Take Deadmau5 for example. Mainstream 'electronic music' artist who isn't on the Radio (much) but has a pretty huge fanbase from concerts and constant internet presence. He doesn't really have 'albums' but songs get grouped together as he releases them. He puts a lot of demo junk tracks he's playing with on sound cloud or whatever service he chooses. It keeps people interested in his work. He's also producing other artists in the same vein of music style. The other option is the Bieber model. Release an album that is huge with a large group of people. Take that album and do tours around the world. After that success, release only tiny tidbits for months on end, teasing the fans along into a frenzy. Finally when you are out of song snips / album cover / song lists going to be in the album / tour announcements / tour DATE announcements etc. Release the album. Go on tour. Repeat.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Anonymous Coward]

As an indy artist, I agree completely. I've put together 4 albums in the past 3 years and made over $200,000 on them. Mind you i've done this mostly in my spare time and i could do two to three a year if i was doing this as full time work. For me, I create the albums for a charity i care about then release all the right to them to create some residual income outside of their immediate (sometimes fickle) supporters.

I thought everyone doing this knew that streaming services were more for getting your name out there than making money. no? remember the
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-music-artists-earn-online/

Most of our sales come from iTunes, AmazonMP3, then Physical CD's. People are loose with their wallets for digital downloads. We send out a message to our fans and usually make 80% or our annual sales in the first two weeks the record is out, then over the next month about 15%, it drops to a fairly consistent sales baseline and the rest of the year of sales fills the last 5%.

I could fairly easily do this for a living, but for me i don't want it to become "work" I want it to be fun and a fun "episodic challenge" like a crazy game. and it does take the pressure off not having to rely on it for my sole income.

I say put the time in, make good music establish a fanbase and go for it! you wont get-rich-quick but you can certainly make a decent living doing something you love.
-S

Re:Fairly well known issue

[will_die]

You need to look at what self publishing book writers actually make, the majority make only a few hundred dollars per book if they are lucky and the book is well written. A few thousand dollars is what a book writer use to get if they got published and did not have a major best seller.
For the self published book writer they have to decide if they are going to get an editor, a cover designer and a layout artist which all cost money. Do that all your self and you are taking time away from what you do, write books, and have to spend time doing and learning those other skills.
Now for actual numbers, based on Kindle info, last year there there were around 1000 self publishers that sold over 800 books a month; and they are not the majority. Some of those can actually make a living. The majority of self publishers will be lucky if they make a few thousand a year.
Your economic idea will not work out and will be even worse for small market items, such as technical books, which is already a very small market where the majority of writer are lucky if they make a few thousand dollars and that is since they are published.
With the publishers gone there are going to be few high technical books and we will have to hope for a come back of the sponsored writer.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[HapSlappy_2222]

Your example silly, because you pushed all the way to the end of the spectrum to a million bucks. Try this instead:

"It would be no different if a new act went to a regular bank, and convinced them to loan $25,000 (which could easily happen depending on credit rating) for 'production costs and marketing'. All but 'some tiny percentage' would go directly back to the bank to pay off the loan."

This is how all small businesses start, and it's really not difficult to secure the startup funds, if you're not ridiculous about it or go in with a few trusted members (hmm, maybe your bass player and drummer?). The hard part is having a good enough product (in this case, music) AND the ability to market that product (in this case, concerts, air time, etc) to expand from there, and if you don't, well... you either find a new product to sell (change the band up, write new and more popular stuff, change genres, etc) or get a job.

I don't claim to know if this would work for musical artists, but I know for sure that it works for a vast amount of other entrepreneurs.

The most ridiculous thing is that in the music industry, these big old huge scary label companies are really just performing the services that normal businesses (small or large) have plain old marketing departments on the payroll for. Why on EARTH would you ever want a *marketing department* completely in charge your product, from R&D to shipping? Seems like it would lead to selling only the products that are easy to market instead of coming up with innovative and terrific products that could be tricky to sell at first.... oh, wait a minute here....

Re:Fairly well known issue

[JesseMcDonald]

I don't think anyone would ever take a loan from a bank that demands that 90% of all future income from the investment go straight to the bank.

Not for a bank loan, no, but an IPO works somewhat like this. Whatever share of the company is sold in the IPO, that fraction of future profit belongs to the new shareholders from then on, not the original owners of the company. In exchange they receive whatever those shares initially sold for at the time of the IPO.

When an artist signs with a label they're essentially selling stock in their future music career.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[mcgrew]

In order to make money you need to be significantly better than the laymen that do it for free for their own enjoyment.

You mean like Milli Vanilli?

Re:Fairly well known issue

[IamTheRealMike]

Well, there's certainly some truth to that, but you're assuming that there is a free market at work here. That isn't the case. Markets require property rights - if I can pay you or not pay you for something depending on, basically, whether I give a crap or not, what you have is not a market in the capitalist sense. That is what has happened to music and is happening to other types of creative works due to the failure of the tech industry to implement strong DRM, or to stop file sharing networks. There is no market any more. Only beggars and charitable individuals.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[sneakyimp]

Good post. The elephant in the room for this bank metaphor is that banks are not stupid enough to lend thousands of dollars to young musicians because almost every band ever started fails. It doesn't take a bank analyst to realize that young, unproven bands are an extremely high-risk investment. Aside from the possibility of flat-out sucking, there are plenty of other pitfalls for them: drugs, stds, changing tastes of the public, and the fact that touring is a wretched endeavor until you reach a certain threshold of popularity. From what I've seen, recording advances (i.e, MONEY) are much harder to come by today than they were 10-15 years ago. I might be blind, but I don't see youtube or spotify or rhapsody handing out money to cultivate new bands and yet they profit enormously from new music and old music alike.

There's an excellent book describing the economics of the music industry called "All You Need to Know About the Music Business" by Donald S. Passman. Don't let the bland title fool you. It's a good book and describes how lucky artists might get 15% of revenues after a label "recoups" their investment. It also describes typical advance amounts -- $200,000 for a band in the late nineties. This may sound like a lot until you realize a band (and their staff) have to create their recordings, pay rent, buy/maintain a touring vehicle, eat, etc. Managers and Lawyers are also likely to skim up to 25% for their services. And even if you are successful, the record label will tell you that they have to 'recoup' the cost of electricity to air-condition Jimmy Iovine's bedroom on his 3rd yacht before you get your 15%. Try housing and feeding 4 band members, roadies, etc for a year or two with what's left after all the other expenses are paid. Admittedly, this book is out of date now but it does provide a good window on the music industry as it used to be and some information is still relevant. The abiding lesson in it is to get a good lawyer to defend against nearly a century's worth of accumulated douchebaggery you can expect from recording companies and distributors.

What has not changed is that you still need these:
* A great song that appeals to some demographic with disposable income
* A great producer/engineer to make your recording
* Publicity so that the world knows about your song
* Revenue to survive and sustain the creative process

I'd love to see a business school analysis of the industry's outlook. I don't have an MBA, but I'd be willing to bet that the assessment would be that the potential for profiting in the music industry has diminished greatly in the past decade for a variety of reasons:
* Lower barriers to entry (lower cost to record music due to cheap new gear, lower distribution cost due to internet, etc.) will introduce lots of competition. E.g., new 'competitors' like Rebecca Black or anything recorded in someone's garage.
* Other low-cost forms of entertainment (e.g., facebook, games, youtube, netflix, etc.) will introduce competition for listener's time and money
* Both the music industry and the entertainment industry in general will become increasingly splintered as more bands make music and more types of entertainment proliferate due to aforementioned competition. Margins will drop accordingly.
* Changing user expectations and 'unauthorized' distribution of recordings undermine (eliminate?) the ability of a band to extract revenue from the recordings they make. I.e., the kids think music is free and give it for free to all their friends. No one really has to pay the artist for their song any more. The fact is that spending on music recordings today is voluntary regardless of any other agreements or DRM or terms of use or whatever. Because of this fact, recordings probably shouldn't be viewed as a product but rather as marketing.

At the same time, there are some factors working in favor of musicians:
* New recording technology (not including instruments, amps, and mic

Re:Fairly well known issue

[HapSlappy_2222]

Well, of course they would. But I think the GP's point is nobody would ever take a loan like that if there were alternatives, and there most definitely should be. Granted, not every musician has what it takes to start a business, but not every inventor or programmer or barista does, either, yet I still see new products, software, and coffee being sold by someone who does have what it takes.

What I don't see is Starbucks able to get away with locking small shops completely out of competition based solely on not allowing competitors to rent the space, like the big record labels can do ("Can we buy up every minute of the day's radio signals and refuse to play nice with artists, period? Well sure we can!!").

Re:Fairly well known issue

[sneakyimp]

I think you reason well, but from what I understand labels historically have made money from record sales whereas the bands typically profit from touring and merchandise because the band typically retains the rights to performance revenues and merch -- unless they are stupid.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[FatRatBastard]

"However, the cost of creating recordings has gone down."

Way to not read the article.

From Mr Lowery

“Well artists are making less money but recording costs are lower, so the artists are doing okay”.

In other words technology has lowered your revenues in the form of unlicensed file-sharing on an industrial scale but that’s okay because Digidesign (the makers of Pro-Tools) has given back some cost savings. As if Kim Dotcom and Digidesign share the same bank account. These people believe in technology like it is a religion. The lord Technology Industry taketh, and The Lord Technology Industry giveth back.

The data I have from recording studios says something different. Recording budgets are lower because artists spend dramatically less time recording. They just don’t have the money.

Recording budgets didn’t start shrinking until after the advent of file-sharing. 2002 ish. While most of the improvements in technology and gains in productivity occurred in the early 1990s. By 1996 the home studio/pro studio production chain was firmly in place. Pro studios used for “tracking” and “mixing.” Home or project studios used for overdubs and editing. If lower recording budgets were caused by improvements in technology they should have started shrinking 10 years earlier.

Sound recordings are very labor intensive. If you want to make good ones you are relying on highly skilled labor. The cost of sound recordings is largely dependent on labor costs. Technological advances have little effect on recording cost.

This is the main problem with the technologists contention recordings should be free. They seem to think that the only people who work on recordings are the touring performers themselves. Artists still have to pay for that highly skilled labor.

Is the mix engineer gonna follow us around on tour hawking HIS T-shirts to the audience?

Re:Fairly well known issue

[sneakyimp]

It might be that or his own anger about failing as a sci fi writer festering into venom towards one of those damn kids who still has a chance. It totally sounds like "get off my lawn" to me. Actually it sounds more like "YOU WILL LEARN TO LOVE FAILURE! IT IS THE ONLY OPTION!"

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Kjella]

Of course we're never going to run out of people who'll pick up an instrument in their spare time or the odd playboy who can afford to play without income. But even the best of talent gets better if they get to practice and refine their talent all day. Of course there's no right to be paid, if we don't feel it's worth paying for then we won't. But that is not the same as to say that it doesn't matter because others will take their place, any more than amateur football teams could replace NFL. Sure, somebody would still play football but it wouldn't be on nearly the same level. Even for the people that can't and won't quit their day job making a little cash on the side or covering expenses in part or full is an incentive to keep playing. Or to not stop playing and get more work if the money is tight, to put it that way.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[petsounds]

Wait, what? Why must a musician either be a millionaire musician or a bedroom noodler? Why can't indie artists make a decent living at their craft?

This idea that artists should simply suffer in obscurity for their art, that they should learn their place and not expect to earn a living doing what they love, is bullshit. That they should get a "real job", is bullshit. Of course, that's part of the American experience – as a culture, we don't value art – and artists – as much as the Europeans. We value invented royalty in the United States.

Getting the big money out of music is a lot easier than getting rid of that attitude. Digital music and streaming services have only enforced that attitude that music has very little value, and that the artists behind them don't need support and compensation for their work.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[HapSlappy_2222]

This is the real issue. So many people ARE able to succeed from the ground up, sweating and bleeding for their dream, working 90 hour weeks to get a business it off the ground to just break even.

Getting to that point is hard enough already, without being told by the Supreme God Of Muzaks, Distributor of Circular Shinies, Father of all Vibration, and Defender of the Airwaves!!! that "It's time to pay me a toll now that you're on my radar. Otherwise, Imma eat your work and shit your dream while you watch."

Re:Fairly well known issue

[sneakyimp]

You guys are both kind of right. Beiber is a very good example of sucker making bank. On the other hand, there are very very very few Beibers in the world (THANK JEEBUS) but there are a large number of very creative folks who make a living in creative fields by providing their music/acting/whatever chops to other folks. You can find tons of them in LA, New York, Austin, Nashville, etc.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[sneakyimp]

There is something very honest about this -- the mythical high and mighty artist is laid low and in his place we find the lowly busker, selling his own wares -- or soliciting crowds to toss a coin in his guitar case. On the other hand, one gets only modest music from this situation. It ain't exactly the LSO.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[sneakyimp]

Mod parent up. The music industry has been splintered by bazillions of new entrants thanks to greatly cost of creation and distribution. Variety and selection is better than ever before. From an economic standpoint, this is just too obvious.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[HapSlappy_2222]

Yes. Think about all those commuters driving to work, every single day. It's one reason why ads are much more common during rush hour.

Radio is still a wonderful venue for advertising, which means dollars gravitate toward it, which then means it's a huge benchmark of success if your music gets played, which finally means the record labels buy every second they can, and only offer their purchased time to the auto-tuned "sure things".

Getting air time isn't even a record exec's opinion of "good" or not anymore, which might have been somewhat defensible (hey, it's his company and he really didn't like it; it's douche-y, but they're his rules). Now, though, it's a decision based on what is "similar enough to past success to guarantee new success, but able to be buggered up enough to sound new for a couple months".

I hear a lot new music I like, but anything new seems like it only makes it into the mainstream after getting popular enough in the underground (over years!!) to guarantee a successful "debut".

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Endo13]

THIS. This should be modded up much higher than 5. I've been trying to communicate this for a while now.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[DShard]

4 performances a week works out to a grand. say you work for 40 weeks a year, that is 40k. 40k a year is a decent income, but not lavish. certainly livable, and I bet if you worked on promotional stuff as a group, you could steadily increase that to a stable middle class lifestyle, selling mp3's profitably to supplement touring and merchandise. Could you make more as a trucker being on the road that often? Yes. Is it possible to make more than a trucker could dream of with enough interest? Absolutely.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[cayenne8]

People still listen to the radio?

To and from work....5 days a week.

Many of us do...talk radio, or at the very least, to get traffic updates and weather while driving in....

Of late, I usually listen to the radio on the way in, I like to listen to Walton and Johnson in the mornings....I plug in my ipod for the drive home.

I do, however, miss the days of getting my new music from the radio, like when I grew up. Most jobs I've worked...for security reasons, won't let you stream music, and I'm usually so busy, I don't really have time to search out the internet and plow through countless music links or whatever...to find new good bands I like. *sigh*

Re:Fairly well known issue

[HapSlappy_2222]

I note that you don't really explain exactly *why* you or other artists aren't successful at selling music. Is it a marketing thing? Production thing? Distribution thing? Only a portion of the population enjoys your genre thing?

If you could pinpoint where things go pear-shaped, maybe there are ways you could improve inefficiencies or decrease costs that people can recommend. Just like any business, you have to control the costs to maximize the profits. If you cannot do that, then the business won't succeed. Attempting to hire another business to railroad your product to the masses (which is essentially what artists utilizing record labels are doing) is one option to avoid failure, but that, obviously, has a pretty dramatic downside.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[arbulus]

When the hell did people stop creating art for the sake of creating art? That's what I want to know

Precisely. This is the problem. No one wants to do what they enjoy, just for the sake of it. Everyone is just chasing money. To so many people, music is just another get rich quick scheme. They think they can cut a few tracks, get discovered, get a record deal, and make millions.But it doesn't work that way.

The current state of pop music is a bunch of pretty faces who can look good on magazine covers and on the red carpet. It doesn't matter if they can sing or not. They don't write their music, they don't write their lyrics. They're given the lyrics, put in front of a mic and told to sing. They auto-tune them so they actually sound good and then the record labels cash in.

It's sad to see art become a money game. It destroys everything art is. If you're not doing what to do because you love it and because you feel a deep desire to create something amazing, then you're doing it for the wrong reasons. Art isn't a clock punching cash machine. If that's what someone wants, then, like you said, they should do something else.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[HapSlappy_2222]

Also: business savvy. Get some or hire some.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Americano]

Certainly; but the wishes of anybody who wishes to affix a price tag to the music they've created shouldn't be ignored, either. If you don't like the price they're asking, you're welcome to haggle with them, or you're welcome to pay what they've asked. What you are not welcome to do is just take a copy and offer them no compensation. What this comes down to is simply a question of whether or not you respect your fellow human being enough to not take something they haven't consented to giving you, simply because they lack the means to stop you from doing it. Trade is (or should be) mutually beneficial, and by mutual consent - either you get a great song to listen to whenever and wherever you want AND the artist gets to pay his or her bills and continue honing their craft, hopefully producing even MORE music you think is great, or no deal happens and the artist realizes his audience just isn't big enough to allow him to support himself with music, and he relegates music to a fun hobby.

And that's the flip side of this argument. Nobody is "owed" an income, just because they "kinda think they wanna be like Lady Gaga." But if that person tries to sell their music, no member of the listening public is "owed" a free copy, either: mutual consent + mutual benefit, or no deal at all.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[m00sh]

... is to go to shows and spend money at shows.

1. Get tickets to show that says 8PM.

2. Drive for an hour and then pay for parking/drive around to find parking.

3. Arrive there 8PM and wait outside in a line for 0.5-1 hour (the establishment that you paid over $50 in tickets won't let you use the restroom because nobody is allowed inside until the band is ready).

4. Get inside. Wait indefinite time (from 1-1.5 hours) until the opening band starts.

5. After opening band finishes, wait another 1-1.5 hours for the band you paid tickets to start.

6. Show finishes.

You start around 6PM and you are done at 1-2AM. Eight hours to listen to a 1.5 hour set from the band you're supporting. Meanwhile, all this empty time you end up buying junk food and alcohol from the establishment.

I hate going to live shows because of this reason - it's a time sink. Why don't the musicians start their shows on time and print the time each band will be starting on the tickets so I arrive and enjoy the show and leave.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Endo13]

Doesn't matter. If you're doing entertaiment primarily for the money, you're in the wrong career - especially if you're failing at it. You should only do entertaiment if you're doing it because you love it. Everyone has hobbies. Most don't expect to get paid for them. If you are able to make money doing your hobby, well, that's just a bonus. People make money doing what I like to do as a hobby. I don't. Nor do I expect to. Why? Because the demand isn't there.

That's the approach to take with entertaining and art.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Music2Eat]

Why can't indie artists make a decent living at their craft?

They can, they're just not going to do it selling music cds/tapes/records anymore. They're going to have to do it the old fashioned way, at live shows.

Most people seem to forget that the phonograph is a fairly new invention. It's just a blip on the radar in the lifespan of music. For thousands of years musicians made money playing live. The decent ones could use it to supplement their income, the great ones could make a living off it.

There's plenty of indie artists out there that are making a decent living despite not getting any airplay or huge record sales (Decemberists, Wilco). Are they bajillianaires? No. The days of recording a song and then being able to live off that nights labor for the rest of your life are over (Beatles) and I for one am not sad to see them go. Musicians should be out there constantly perfecting their craft, not resting on their laurels.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Asmodae]

Indeed :) In fact it was so common the English language developed some words to name the profession including: Bard, Troubadour, Minstrel and more obscurely from this site: Trouveres, Jongleurs, and there are probably more. It might seem it it was once an immensely common for musicians to live by performing.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[AngryDeuce]

No, they need to be prepared to accept the fact that it is literally a roll of the dice whether or not they're going to make it in the arts. Period. It is the career equivalent of hitting the lottery. You can work your ass off your entire life and never make a living doing what you love. Talent != success. At least, not to the degree that it does in most other fields.

Nowhere did I say that they couldn't make a living at their craft. I said that they need to accept the reality that they probably won't. The odds are against them. There is nothing anyone can do to change that. Never before in history has it been easier for an indie artist to get a widespread following as it is today, but even given the tools they have today, it's still just as much of a dice roll as it ever was. I've seen some amazing musicians on Youtube that only had a few hundred views; meanwhile, Rebecca Black had like 800,000,000 views within what, a few months? I mean, yeah, it was all a joke, ha ha...but that girl's got a fucking career in music now.

I have nothing but respect for the starving artist, and I've been playing guitar almost daily for 20 years and writing/composing songs almost as long so I know how much work is involved with honing a craft and creating music firsthand, but anyone that really expects to make a living at it based on their desire to do so is ignoring reality for the sake of wishful thinking.

It almost seems like people are pissed off that there are musicians out there willing to give their art away, or at least, pissed off that musicians that are content just giving their music away are able to do so to an equally large audience (i.e., the entire world) and thus make it difficult to compete, but once again, that's a reality they're just going to have to face. The only way to change that would be to suppress those artists like the RIAA fuckheads did and there is no fucking way in hell I would ever support that at all.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[MightyMartian]

Because those didn't exist before the current distribution regime.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Steauengeglase]

Yeah, well you explain how he keeps the Mother Ship aloft. Ain't magic.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[0123456]

You need to look at what self publishing book writers actually make, the majority make only a few hundred dollars per book if they are lucky and the book is well written.

A survey published just today suggested the median income for a self-published writer was $500 a year and the average $10,000 (since some of the writers at the top of the list are earning six figures). The writers earning $500 a year or less are generally the ones who got nowhere with trade publishers because, well, they're not very good. The good ones were in the top 10% of the slush pile and are in the top 10% of self-published writers today.

Now for actual numbers, based on Kindle info, last year there there were around 1000 self publishers that sold over 800 books a month; and they are not the majority. Some of those can actually make a living. The majority of self publishers will be lucky if they make a few thousand a year.

800 books a month at $4.99 is not a bad income. And the vast majority of writers under the trade publishing system were lucky to make a few thousand a year, so nothing's changed there.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Bootsy Collins]

but anyone that really expects to make a living at it based on their desire to do so is ignoring reality for the sake of wishful thinking.

But again, my comment a few parents up wasn't that anyone expects to make a living at it; so I don't know why this comment keeps getting made. To the best of my knowledge, no one here has said that.

Let me put what I am saying another way: I have no expectation that any specific individual artist should be able to make a living making music. Long before the internet era, I'd seen tons of people with tons of musical talent and ability and devotion get exactly nowhere; so I'm not under any illusions that anyone that decides to make music professionally should have any expectation of making a living at it. But I do think that it would be a good thing if somebody, somewhere (other than, of course, the major labels' American Idol-ish diva of the month) was able to make a living at it. For me, what sucks isn't that John Doe or Jane Schmoe don't make a living at music; it's that seemingly nobody does anymore.

A year ago or so, I had a conversation with the lead guitarist for one of the really popular bands out of Seattle in the 90s. It didn't surprise me at all when he told me that he really doesn't make any money at music anymore; it's been a long time since their peak in popularity. What caught my attention, though, was his emphatic statement that nobody else he knows makes money at music these days, either.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Bootsy Collins]

I wish there was some way to reply to several posts in a tree with one reply, so one didn't have to choose between saying the same thing a zillion times, or only replying to one time someone said it and leaving others' questions/comments/ripostes/whatever unacknowledged. Blah.

2. In no way did I assert that anyone deserves to make money at something simply because they want to do it. How you got that out of my post, I'll never know.

You said "The problem is that your statement that "an artist can make it on their own" is, for the most part, not true. Never mind millions -- almost no artists are making a basic living selling music anymore." To which I and my GP say "So what?" No one is paid to do what they love just because they love it; they're paid to produce a product that has demand. If your friends aren't making any money, then there's either too much supply or not enough demand.

I do think it's a problem that almost no artists are making a simple living selling music anymore; but it doesn't logically follow that I think anyone should expect to make money selling music.

If it's still not clear what I'm actually trying to say, let me rephrase it by making a similar statement: I don't think anyone should expect to grow up and become a doctor, but I think it would be a very bad thing if nobody grew up and became a doctor.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Bootsy Collins]

If someone expects to make millions playing music, then they are ignorant and ought to select a different career. You post strongly implies that they should somehow be able to - hence cpu's reply.

Except it doesn't imply that at all -- the difference being the difference between making a statement about an individual and the world at large. I tried to clarify that in the reply to the post immediately preceding yours.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[MightyMartian]

Well, there was an additional boost for songwriters, in that publishing rights could be quite lucrative. That's what makes, say, the Lennon-McCartney Northern Songs catalog so valuable. It's also one of the causes of a considerable amount of tension in bands where you have a main songwriter, who gets additional publishing royalties. You look at bands like The Who or The Band, where you had one guy who wrote most of the songs, and he's getting an additional cut on top of any recording royalties or touring proceeds. It's also why Colonel Tom Parker often insisted that guys writing songs for Elvis put him as a writer so that Elvis could get a cut of the publishing royalties, even if he had absolute nothing at all to do with the actual writing of the song. It's also why Paul McCartney was sued by his publishing company over songs he claimed he'd co-wrote with his wife, the publisher alleging that McCartney was intentionally diluting their share of the royalties.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[MightyMartian]

There's a reason why Robbie Robertson is sitting pretty in Hollywood making records pnly when he feels like it, and why his former bandmates in The Band toured even while suffering serious depression or cancer, and that's because Robertson as the primary songwriter had publishing rights to a big chunk of a catalog for which an enormous number of covers have been made. Some songs like The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down were top 40 hits for two or three other artists in the same time period that The Band had recorded them. So while Robertson's bandmates would receive royalties for The Band's recording of the song, Robertson was getting additional royalties from covers. It's a notoriously inequitable situation which has been seen time and time again, because a song often is more profitable than any particular sound recording of it.

I'll wager Bob Dylan has made as much, if not more money off of other peoples' covers of his catalog as he made through recording royalties.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Bootsy Collins]

... is to go to shows and spend money at shows.

1. Get tickets to show that says 8PM.

2. Drive for an hour and then pay for parking/drive around to find parking.

3. Arrive there 8PM and wait outside in a line for 0.5-1 hour (the establishment that you paid over $50 in tickets won't let you use the restroom because nobody is allowed inside until the band is ready).

4. Get inside. Wait indefinite time (from 1-1.5 hours) until the opening band starts.

5. After opening band finishes, wait another 1-1.5 hours for the band you paid tickets to start.

6. Show finishes.

You start around 6PM and you are done at 1-2AM. Eight hours to listen to a 1.5 hour set from the band you're supporting. Meanwhile, all this empty time you end up buying junk food and alcohol from the establishment.

I hate going to live shows because of this reason - it's a time sink. Why don't the musicians start their shows on time and print the time each band will be starting on the tickets so I arrive and enjoy the show and leave.

This seems a little overstated to me -- most of the places I go to see a show open their doors when they say, most openers aren't *that* late and most gaps between acts aren't *that* long, in my experience -- but tweaking the details doesn't change your overall point, and there's a lot of truth in your post. I don't go to shows as much as I used to, despite how much I want to because I know that's how acts make their money; I've got to go to work in the morning and I just can't get away with it like I used to.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Grishnakh]

No, what's the point? Storage space is dirt cheap; you can get a 32MB SD card for around $30 now, and that's enough for a quite large music collection. Why bother putting up with WiFi problems when you can carry your entire music collection around on a card the size of your fingernail (which is plugged into your phone or other portable music player)? Plus you can keep copies on your desktop PC and other systems and easily sync them automatically.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Kjella]

* Distribution and communication are nearly free via the internet. No need to print vinyl or CDs or anything. Just put the damn file on the internet.

That was true for a little while, but now the game has changed and people want streaming services. And unlike the tunes you used to download from iTunes and Amazon and rip from CDs and download over the net, the streaming services don't work well together. Either you are on Spotify (+ own MP3s) or you're for example on WiMP (+ own MP3s), a big streaming service here in Norway but there's no way to make a seamless playlist with songs from both services. There's different apps, different synching, different offline modes not to mention if you got both you're double paying for a lot of music. So people want one service to be their one-stop shop for music, and once one service has a dominating position it exploits that to maximize its own profit.

If they sold CDs, you could sell CDs. If they sold MP3s, you could sell MP3s. But you can't sell streaming like you'd add another repository to your linux distro, your music won't ever integrate with whatever other streaming service they have. The only way you're going to a first class citizen is to be on the customer's preferred service but the services will pay small time artists shit. So you get the wonderful choice of no customers because you're not on Spotify or no margins because you are on Spotify. Since profit is volume * margin you get the wonderful choice of 0*x or x*0 in profits, but the result is pretty much the same. Most likely you're going to bend over and let Spotify take all the money for the music, hoping you can get some fame and live performances while they profit.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[vgerclover]

The problem isn't that we aren't going to see millionaire musicians anymore. The problem is that your statement that "an artist can make it on their own" is, for the most part, not true. Never mind millions -- almost no artists are making a basic living selling music anymore (...) no artists, except those at the absolute top of the heap, are making a living selling their music anymore.

These days, to the extent that an artist or act is able to make enough money to continue to make music, that money isn't coming from music sales. It's coming from shows: what they make playing shows (including merchandise sold at shows) minus the costs of doing them.

I have to say that I don't see the problem there. As long as you are working you are getting paid and records (and piracy btw) are just publicity that people pay for in that situation.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[SplashMyBandit]

Isn't sufficiently advanced technology indistinguishable from magic?

Re:Fairly well known issue

[AngryDeuce]

For me, what sucks isn't that John Doe or Jane Schmoe don't make a living at music; it's that seemingly nobody does anymore.

That's ridiculous. There are tons of people still making money in music these days. They may not be making as much for just the music anymore, but the shows still bring them in a pretty penny. The merchandise still makes them money. There's still plenty of money to be made in music, even if you completely remove the proceeds from selling the music itself, there are other avenues to make money in that business. Just the advertising hits on a Youtube channel, in the right hands, can bring in a decent amount of money. How many fucking bloggers are out there making a living doing nothing but blogging and now vlogging? And you're trying to tell me that musicians aren't making money anymore? Come on...

It's not that people aren't making money anymore, it's that the barriers to entry are much lower so the pie is getting cut into smaller pieces all around, but there are still people making a decent living doing what they love. We may never see another Elvis or Beatles or Michael Jackson, 'rich beyond the dreams of avarice' artist again, but I really can't feel too bad about that. There are equally talented artists out there that didn't make diddly squat when the RIAA was doing everything they can to make sure we only hear the artists they want us to hear that now have a shot to actually make a decent living, thanks to the internet.

This is not due to illegal downloads (despite what the RIAA says) this is about a fundamental shift away from the antiquated distribution methods and business model that the RIAA members themselves created solely to drive profits into their own pockets. We don't need to buy a 45 to hear a single anymore, we can go to Youtube and hear it whenever we want, not to mention view a video that we likely never would have seen (MTV being just as bad with the Payola-esque bullshit as the radio; towards the end of the days when they actually played videos, remember how often they would play the same tired bullshit video over and over and over? Ja Rule and J-Lo and fucking Puddle of Mudd and godawful Nickelback 24/7). They no longer get to monopolize the market and shove that shit down our throats, and we're supposed to feel bad for the people that were the ancillary beneficiaries of that twisted crap?

David Lowery of Cracker benefited from that shit just as much as the other "grunge" artists that had videos on MTV. I bought a copy of Kerosene Hat solely because I loved the song "Low" so much and the rest of the album sucked in my opinion. I wonder how many other millions of people out there bought that CD for that one song that was endlessly pimped on MTV over and over and over again back in '93. Also, remember how often the production values across even a single CD would be dramatically different? Three polished singles and bunch of filler garbage that was recorded on a 4-track in some dude's garage (listen to Tracy Bonham's The Burdens of Being Upright for a good example of that, but there are many to choose from that originated in the grunge era like Cracker). Anyway, their label may have eaten 99% of the $20 I dropped on that CD, but it's not like I had any other alternative. Not like today. Now I get to preview an entire album before I buy it, although honestly, I usually pirate the CD (especially if it's a major label) and buy some of the band's merchandise instead. I've got a ton of posters and band T-shirts to show for it. Know why? Because the artist gets a large percentage of the merchandise proceeds, and not only that, it allows me to pay it forward a bit by advertising on their behalf as I'm wearing their shirt in my day to day life. They get next to nothing from their label, unless they're one of the dozen artists the label actually gives a shit about. That's been true for

Re:Fairly well known issue

[scot4875]

Then maybe you should pick a different career where you CAN make money. If there are too many musicians, just as there are too many hamburger & fry flippers, than the income will plummet and be crappy. So choose a higher-paying income, rather than being a musician or McDonalds employee.

You know what? Fuck you and your comparison of people making music and flipping burgers. I'm not a musician, though I have played in the past, but to become decent at an instrument takes a lot of hard work and practice. As a society, we should be encouraging people to get good at stuff that others enjoy.

You know what else? Fuck you and your implication that someone who flips burgers for a living doesn't deserve to have a decent living. It's a job, it needs done, and the person doing it has to pay their bills. What magical threshold of "worthiness" does someone have to reach in your eyes before they get to live the dream of making rent and having a little left over?

For the record, I do pretty well, and have never worked in food service or derived income from music. I don't automatically dismiss people who do those things as being somehow below me with the shit-rolls-downhill that you apparently believe in. It bugs the hell out of me when I see very talented people who aren't able to do what they are good at because it doesn't pay enough, so instead they take your advice and take the job that pays the bills, and the world is poorer for it.

--Jeremy

Re:Fairly well known issue

[scot4875]

40k. Before taxes. Split between the whole band.

Yeah, I think they're going to need day jobs.

--Jeremy

Re:Fairly well known issue

[schnell]

It is a valid question to ask how individual artists are affected in specific cases, but probably no more than being concerned with how robots are now doing the jobs that assembly line workers used to do.

Would you really have told Picasso that he's as replaceable as a factory worker? If you don't get the difference between commodity work (individual worker talent has near-zero impact on the finished product) and artistic work (individual worker talent is the difference between John Singer Sargent and LeRoy Neiman, or between Radiohead's "OK Computer" and whatever the hell the last Meatloaf album was), then I don't think you really get the question.

Unlike you and me - who work in jobs that pay us pretty well no matter what - people in "artistic" jobs like musicians, artists, actors, comics etc. exist in high-risk, high-reward markets. The majority aren't good enough to be differentiated and get paid essentially zero - they fail in the market and so be it. But the few who are so much better than the rest command a premium from music listeners, art patrons, etc. and - I firmly believe - deserve to get compensated in return for how much people actually listen/watch/whatever their work. As any investor will tell you, you only invest in a high-risk market if there are high returns if you get it right ... and if there's no way to get paid off in creating new music commensurate with the value of your personal work, I think a lot of potential music makers will just go and get a real job instead. And as much as I enjoy patronizing my local bar bands who get by on a part-time wage, they aren't talented enough to compare with bands that have demonstrated their market success and can spend their time composing full-time as a result.

It's up to all of us collectively - the content creators and the content consumers - to figure out a model that works for everyone, not to just say "art is a commodity and is worth a bulk rate like transistors."

Re:Fairly well known issue

[petsounds]

I would say "plenty of artists" is a stretch. Even pre-web days, most of the talented indie music artists sadly had full-time day jobs.

I don't think "well they did it before the phonograph" is a very strong argument. I don't think there's anything wrong with recorded music as a revenue stream. It should NOT be in perpetuity, I agree. But for instance, if Brian Wilson had not quit touring with the Beach Boys, he probably would've never written my namesake album. And you could go on down the line with similar examples. Touring is great if that's your thing, but musicians shouldn't be locked into that as the main way to support themselves. If they can't, either it is a fault of their distribution mechanism, or fans placing no value on the music. You seem to think the latter is a foregone conclusion, or perhaps you're one of those 'music should be free' people; I don't think it's a lost cause yet.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[ffflala]

In order to make money you need to be significantly better than the laymen that do it for free for their own enjoyment.

I disagree. There are many artists that make money that are less talented then artist who are not making money. I would say that it is more about who you know then what you know. Sure, you have to have enough talent to perform, but talent will only take you so far. You have to have the right connections to get to the point that you start making real money.

I think you might be overlooking the distinction between musical talent and music business talent. The business skills necessary to be financially successful as a musician are pretty much the same skill set you'll find in any well-paid CEO: sociopathic, narcissistic, devoid of empathy, continuous self-promotion, etc. OTOH, musical talent also requires some soul, and often a deep sense of empathy, insight, and compassion. Since people naturally talented with those kinds of business skills are often hollow, soulless parasites, it's natural that the best-paid musicians will only have the minimum musical talent required... and only as long as it's needed for them to establish their brand. Conversely, those with a modicum of selflessness will usually self-select out of a game that requires profiting at the expense of others' losses.

The rare exception these days is the celebrity-level musician who is not simply someone with the mindset of your average greedy investment banker, with a different sense of fashion, and who is a bit more cavalier about using coke in semi-public.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[ffflala]

Most musicians made their living from live performance for all but 60 years or so of human history.

Actually, before audio recording, copyright from *printed sheet music* could be lucrative for big names. There are million-unit sales figures for sheet music of songs from the 1800s. I believe that many of the bigger classical composers got the most money for their music from the private commissioning of compositions by wealthy patrons.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[cpu6502]

>>>What you are not welcome to do is just take a copy and offer them no compensation.

No but I am entitled to a refund if the song or movie I buy is crap. Hell even candy companies provide refunds for dissatisfactory products. That is the main reason I download (or listen to the radio) - To try the product before I buy it. 99% of it is junk so I save myself a lot of money, and will continue doing that until CDs/DVDs come with a 100% satisfaction guarantee.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[marcosdumay]

Lots of people would if they believed the investment they made with that loan would make them rich and famous.

Good thing we have anti slavery laws to protect dreaming teenagers from themselves and those fictional banks (that would stop being fictional at the moment those laws go away). Too bad those laws don't extend to musicians.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[DeathElk]

If your friends aren't making any money, then there's either too much supply or not enough demand.

Or too many people downloading valuable product for free.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[DeathElk]

Flipper the dolphin swimming in hot oil.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[marcosdumay]

Notice how you can't sell stock on your career? Why can a musician do that?

It is completely different from an IPO, because in an IPO you sell shares of a company. If you decide to live that company at the following day and start another one, nobody will stop you. You are selling a property, not yourself.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[bdabautcb]

"It's coming from shows: what they make playing shows..." - Is that not the definition of a perfomer? I happily pay good money to see good music (I do live in a town that is renowned for good live shows, MPLS, but). The industry is changing. Check out the latest City Pages article about Soundstage. A similar example to look at is Louie CK. He released his latest on a pay what you want, and did pretty well. The problem that you are talking about is that people making shitty music, yet supported by studios, made money. In my neck of the woods, if you make good music, I will pay money to watch you play. I don't care that every lame-ass up and comer that only gets air time because of their affiliations is being hurt. Go pine somewhere else, and get off of my old growth white pine and oak forest lawnl.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[marcosdumay]

Amost no artist ever made a living out of music on any time in history. The current times are an exception in that the number of artists making a living is extremely high; but they are still a very tiny minority.

I don't think anyone should expect to grow up and become a doctor, but I think it would be a very bad thing if nobody grew up and became a doctor.

To be honest, if the choice was between the current *AA or no new art, I think I would go with no new art. But that is obviously a false dicotomy.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[chrismcb]

Yes, but then the music will be freely copied, and you won't make any money
So then you'll hire a company to help promote your band, and help protect your product
That company ism't the same thing as a label, but will be doing some very similar things.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[QuietLagoon]

It's a shame the mod point system here does not go up to "11".

Your comment is probably the most insightful on this thread. The old boss is doing everything it can to assure it is the new boss.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[alexander_686]

I will point points about risk and equity.

NPR"s Planet Money had a interview with O.K. about a year ago. I am sure you can still find the podcast. IIRC O.K. go said it was closer to 250k to launch a new national band - at the low end. 4 months where you quit your day job and work on the music. Then a good gob in the studio time, with sound engineers, song writers (if needed), etc. Shoot a video or four. Then launch a 6 month college tour. And only about 10 percent makes it.

If you read the article most of the costs associated with a album are salary and stuff. It does not matter how cheap the equipment is, good sound engineers cost money.

So you might be able to cut out some of the costs by going slow, pushing the authentic folk side, etc.and cut the 250k down a little. But still, spending 25k on a start up with a high risk factor is more risk capital then the average person has.

O.K. Go has now started their own record label to see if they can launch bands for less using newer methods - but they admit they could not have launched without the help of the majors 10 years ago.

The old boss is dead. Can't quite figure out how to make the new one work.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[cpt kangarooski]

There is still a market for creative labor. There is still a market for some goods which happen to embody creativity, eg original works of art (as distinguished from copies; the original Mona Lisa is worth more than a poster of it). But it seems that the market for many creative goods that was enabled by copyright and certain technological advances in mass reproduction and transmission, is dying.

So be it. For most of human history that last market didn't exist, and yet there was art, and we got by. Copyright as we knew it may have been an aberration. I think we can save some of it, but we must remember that copyright isn't worthwhile on its own; rather, it's a means to an end. If our priorities change, so must copyright.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Cederic]

hmm. I have an app installed on my phone that lets me press a single button and it'll use the microphone on the phone to listen to music playing, identify the artist and the song, and give me a link to purchase the track there and then.

I don't tend to use it to buy the music, but I do use it to identify and remember it, and do more research when I get home.

So for instance, at lunch on Thursday last week, the restaurant played
- Emeli Sande: Next to Me
- Caro Emerald: That Man
- John Lee Hooker: I Love You Honey

All three of which I'm pondering acquiring so that I can dance to them, none of which I'd even have known the artist for had I not had that app.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[chrismcb]

When the hell did people stop creating art for the sake of creating art? That's what I want to know.

They didn't. There are still plenty of people who play music, just to play it. BUT When you are busy working for a living, it doesn't give you much time to work on your music. And typically, the more you practice the better you are. And yeah there are some people who are REAL good who don't do it for a living. But for the most part I'd rather listen to music generated by people who do it for a living, than those who do it in their spare time.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[sarysa]

After RTFA (well, 90% of it anyway) the 'new boss' in this case seems to be Apple, Amazon, Google... The author didn't point out(unless in the last 10% :P ) that major record labels were involved with Spotify. That doesn't change much, as Spotify wasn't a major target in this article, but it DOES explain why indie streaming rates are so pathetic.

My best summary of this person's grievances are that iTunes style services are essentially leeches, requiring excessive margins for too little risk -- and does admit some blame lies with the internet's tendency to cluster around a select few monopolies. (which is hard to argue against) But he also cites the greed of these organizations.

It's actually worth the full read. It's incredibly long, but has some interesting industry insider information. It takes awhile, but he does eventually address the issue where both the 'old boss' and the 'new boss' operate a musicians' lottery, though he feels that there were more suitably enriched 'lottery winners' with the old boss.

I find it funny how he rails against the tech industry's anti-union bias. (personally I like it -- unless you work at a crappy company, skill and merit, not seniority, plays a major role in tech pay.)

Re:Fairly well known issue

[edremy]

The key to remembering why there were so many musicians was that recorded music didn't exist. This had two effects

1) If you wanted to hear music, you had to hear it live.

2) Most people never heard a truly amazing musician

Today it's a lot tougher- your competition isn't the guy in the next village who might be slightly less mediocre than you are, it's the entire collected work of the best musicians in the world, played flawlessly on demand. Tough to compete against that.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[JesseMcDonald]

Notice how you can't sell stock on your career? Why can a musician do that?

Who says you can't? The ability to enter into such an agreement voluntarily is an inherent natural right. If you did make such an agreement of your own free will, then abiding by it is an ethical and moral imperative, even others consider it void. I think most people just aren't stupid or desperate enough to actually agree to such a thing, outside the music industry, which gets by on lingering memories of glamour and obviously unrealistic hopes of being part of the 0.001% that makes it to the top of the heap.

Then there's the fact that what the musicians are selling is really the copyrights to works produced under their contracts, in exchange for a rather one-sided partnership. They can walk away from that and keep the revenues from any future work to themselves. However, just as you won't continue to receive income from a company you leave, they won't receive any further revenues from the copyrights they sold to the labels.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[HapSlappy_2222]

IIRC O.K. go said it was closer to 250k to launch a new national band - at the low end.

So get 250k or don't launch nationally. If I wanted to launch a nation-wide volume capable print shop and design studio, I'd be looking at half a million in equipment, people, space, advertising, and all the rest.

You're absolutely correct; starting a nation wide business out of the gate (or band) is both expensive and risky, while starting smaller is both less expensive and less risky (and, as such, less profitable). Success has many measures, and nationwide popularity is the top echelon for a band. There are other measures, though, one of them being "doing what you love to pay the rent."

But still, spending 25k on a start up with a high risk factor is more risk capital then the average person has.

Baloney. How much is the average new car these days? If you can qualify for that loan, you can go small business loan, too, if you write a solid business plan.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[humanrev]

It's sad to see art become a money game. It destroys everything art is. If you're not doing what to do because you love it and because you feel a deep desire to create something amazing, then you're doing it for the wrong reasons. Art isn't a clock punching cash machine. If that's what someone wants, then, like you said, they should do something else.

I tend to agree. Particularly with gaming, we've seen various titles and game series destroyed and had the life sucked out of them (particularly Call of Duty) because of the corporate business nature of a lot of games these days. But how can you blame them? The CoD games rack up millions of bling bling for Activision - I doubt the suits there give a fuck if they're seen as purveyors of soulless gaming, they'd just turn around and point out (legitimately) that they wouldn't be making such money if no-one was buying them.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[HapSlappy_2222]

I came across more snarky than intended. My point was only that others have struggled with these issues for decades in starting other, more mundane firms, and many more people fail than succeed. Bakeries, coffee shops, art studios, flower shops, bars, and many others all start the same way, and yes, you do have to risk a lot to cultivate your dream, but you keep risking and keep pushing until you either have no gas left, or you succeed.

I agree that all of your points are valid challenges, but is it not better to look upon them as challenges instead of obstacles?

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Brannoncyll]

Well, there's certainly some truth to that, but you're assuming that there is a free market at work here. That isn't the case. Markets require property rights - if I can pay you or not pay you for something depending on, basically, whether I give a crap or not, what you have is not a market in the capitalist sense. That is what has happened to music and is happening to other types of creative works due to the failure of the tech industry to implement strong DRM, or to stop file sharing networks. There is no market any more. Only beggars and charitable individuals.

Maybe artists should start treating their recordings as promotional material and not as a revenue source? I have seen several studies suggesting that even though recording sales are down, artists are coming out ahead as they get a considerably larger share of the profits from live performances. From a personal perspective, I have been to concerts for dozens of bands over the last few years that I would not have even heard of had I not come across their music online and downloaded their collection.

Also if you think strong DRM would solve the 'problem', ask yourself why the majority of e-book retailers are dropping DRM left right and center.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Deliveranc3]

Globalization was always going to hurt the majority of musicians. It's not all the internet you know.

There are billions more people, better connected and people can only listen to so much music.

Yea, live shows will still be popular, largely because people are willing to compromise and see a band they kind of like. But online sales will become more and more concentrated, even with independent artists having better access to recording equipment and distribution.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[perryizgr8]

Are we going to see millionaire musicians anymore? Absolutely not. Those days are done. But is music dead? Certainly not. But the record labels are no longer needed. An artists can make it on their own. Will they make the same money? No. But this is the point: yes it's less money than before, but it's either that or nothing. The old days are gone and people are going to have to accept it. But it's good because now the artists will own their own creations and can sell directly to the fans and keep all of the profits.

The problem isn't that we aren't going to see millionaire musicians anymore. The problem is that your statement that "an artist can make it on their own" is, for the most part, not true. Never mind millions -- almost no artists are making a basic living selling music anymore. I am a musician -- only an amateur, but I get around enough to know and meet lots of professional musicians, some of whom are pretty well known; and I nobody that makes enough money to eat and pay their rent/utilities from music sales. And this is pretty pervasive -- I've talked about this with lots of artists that are big enough to sell out venues that range in size between 500-3000 people and they all say the same thing: no artists, except those at the absolute top of the heap, are making a living selling their music anymore. You curse the big labels and champion the independence the modern era has allowed artists to have, and those are worthy sentiments to have, and I agree with them. But it's important to remember that perversely, the practical effect of these changes has been that only a small number of artists are making money from music sales, and by and large they aren't independent artists.

and i can't make a living out of my lego hobby too, what is your point?? why don't musicians do something they can earn money with?

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Deliveranc3]

There's a glut of everything. That's what happens when technology keeps getting better and we don't work shorter hours.

And yes, this same process will lead to higher concentrations of wealth as well. In entertainment obviously, as well.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[hxnwix]

Yes, but then the music will be freely copied, and you won't make any money

Not necessarily. I bought a couple pantyraid albums yesterday from Amazon in MP3 format because it's convenient to have known quality such as good bitrate and correct metadata. My usenet client was open in another window, and it found all their tracks... plus hundreds of remixes and other junk that doesn't interest me.

I spend perhaps $30 a month average on Amazon MP3s.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Asmodae]

No doubt, but a live show has things a recording does not. Live people performing music for starters. :) A live show is an experience that's about much more than just the music. How much more often depends on the genre and the venue and the audience. It can be small, personal, intimate, large, raucous, or spectacular. None of which is on a CD.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[perryizgr8]

Wait, what? Why must a video gamer either be a millionaire or a bedroom noodler? Why can't gamers make a decent living at their craft?

This idea that gamers should simply suffer in obscurity for their skill, that they should learn their place and not expect to earn a living doing what they love, is bullshit. That they should get a "real job", is bullshit. Of course, that's part of the American experience – as a culture, we don't value people who sit on their couch and play games; as much as the South Koreans. We value invented royalty in the United States.

i trust this analogy will make it clearer.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[perryizgr8]

if it were that valuable it wouldn't be available for free on the intarweb.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[pixelpusher220]

Yes, but then the music will be freely copied, and you won't make any money

False. If you only try to 'sell' copies of music, perhaps you won't make any money, but using those free copies to drive people to buy things that can't be copied leverages the infinite supply available on the internet. Sell tickets to a concert, sell t-shirts, sell signed prints, whatever.

Google 'Amanda Palmer' for an example. She's got a Kickstarter project that's grossed upwards of I think $800k, $100k in the first seven HOURS. You don't need labels to make records and sell things around them.

Old school is going to lose in the modern digital world. It will probably survive somewhat, but the music labels are no longer the gate keepers determining who makes it big and who doesn't.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, I had a deal on a major in the 80's, they spent about 250K on my record. I never came close to recouping. I was dropped and walked away debt free. Try that with a bank. If I had a hit, they would have made some $, and I would then have renegotiated my terms to get a better deal. The labels are SOBs and they play 100 mph hardball, just like any corporation does with it's contract labor.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Anonymous Coward]

There you go! Being the creative type that I am, I understand that the money has never really been in purely selling the music to the masses. You might get 10 points for each record sold, and that's if you are REALLY popular and good. And with that tiny percentage you as an artist need to pay for your studio time, music videos, mangers, agents, lawyers etc. before you even see a dime. The real money has always and forever will be in live shows and since recording, licensing of music. At the end of the day, people don't really want to buy music. It's intangible and difficult to set a price that everyone can agree to or thinks is 'fair'. People simply want to be entertained, to escape, to set an atmosphere. A perfect example of this is the rise in electronic music. Most of these artists basically give away their music and do a ton of self promotion via any source possible. Then they tour like crazy, sometimes having multiple shows at different venues in a day.

Today, we are almost reverting back to the days when there were no recording devices. Except for the licensing aspect now, people back in the day had to perform to make money. If people didn't want to SEE you (hear you live), then you weren't a musician for very long. I feel this is a step in the right direction because it puts more food on the plate of the people that actually deserve it. Plus it helps weed out the crap.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Eskarel]

Alternatively, if you got a million dollar loan from the Bank(even if they would give it to you) and then your business failed you'd still be on the hook for a million dollars. If you signed to a record label and your record failed they still pay you.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Eskarel]

They aren't really. They're selling stock in the next X records they make where X is the number defined in the contract they sign.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[geminidomino]

I assume you mean 32GB. 32MB isn't even enough for one CD using quality settings that would make Beethoven's teeth grind. :)

I'm honestly surprised that people still put up with the 25-minutes-per-hour of radio ads these days. Even my mom has a little 4GB Sansa that connects into the car stereo.

I'd go nuts without my iPod (the only HDD based mp3 player I can find anymore) and my Discworld audiobooks.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[David Gerard]

Musicians pirate Cubase and their VSTs all the frickin' time. By piracy theory, Steinberg should have gone bust by now selling dongleware.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[TranquilVoid]

No but I am entitled to a refund if the song or movie I buy is crap

To the best of my knowledge you are not legally entitled to this for movies, it's just part of the customer service theatres in your area provide as part of their business model.

Legal consumer guarantees usually cover you not getting the advertised product of a quality widely held to be 'reasonable' (e.g. a microwave or plumbing work). They don't apply to the highly-individual area of artistic satisfaction.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[David Gerard]

"for some reason the guy thinks that most artists were paid an advance under the old recording label model. I wonder how true this was, really?"

What he means is that record company accounting means they will never, ever pay out a royalty cheque. All the money you will ever see from the label is the advance. You will usually get some royalties on publishing.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[pixelpusher220]

Shame you posted AC. You're 2nd paragraph is almost word for word what I've been saying for years. The internet is taking music back to the 17th century; when you wanted to hear music you needed live musicians...period.

You can't copy that feeling and experience. That's where the money is...and also why even established bands are touring like crazy. That money is primarily theirs and not the labels.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[the_arrow]

See also The Problem With Music by Steve Albini.

He also lists all income/expenses of a fictional band, it's not a happy read for aspiring musicians.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Eskarel]

Very few artists ever made a living selling music because even if the entire album cost was pure profit for the artist you'd still need to be selling 2000 a year to make a 30 grand a year, which isn't exactly rolling in cash, and that's in a dream world where you have no costs and can sell at $15 per album(which as a no name band you can't). Add to that the fact that unless you're producing an album a year which is fairly uncommon, you're looking at increasing that basic fan base by an proportional factor.

In reality you might sell your album for $10 on iTunes, you'd probably produce an album about once every 3 years, Apple would take 30% of that and probably at least half the rest of it would go into production costs. Leaving you with 3.50 per album and requiring you to have a fan base of 30,000 just to eat and pay your rent.

Getting 30,000 people who will buy your album is hard, and given the way that popularity tends to snowball, if you can get 30,000 people to buy your album you can probably get 100,000 to buy your album or even substantially more.

The big difference between the old system and the new system is that in the old system the record company took all the risk. A shitty band who got signed would get paid even if their album did incredibly poorly, which is why the RIAA takes such a big cut.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Kalriath]

May work for music, but that model won't work for movies or software. What do you propose there?

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Kalriath]

I'd like to spend money on Amazon MP3, but Amazon doesn't want me to. Instead I'm stuck with the inferior and more expensive iTunes service.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[flyneye]

It's like I've been saying in forums for years. The industry is dead, Musicians can give away their music to promote their live act . There really isn't a need for an industry.(copyright could go in the trash for that matter) Musicians would be much better off on their own. Trent Reznor brought forth a great example of what an artist can do on his own. GIVE AWAY THE MUSIC. Take control of your own career. Sell value added bundles of records,DVDs and goodies. Book your own tour. Advertise your own tour. DIY. It's been discovered, years ago, touring is where a band profits. If you eliminate the costs incurred by a record contract, an artist could begin profiting as fast as he can book. He could also expect not to be in the poor house after a "third album" or have his songs irretrievably owned by someone else.(just give it away)
          Sorry but I feel little sympathy for Lowreys lack of imagination and fix-the-old-tractor mentality. Times are changing, the ability to sell intangible garbage is a fad supported by only a small portion of the populace. The world is tired of being ripped off and downloads whatever they want now. There is old wisdom that says struggling against the world is a fools errand. The old business model has fallen ill and is laying in bed wheezing and rattling as we speak. The antics of the RIAA in courtrooms across the world is pretty much proof of that. The next one will be the scenario I described if men wish to take their own destinys and free their bonds, ridding themselves of a parasite while they're at it. Let's just go ahead and give the industry a shove over the edge. Sorry, but any artists foolishly clinging to it ,go over too.

BTW, for those wondering about credentials for my hubris , I've been an artist, journalist, studio owner, agent, and luthier for over 3 decades. I've even had my hand at producing $! I've seen the beast from the inside out and believe me the illusion of a new boss with a new way is about as misleading as presidential campaign promises. Want another opinion from a professional, heres a man with some saavy instead of Lowrey. http://www.negativland.com/news/?page_id=17 , Steve Albini, another guy who's been in the shit and seen the horrors. His credentials are on the page as well.
 

Re:Fairly well known issue

[tehcyder]

Ah yes, the now legendary slashdot "you can always sell action figures" argument for an alternative funding model for the arts.

You are a fucking philistine.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[tehcyder]

Whilst you are correct, at least everyone from the Beatles to King Crimson got some money from selling their records, as opposed to the spiffy new business model of giving all your creations away on the internet and depending on charity/patronage/selling merchandise to earn a living.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[tehcyder]

Actually, there is a difference. A bank will give you a loan and expect you to pay it back with a certain interest rate. When you've paid that back, you just have to pay your other costs, rest of your income goes into your pocket. With a record label you're forever stuck with only getting a small cut, and sometimes they even withhold a part of this to cover costs they think belong to the artist. This is different. I don't think anyone would ever take a loan from a bank that demands that 90% of all future income from the investment go straight to the bank.

Lots of people would if they believed the investment they made with that loan would make them rich and famous. Especially if they felt (whether correct or not) that they had no other options for getting the loan. And that only counts the people who understand what they are signing. Quite a few others would take it because the loan officer promised them everything they wanted while glossing over the details.

If I were a poor but talented teenager, I'd quite happily agree to a bank taking 90% of my millions if it was going to get me famous.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[tehcyder]

Storage space is dirt cheap; you can get a 32MB SD card for around $30 now, and that's enough for a quite large music collection.

Well, if your definition of large is 6 songs...

Re:Fairly well known issue

[tehcyder]

Now, if you like an act and what them to continue to make music, the best thing you can do for them is go see them live and buy their stuff at the merch table.

But I don't want to go to live gigs, and I certainly don't want to buy shitty T-shirts. I'm quite happy to pay the artist for the music I listen to at home by buying a download or a CD.

I knowt this is incredibly old-fashioned of me, and probably only second to expressing an admiration for Microsoft products in terms of negative geek cool.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Kalriath]

Here's the real question, you say that you're not willing to go to live shows, but do you purchase or pirate recorded music? If you pirate it, then exactly what will satisfy you short of the musician coming to your house and giving you all his belongings since you clearly don't believe they deserve any compensation? It annoys me that no matter how many solutions are proposed to the supposed reason for people pirating music, pirates will always have a new justification for why they won't pay for it. First it was "I refuse to pay for DRMed music". Then once the DRM was gone, it was "why should I pay for lossy compressed music? I want it in lossless format". Then when lossless became available (albeit limited places) it was "that doesn't work with AcmeObscureMediaPlayer 3.7554.564. I want it in Vorbis or another patent free format". Then there's "recorded music is just promotional materials. They should do live shows". Then after that it was "Live shows are a major time sink. I don't go to them".

This may not necessarily apply to you. In which case, congratulations on being honest and ethical. But you can bet your ass there's a ton of people here that have used every complaint under the sun to justify their piracy.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[tehcyder]

So I became an engineer instead..... something few people can do, so I get paid big bucks. You (and others) ought to try the same if music isn't working out for you.

If it's something few people can do, how the fuck is everybody supposed to do what you do?

Do you not comprehend that someone may be good at music or burger flipping, but not have the slightest interest or skill in designing plastic widgets or whatever mind-blowing engineering work you do?

Oh, and congratulations on getting paid big bucks, I hope it compensates for the fact that you have no soul.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[AngryDeuce]

But for the most part I'd rather listen to music generated by people who do it for a living, than those who do it in their spare time.

Why? The music will speak for itself regardless of whether the person making it is doing it in hour long chunks over the course of 6 months or getting paid to spend a week in a major label's studio.

Let's not pretend that quality of a given piece of music is related to whether it's generated by a "professional" musician or not. As I said above, some of the most amazing musicians I have heard play have been buskers playing on a street corner. Obviously, we're also all familiar with the major label darling that fucking sucks but looks good in a skin-tight outfit.

The barrier to entry is now so low in music that the playing field has effectively been leveled. The majors can no longer throw millions at pimping out their newest whore and have a guaranteed hit, because they're competing with a kid making music in his garage in his spare time giving the shit away for free because he wants the exposure more then the money. How can a music lover see anything wrong with that? The quality of the music is actually starting to mean something again.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[AngryDeuce]

Sounds tasty.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[tehcyder]

No, he's saying that it's time to come back to reality and realize that we can't all be fucking professional football players, ballerinas, astronauts, rock stars, movie stars, stand-up comedians...

So what? The reason I wasn't a professional football player is that I wasn't particularly good at football. But I'm quite happy to pay money to see professional football.

I don't see what your point is. No one is saying that just because you say "I'm a musician" you have some magic entitlement to fame and wealth. You have to be a good mjsician, put the work in, whatever it takes. But it should be possible to earn a living as a musician if you are providing something that a lot of people want and enjoy.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[tehcyder]

Nowhere did I say that they couldn't make a living at their craft. I said that they need to accept the reality that they probably won't.

There is a difference between struggling as an artist for acceptance and never getting it, and succeeding in becoming popular and still not getting any money for it.

Why shouldn't someone whose music is listened to by millions of people be able to earn a living out of it?

The trouble with people like you is that (whatever your claims about being a composer) is that you don't take art seriously. You just think it's a hobby

Re:Fairly well known issue

[AngryDeuce]

But it should be possible to earn a living as a musician if you are providing something that a lot of people want and enjoy.

It absolutely is. It's just becoming harder to become ridiculously wealthy doing it. You know, like 99.99999% of the careers out there?

Re:Fairly well known issue

[tehcyder]

I've got a ton of posters and band T-shirts

That's cool if you're fifteen.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[tehcyder]

THIS. This should be modded up much higher than 5. I've been trying to communicate this for a while now.

Yeah, you and 99% of the other posters on slashdot. Do you not ever read anyone else's posts?

Re:Fairly well known issue

[AngryDeuce]

Why shouldn't someone whose music is listened to by millions of people be able to earn a living out of it?

Who fucking said that? There is an enormous difference between "earning a living" and becoming ridiculously rich. The people that get into music expecting to become ridiculously rich are retards.

The trouble with people like you is that (whatever your claims about being a composer) is that you don't take art seriously. You just think it's a hobby

Oh, fuck you. I take my music very seriously. I'm just not under any illusions that I'm owed a fucking living doing it. No other career choice comes with a guaranteed salary, so why the fuck should music?

Like I said in a previous comment, people are basically whining because so many new musicians out there are content to give their music away in order to gain exposure. They can't figure out how to compete with that. What is your solution? Ban giving away music? Force them to charge for their music? Yeah, right.

No matter how much the musicians of yesteryear can't understand it, there are just too many great artists out there that are willing to give their shit away for free and now, thanks to the internet, we can all find it just as easily as we can find their own overpriced shit. A garage band can now honestly compete head to head with the major label darling. For music lovers, there is absolutely no downside to that. For the assholes getting driven around in limos there probably is, but again, hard to feel sympathy for them. Not when some kid actually has a shot at getting recognized when, in years past, they never would have.

I bet, thanks to modern technology, there are far more people "making a living" off of their music than there ever has been before. They're not becoming rich doing it, but they're earning their living.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[tehcyder]

There's way too much music coming out for me to even keep track of, and at the current price for music ($10 an album) I can only really justify buying an album every few months

Unless you are some subsistence-level farmer in Africa, I find this very hard to believe. You can only justify $40 or $50 a year on music? Presumably you don't ever eat out, go to the cinema, have a few beers or buy new clothes if you're that poor.

And if you are, tough, you don't need to buy albums to live.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[AngryDeuce]

Thanks for the tip...

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Ol Biscuitbarrel]

Actually pre-recording devices most everyone sang; many played instruments. There was no concept of a "performance," outside of the art music world. Common folk would just make music as the mood struck them, which all changed when the recording industry became ubiquitous, and the attitude towards musicianship became much more formalized.

This music of the people is generally referred to as "traditional music," as opposed to "folk music," which means Pete Seeger et al; and it lasted - indeed, continued developing - a lot longer than the 17th century; in fact many people still play these various musics today.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[tbannist]

Copyright infringement seems to have very little impact on sales. A bigger issue might be that musicians now have to compete with every band ever recorded since the phonograph was invented. This is limited somewhat by changes in music style, for example not many people are listening to 1920s chamber music. However, many people still love Elvis and the Beatles (for example). So now every new music act competes with bands which are long gone. Even worse they have to compete with TVv, movies, video games, and social media. Some of these alternatives have been around for a while some are new. With the economic stagnation of the middle class from around the 1970s in the United States the amount of money being spent on entertainment is increasing like it did during the 40s, 50s and 60s. The real reason that "recording artists" are having a hard time making ends meet likely has a lot more to do with competition in the face of limited budgets.

Furthermore, many of the actions taken (supposedly on behalf of artists) by the industry are net negative for new entrants. Copyright extension increases competition for scarce entertainment dollars by artificially inflating the value of the great acts of years gone by. If the Beatles work, for example, was no longer covered by copyright, it would cost less and thus present less competition to other artists. The music industry has also been gradually tightening the wrench on bands, they have become more risk adverse and thus try to game the system so that increasing the band bears proportionally more of the risk. They've also reduced the number of groups they fund and limited the diversity of music they will fund. As time continues, more of consumer's music money seems to flow to "independent labels".

All the moaning and groaning over piracy is the tail waging the dog. It's overall economic factors and technological progression that are hurting the music business. I'm pretty sure the top 1% (the people who haven't had their wages stagnate for 40 years) don't buy enough music to make up for the 99% who have seen their entertainment budgets increasingly stretched by all the changes over the last 40 years.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[tehcyder]

To be honest, if the choice was between the current *AA or no new art, I think I would go with no new art.

That is one of the most profoundly stupid remarks I have seen on slashdot this year, and I browse at -1

Re:Fairly well known issue

[tbannist]

That's a questionable broadening of the concept of trade. I have no problem paying someone for work done, however, once we delve into "copies of music" suddenly we're talking about something which literally can be duplicated with the push of a single button. Performing the song doesn't actually involve much work, it could take as little as 5 minutes (or less) to record the music. How much money is a duplicate of a recording of that work actually worth? It seems to me it shouldn't be worth much at all. Live performance? That's worth money. Recording of a live performance? Now you're asking to get paid twice for the same work.

In the U. S. copyright is granted for the promotion of the arts and sciences. It does not exist to benefit artists except as far as benefiting artists serves to promote the arts and sciences. Recordings are "works" not "work", digital recording are ephemeral.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[tehcyder]

No but I am entitled to a refund if the song or movie I buy is crap.

No. You're not.

And I think the use of the word "entitled" is very revealing. You are not entitled to free entertainment, and only a spoiled child would think otherwise. If you don't want to buy something, then don't. No one's forcing you to buy crappy songs or films.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[tbannist]

But if you are trying to sell "recorded music" it's a very important point to understand. You have to compete with every musician who was alive at some point in the last 75 years. That's why most musicians make almost all of their music from live performances (and merchandise sold at live performances).

Re:Fairly well known issue

[GlobalEcho]

no artists, except those at the absolute top of the heap, are making a living selling their music anymore.

We bought our house from, and are friends with, a couple who are both symphonic musicians - she with the LA Phil and he with Long Beach. AFAIK they don't have other jobs, yet they are doing fairly well.

I am personal friends with a few musicians from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. They are not wealthy, but doing fine...enough for a modest townhouse, a car, and some neat bicycles. Of course, getting any full-time job playing for an orchestra is pretty top-of-the-heap considering how many classical musicians graduate each year from even just the top 3 programs (Eastman, Oberlin, Julliard).

More commonly, one finds classical musicians who are part-time with an orchestra, and have other jobs. I think that's true of several of the musicians in the Chicago Philharmonic for example.

In classical music, more than pop, performance is where the money is. If your orchestra records Beethoven's 9th, you're competing with hundreds of previous recordings, some of them amazing, while splitting the proceeds among a hundred people.

Ironically, classical music may be leading pop in this sense.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Saint Fnordius]

Let's be totally honest here, there has never been a time when musicians could expect to make a decent living making music. Being able to make a comfortable living as a musician was always akin to winning the lottery.

What the post-media conglomerate era does promise, though, is that there will be more chances again for good musicians to become moderate successes, as live performances become more important and music studios lose their power as gatekeepers. So instead of just one superstar act out of a thousand, we now have ten star acts out of a thousand.

You do recognise that recordings are becoming more of a promotional tool rather than something sold for profit, though I would add that what is important is the quality of the recording also plays a role. Those recordings that are swapped and shared tend to be lower or questionable quality, but people still buy music from Apple and Amazon, are willing to pay for high quality and reliability. This is an important nuance, and I feel that in the end streaming and sharing of low-fi files will take the role that radio and hit compilations used to fill, with hi-fi recordings replacing the purchased singles and albums.

But music, like any other art, will remain a difficult medium to become successful in. The only real difference now is that we can see the number of artists that couldn't even make it into the gatekeeper's stables.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[GlobalEcho]

The people that "make it" in the industry (and while I know this is true in music, it's probably true in film and other arts as well) aren't necessarily very good at their given craft anyway. Most of the time, it's just a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Conversely, I've met some of the most ridiculously talented musicians busking for spare change

I totally agree. Consider, this guy, who won a MacArthur "Genius" grant, is the undisputed leading modern scholar and performer of ragtime music, and yet still cannot afford his own grand piano.

Success was never really about talent, was it?

Re:Fairly well known issue

[fuzznutz]

You are correct. It is an interesting read.

The article is a mixture of insightful accounting analysis; Ad hominem attacks and name calling for the tech industry; Rants about the injustice of Apple's excessive (in his judgment) margins for their minimal (again in his judgment) risk. Apparently he is unaware of the first mover phenomena; Whining about his declining recording studio business; Complaining about smaller audiences for live performances; Justification of excessive cost structures of music recording and reminiscing of the "good old days."

I was on board up to the point he tried to justify the huge labor costs of "recording" by telling how time consuming it is to position instruments and microphones in the recording room just to get the "right" sound. Yeah, right... Sorry, dude. I don't like the shifting realities and competing against "unfair" things either. Shit moves fast in this modern world. You still want to hang on to that 70s & 80s style music business, but the customer doesn't. The "value" of music is lower which you know by your own research. Don't think you can keep the same cost structure and long for the past. Ain't gonna happen...

Re:Fairly well known issue

[cpu6502]

>>>To the best of my knowledge you are not legally entitled to this for movies

I know. Which is why I download before I buy. I'm not going to be screwed out of my money for shit like Transformers 2. If they are not going to offer a refund, then I will view it FIRST for free, rather than risk being ripped-off by drek. (And 99% of the movies lately are drek.)

Re:Fairly well known issue

[cpu6502]

>>>You are not entitled to free entertainment,

Consumer protection laws say you ARE entitled to not be ripped-off by shysters selling exrement, and said laws side with the customer on virtually every case. Item not delivered? Refund. Item described as new but actually used? Refund. M&Ms didn't taste right and customer returned them? Refund.

And when I saw Transformers 2, it certainly fit the bill of excrement. The first was good but the second was mind-numbingly dull. Which is why I download before I buy, rather than be screwed out of my money by drek. (And if it's good, then I'll hand over the cash for the Bluray.)

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Grishnakh]

Even back in the 90s, I had something in my car called a "CD player", so I could play whatever I wanted without having to listen to commercials or annoying DJs. And before that, I had a cassette player.

You fucking idiot.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[randomencounter]

Indeed, it does continue to this very day.

There's a lot of music that happens that will never be commercially successful, but is quite enjoyable for the people making and hearing it.

To quote a Duane Elms song (Threes: Rev. 2.0):
Three things you should be wary of,
A new kid in his prime,
A man with all the answers,
And a code that runs first time.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[sarysa]

Yeah, that left a bad taste in my mouth...I forgot to mention it because my "best summary" was kinda crap. But it seemed that he was unwilling to minimize or downright cut out any part of his supply chain. The iTunes successes have included bizarre entites like Auto Tune the News, which do not jump through all those hoops to get their work out. I feel that he's choosing an unrealistic level of perfectionism over fiscal responsibility, a level that virtually no consumer is going to notice anyway.

Speaking of ATtN, it's clear that he's almost completely unaware of the new styles of talent that have succeeded in a post-digital music world that could never have gotten the startup money with the old boss. I did end up leaving the article wondering if certain genres will just disappear due to financial woes, but computers really can simulate virtually every sound imaginable...hrm...

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Americano]

That's a questionable broadening of the concept of trade.

Actually no, it's a pretty standard definition of the concept of trade: mutual exchange to mutual benefit, with neither side subject to compulsion. Both sides are welcome to negotiate, to haggle, and try to get the best deal they can; but when either side declares that it's his "right" to take something he wants at any time with no consideration given to the creator, and then acts on that "right," that is not "trade" that is "pillage."

once we delve into "copies of music" suddenly we're talking about something which literally can be duplicated with the push of a single button.

I see, and are there magical "Song Trees" growing in your fairy tale world where there's no time, equipment, or money sunk into the creation of the song and its production? Or are you just ignoring the weeks or months of time and material it can take to write, arrange, record, and produce it? And the fact that it costs very real money to *live* - you know eat, sleep, have shelter, electricity, running water - for those weeks or months of time?

Performing the song doesn't actually involve much work

Diagnosis: PHB syndrome - "That which I do not understand must be easy." Do you play an instrument? Have you performed in public? Have you ever written a song? Have you ever performed your own song in public? Have you ever even watched somebody perform a song? Have you ever watched somebody record a song? Have you ever recorded your own song?

it could take as little as 5 minutes (or less) to record the music.

Yes, as little as 5 minutes, or as long as weeks or months. Take a wild guess for me: how many songs do you think are recorded in only 5 minutes? How many more take days, or weeks, or studio time to get right? (Hint: It's the "days or weeks" one that's FAR more common.)

How much money is a duplicate of a recording of that work actually worth?

Here's what I don't understand at all about this pro-piracy argument. Unless you're running around downloading songs you hate that duplicate of a recording of that work is *CLEARLY* worth something to you. Why else would you go out of your way to install software to pirate the music and risk legal repercussions, only to download a bunch of music you hate? So you're receiving benefit from having a copy of the music, right? It means something to you, you enjoy it?

So why is the artist who created that song not entitled to some benefit in return? Leaving aside the question of "how much money for a single copy of an mp3" - if you get value out of the music, why do you feel no desire to give something back to the artist who has enriched your life that way?

It does not exist to benefit artists except as far as benefiting artists serves to promote the arts and sciences.

So, please explain this tortuous logic for me:

1) Copyright exists to promote the arts and sciences.
2) Copyright doesn't exist to benefit the artists.

In light of the fact that artists who retain copyrights and are able to sell copies of their work for a fair price are able to devote more time to the creation of new art because they can pay their bills with the income from those sales - resulting in more art being created. Copyright benefits "the arts" by benefitting the artist.

Recordings are "works"

Correct, they are "works" - which copyright grants them the exclusive rights to, affording them the opportunity to sell copies of that artistic work as they see fit for the term of the copyright. If you want to argue for copyright term reduction, I'd agree that the current state is pretty ridiculous. But if you want to argue that artists shouldn't retain copyrights to their work "because I want a copy," then

Re:Fairly well known issue

[pixelpusher220]

She fully acknowledges she's got some name recognition. The loyal following? You don't get that without being good and providing what people want (and surpassing even).

Are you going from zero to Amanda Palmer status overnight? Not likely. But technically it's possible - without any label intervention, just crowd funding. You have to provide a compelling reason for people to donate, but if you can't do that, you probably weren't getting that demo tape advance either...
BR The tools exist for anyone with the talent and skill to do this - without the aid of the labels. That is fundamentally different than ever before.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Eivind Eklund]

To be honest, if the choice was between the current *AA or no new art, I think I would go with no new art.

That is one of the most profoundly stupid remarks I have seen on slashdot this year, and I browse at -1

I'm not the original poster, but let me try a rephrase of it:

Between the rights that are eroding due to *AA attempting to protect copyrighted mass distributed entertainment, and the production of new copyrighted mass distributed entertainment, I'd rather give up the production of new entertainment than the rights.

Does that make more sense to you?

Eivind.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[NulDevice]

Cost of recordings has gone down, yes.

The cost of recording *well* is still reasonably high. Not "booking 2 days at Sarm West" high like it used to be, but even with the cheap DAWs of today, you still need good converters, monitors, acoustic spaces, microphones, etc, and these things still cost a premium. The cost of a Neumann U87 hasn't dropped much in the past 20 years, and while a good digital converter is a lot cheaper than it used to be, you can easily drop a few grand on something like a PrismSound or a Metric Halo.

While comparatively that's not much compared to time at Abbey Road or whatever, if you're an indie band struggling to put gas in the van, you're not going to get very far beyond that "couple of 57's and a cheap soundcard", which...well, you *can* make good recordings that way, but it's a lot harder (especially in some genres) than doing it with the right gear.

And there's still the "time" factor. Yeah, sure, you can plug in a mic, point it at your guitar, and go, but...are you *really* a good engineer? Are you really going to be able to competently mix your album without a lot of learning curve? Master it? Then promote it?

Saying "you can always go live and get paid for concerts" is...well, it's a nice thought, but it's kind of naive. There are a zillion touring bands out there right now all working off that model. Do you, as a consumer, go out every night, drop $8 on cover charge and see a show? Do all your friends? Once a week? Once a month? Do you routinely buy $25 worth of merch? The competition for touring bands is super-high. Even those that gig locally every weekend, year round don't make the bucks, simply because...well, how many times will you want to go see the same band if you're not sleeping with the lead guitarist?

My last tour, which we prepared for assiduously, cut every financial corner we could (no hotel rooms, couchsurfing, minimal haulage, skimping on meals, etc) made, after 10 shows up and down the east coast...$16. And we were the lucky ones. The band we toured with lost their asses because they rented a trailer and did an additional show after we left that required an extra long-haul down the coast.

Margins on touring and performing live are razor, razor thin, unless you're, like, Coldplay. This idea that "oh, every musician is going to just make their money performing live" isn't going to work.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Americano]

This presupposes you have no way of determining the quality of a movie or song before purchase.

Numerous film, music, and other art critics exist to issue opinions - read them, and it's likely you'll find at least a few people writing reviews whose taste largely matches your own, and make good barometers for you to use. Numerous fan discussion sites also exist; Amazon reviews, Netflix reviews, fan discussion boards, and your own review of the trailer, the actors' & directors' & screenwriters' previous work, clips, interviews; There are many ways to form an opinion about the likely quality without buying - Radio, broadcast television, cinemas, and other online formats also exist where you can listen to music and see movies before purchasing them, to decide whether or not you'll like them and want to own a copy.

IF you're following the strictest letter of this policy - e.g., the moment you decide you're not into a movie or song, you delete it and never bother with it again, or the moment you decide that you're *INTO* a movie or song, you go and buy it immediately, then I can't argue *too much* against a 'try before you buy' mentality. But if you're "I downloaded all these things, and kept them, but ALMOST NEVER watch them / listen because they're crap," then you're just rationalizing sketchy behavior so you can feel better about yourself.

Hell even candy companies provide refunds for dissatisfactory products.

They'll offer refunds if it's defective - e.g., you open the wrapper and there's a bunch of dead beetles in the package; And they MAY offer a refund if you "just don't like the taste," but that's not enshrined in any sort of law that they have to - that's a customer service perk you get because they want you to feel comfortable trying their candy.

Where it becomes hard to argue this point is if you've downed the entire bag of chips, candy, etc., and then decided, after consuming the whole thing:
"Those chips were so AWFUL I demand a refund!"
"But sir, you ate the entire bag."
"Yeah, and the entire bag was nasty! You're lucky I could even choke it down!"

And this is how a lot of these arguments play out -
"Transformers 2 was crap! I wouldn't pay money for that!"
"Well why is it still on your hard drive, and why have you watched it 3 times?"
"TO MAKE SURE IT REALLY WAS CRAP!"

Re:Fairly well known issue

[lgw]

"Piracy" of printed sheet music was a serious problem too, by the late 1800s IIRC. Somehow the industy survived that as well. I do think the society's approach to music was better when most people played their own for entertainment most of the time.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[tilante]

Symphonic musicians don't sell *their* music - they're paid to perform *someone else's* music. The equivalent in the recording industry would be "session musicians", who are paid to play in recording studios when a band needs an extra person, someone who plays an instrument no one in the band plays, etc. Depending on the area, they charge $75 - $150 an hour for their work. There are people in LA, Nashville, and NYC who make their sole living doing that.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[doccus]

A very good summary.. however, the promotion that a label was able to accomplish, and their ability to cover expenses touring, until there was some net benefit in exposure, was priceless.. Doing it on one's own is damn near impossible. I have an album from an old band of mine, posted FREE at http://docrockstudio.blogspot.ca/2012/04/i-finally-caught-it.html , and I have had NO responses or even feedback , at all. Period. It's not a heavily trafficked blog , but even so, it goes to show the sheer impossibility of the situation. The other real problem , is the lack of venues. Now that so many clubs have gone "house", and no longer hire working bands, especially in Canada, it's near impossible to support a band unless everybody in it is independently wealthy

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Americano]

In that case, it is clear that it's the industry who is doing the bulk of pillaging, as they're the ones who keep on yapping about their copyrights, when it's not really a right, but a government granted privilege.

I think you're conflating two distinct issues here.

One is the, "I purchased it, I should be able to watch it / listen to it wherever, whenever, however I wish." And on that score, I have no objection: I think it's absolutely reasonable to be able to format and device shift - I bought a copy of the song, I want to be able to listen to it on my iPhone, burn it to a CD to listen in my car, listen on my computer, etc. I bought a copy of the DVD, I want to be able to put it on my laptop to watch when I travel, or stream it from my media library to a tv. This, in my opinion, is completely legitimate fair use, and I'm in full agreement - to the extent that the industry attempts to prevent *these* types of uses (e.g., personal use, not redistribution), they're in the wrong.

The second issue is the "I shouldn't have to pay for anything because music wants to be free," argument, and that is unequivocally a legitimate copyright issue that the companies (and, more importantly, artists) SHOULD object to that notion, and SHOULD assert their copyrights to stop that infringement. And for the record, I would also agree that copyright terms should be significantly shorter than they are now.

What it boils down to, for me, is ethical behavior. If I want a copy of something, and the person who created it has not consented to it being distributed for free, it's not my "right" to distribute my own copy wherever I want, and it's not my "right" to take a copy just because I can. I either pay their asking price, negotiate a better price, or do without their creation because the value it represents *for* me isn't proportional to the value they're asking *from* me.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[fuzznutz]

You are once again correct.

I think that his reluctance to reduce the supply chain might be because his profitability depends so much on it. If you charge by the hour, there is no incentive to rush. His complaint that people are too lazy to buy directly from his website when they can use one click shopping at Amazon struck me as particularly whiny. Most of his complaints about the "new boss" sounded a lot like envy. Their businesses are growing and margins are good while his is declining. He overestimates his particular importance in the market. The proof is in his very own numbers. Supply/Demand Just because he knows people that can't afford to record and sell new music doesn't mean that nobody can.

Sorry. We all face that kind of competition all the time. How many TV repair shops in your town? How many Fotomat kiosks can you find? When did the Fuller Brush man last visit your home? It's a disruptive market shift. My industry segment is facing it right now and I'm looking at a career shift to cope. That's life.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[sarysa]

Yeah, TFA has some valid points, but it does seem to be more problems than solutions. I look forward to watching how the industry is going to evolve, from the outside since my musical talent puts me around amateur/karaoke. ;)

I will throw him a bone though: He's from an era where technological progress was much slower, and a lot of the old guard just aren't used to the culture of constant change. Maybe 20 years from now when he's chatting it up with his grandkids, he'll see how we're all managing a living in a chaotic marketplace.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[MacWiz]

The real difference is that if you get a loan from a bank to (for instance) buy a house, when you finally pay it off, the bank doesn't still own the house.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Rakarra]

You guys are both kind of right. Beiber is a very good example of sucker making bank.

Just Beiber is actually quite talented. Well, not as a singer, and he only impresses teenage girls and their immense amounts of disposable income with his performing skills.

No, his real talent is in drumming. If he sticks with that he might actually be good some day.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[sneakyimp]

"sticks" with it lol. you troll.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[jwhitener]

"In order to make money you need to be significantly better than the laymen that do it for free for their own enjoyment. "

In music that isn't so much the case. As long as you are at a professional level, (for example, can reproduce a well known song fairly well with your chosen instrument), what is most important next is market research followed by marketing skills.

Market research: Music is art. But not all art sells. If you have a certain style, go see other bands playing that style. Look at what sells and what isn't selling. The audience is the customer, and sometimes that means bowing to what an audience wants to hear. Self indulgent musicians who refuse to examine their music as a product won't sell as much as musicians who think they are 'true artists' who can't be bothered to tweak their music to make it more appealing.

Marketing yourself: Constant radio interviews, constant fan communication (facebook, twitter, etc..) , free samples and song downloads on lots of sites, getting to know music bloggers, etc.. and touring pretty much 300+ days a year.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Americano]

but others may think that it's unethical that the creator has any say at all what people can do with property they paid for.

Sure those others are welcome to invent wildly imaginative but flimsy rationalizations for antisocial behavior, that's absolutely their prerogative.

The public will respond accordingly: reject overbearing DRM (I hear some boycott entire companies over their DRM)

And that's an absolutely reasonable response to terms you consider onerous. Saying, "Well fuck you, I'll download pirated copies anyway," is not. If you are willing to go to the trouble of pirating the game, movie, or music, the simple fact that you're willing to do that carries the implicit assumption that the item you're pirating has value to you. Taking value while offering nothing of value in return is the work of a parasite, and is inherently unsustainable: what the pirates hope is that enough people will keep paying for content that their misappropriation won't completely kill the market.

crack the easy ones

A reasonable response, provided the crack is for personal use - ripping a DVD to a hard drive; cracking a password so you don't have to be online to play a game you've purchased, stripping DRM from an MP3 you purchased so you can play it on another computer/device. If you are cracking it with the express intent of redistribution, it becomes unreasonable (see my point above about parasitism). Cheap or zero-cost reproduction does not eliminate the investment of time, money, and skill required to *create in the first place.* The cost of reproduction is a small fraction of the overall cost.

buy into ones that are acceptable (Steam is rather popular even amongst the anti-DRM crowd)

Again, completely reasonable. I want to be clear here: I am not supporting draconian DRM schemes, or unlimited copyright terms. I am simply suggesting that, if you take something of value, the proper thing to do is to provide something of value in return to the creator. This benefits them, in that they can pay their bills; It also benefits you, because supporting creative types who create things you value means they will have more time (and money) to create additional creative works to enrich your community - a virtuous cycle, if ever any cycle was virtuous.

Re:Fairly well known issue

[tbannist]

Actually no, it's a pretty standard definition of the concept of trade: mutual exchange to mutual benefit, with neither side subject to compulsion. Both sides are welcome to negotiate, to haggle, and try to get the best deal they can; but when either side declares that it's his "right" to take something he wants at any time with no consideration given to the creator, and then acts on that "right," that is not "trade" that is "pillage."

If I copy a recording of a song, what have I taken?

If I have purchased a recording and I copy it and play it for a friend, you would have me believe that this is somehow morally evil while if I play the original copy that is morally good. Does this not seem strange to you? That indistinguishable copies of a recording are somehow morally colored according to some arbitrary numbering.

I see, and are there magical "Song Trees" growing in your fairy tale world where there's no time, equipment, or money sunk into the creation of the song and its production?

In the case outlined, I'm paying for a copy of a recording. The song may or may not be original and may or may not be written by the performer.

Or are you just ignoring the weeks or months of time and material it can take to write, arrange, record, and produce it?

I fail to see why I should care about how inefficient the composer is at writing songs. If he can't write a single song in months, he is probably not cut out for the business.

And the fact that it costs very real money to *live* - you know eat, sleep, have shelter, electricity, running water - for those weeks or months of time?

Frankly, everyone faces those exact same problems. I see little reason to believe a musician is somehow more entitled to the necessities of life than everyone else.

Diagnosis: PHB syndrome - "That which I do not understand must be easy."

I said it doesn't take much work, not talent. I would have been more impressed if you hadn't delved into juvenile taunting. I can only conclude it's because you could not answer the question and have conceded the point that recording a song can take very little time. Even "days" of recording falls into the "not much work" category, to me. With an album of 12 songs, that would be, generously, 60 days of work a year. I'm not aware of many professions that allow people to work between 1 hour and 60 days of the year while still covering a decent middle class lifestyle. Why should musicians be any different?

Here's what I don't understand at all about this pro-piracy argument.

Don't be foolish, at no point in my argument did I mention piracy or downloading music. Disagreeing with you does not make me a criminal, no matter how much that would make you feel justified.

Unless you're running around downloading songs you hate that duplicate of a recording of that work is *CLEARLY* worth something to you. Why else would you go out of your way to install software to pirate the music and risk legal repercussions, only to download a bunch of music you hate? So you're receiving benefit from having a copy of the music, right? It means something to you, you enjoy it?

No, actually I'm not. I tried Napster a very long time ago because it was new and different. I have no special software to pirate music, I'm not spending any time looking for music and I'm not risking any legal repercussions. I'm not downloading any music at all, legally or illegally. Perhaps now you'll be prepared to actually address what I have written rather than what you wish I had written?

So why is the artist who created that song not entitled to some benefit in return? Leaving aside the question of "how much money for a single copy of an mp3" - if you get value out of the music, why do you feel no desire to give something back to the artist who has

Re:Fairly well known issue

[pixelpusher220]

Perhaps you've heard of the Indie Bundle software promos? Seems to be a smashing success since they've done like 4 or 5 of them and made thousands of bucks, for something you can legally download for free. People will support quality work, because they want more of it.

But if you're going to sue them over ever shared file for $150K a piece, well no they aren't going to support you...because sharing that file caused no significant harm and everybody knows it. When the punishment doesn't fit the crime, the general public will start to lose respect for that law and violate it routinely.

Avengers seemed to do pretty god damned well in spite of fairly widespread piracy. Why do you think that is?

Re:Fairly well known issue

[doccus]

Another comment you made "Because of this fact, recordings probably shouldn't be viewed as a product but rather as marketing." goes to the very heart of the matter.. Fact is.. for the first 50 years .. that's EXACTLY what records were FOR .. nobody made money off records.. it was the shows, only.. why d'ya think Muddy played at Pepper's EVERY blinking day.. even when he was sick? he'd already received his $500 for making the record .. and if I'm not mistaken, Willie Dixon was the Chess *Janitor* as well as House bassist and A&R guy.. At least, before the Beatles changed the nature of the recording industry forever..

Re:Fairly well known issue

[Kalriath]

Uh, no, you can't legally download any of the stuff in the indie bundle promos. They're all software made by independent software/game houses who still happen to sell them - just for less than you would get a AAA game for (and for what it's worth, some of them are reeeeeally fun. Pretty much addicted to Super Crossfire now). But legally download them fro free? No, no you can not.

The moral of the story

[DNS-and-BIND]

Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.

Re:The moral of the story

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I think the moral here is: Don't trust someone with a history of burning artists.

STFU and give us free music

[alen]

you should me making music for the love of it, anything else and you're greedy

Re:STFU and give us free music

[mooingyak]

you should me making music for the love of it, anything else and you're greedy

Here's the thing about it though:

Let's say I make good music. Right now I have a full time job to support my family, which means that any music I make is in the spare time between work and sleep and whatnot. If I can't make money off of the music I create, it will continue to be made only in the spare time I have. I will produce it slowly and sparingly. I won't be able to do that many live shows.

We don't need a system where I become a millionaire, but it does need to be enough that I can make music (or books, or any other form of art) my occupation rather than my hobby, if I'm good enough.

Re:STFU and give us free music

[Anrego]

Lots of ok music out there from people who do just that, but there is a reason indie music hasn't completely toppled the industry...

Hint: it's the same reason indie movies haven't toppled Hollywood.

There is still something to be said for those who actually devote all their time, not just the weekend, to producing content.. and who can afford the cheaper than before but still expensive pro gear.

And in general I agree with the sentiment in the argument. If the kind of distribution/creation model we've all been pushing ever actually takes hold.. it'll just become overrun by opportunists and we'll be right back to what we've got now.

Re:STFU and give us free music

[virgnarus]

Graphic and other visual artists should also screw it and stop making art for money as well. Don't forget writers, because writing is art, too! Monetizing expression is evil and selfish, so let all the artists take college educations and enter careers they hate like the rest of us so they can spend what little time they have left making stuff for our pleasure.

Re:STFU and give us free music

[Tharsman]

Lady in street: I loved your performance, thank you, lovely music. I'll be on my way now.

Singer: But... I need food... please give me some money....

Lady in street: You greedy asshole? How dare you ask me for money?! Music should be done for the love of it!!! Performing for my pleasure while I eat should BE your food!!!! Now sing and stop begging!!!! If you want money go and get a real job!

Re:STFU and give us free music

[Pecisk]

"We don't need a system where I become a millionaire, but it does need to be enough that I can make music (or books, or any other form of art) my occupation rather than my hobby, if I'm good enough."

But exactly why? Some people has very artistic talents, still, they working as clerks or programmers and play on stage on their free time because they enjoy it.

All acts I have seen in their breaktrough has been superbly talented and therefore their effort was just worth that. If you just below average - then you can make descent art, but it will be a hobby (not bad thing, but you can't hope make a living out of it). It is also a decision - if you want to go for it, you have to sacrifise something. You can't expect everything to fall into line for you.

Re:STFU and give us free music

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't need a system where I become a millionaire,

I'd agree - you shouldn't be "guaranteed" millions just for putting on a suit made of meat, but I'd also stipulate that we DO need a system where you COULD become a millionaire, if you're talented enough to produce some book, music, film, etc. that sells enough copies to the public. A system that rewards you for your talent shouldn't arbitrarily say, "you've made enough money to pay for a small apartment in NYC, that's all you get." If you can get a million people to buy your CD, you should be entitled to the profits.

Re:STFU and give us free music

[Bootsy Collins]

Or it could be that your sarcasm detector is broken, and the parent how s/he thinks most people here see it.

Re:STFU and give us free music

[Maximum Prophet]

...We don't need a system where I become a millionaire, but it does need to be enough that I can make music (or books, or any other form of art) my occupation rather than my hobby, if I'm good enough.

We *need* a system where everyone has access to shelter, food, water and health care. We *want* books, movies, music and other entertainment.

Re:STFU and give us free music

[deisama]

I feel like a lot of replies to your posts are missing your point, which is sad because it is a good one.

I believe the parents point is this:

If you WANT more music/art from someone, than a system that allows that person to spend the majority of their time working on it is beneficial to both of you.

Saying that someone doesn't deserve to be rewarded for their efforts and given the opportunity to pursue them full time will only result in getting less of what they have to offer.

Re:STFU and give us free music

[RedDeadThumb]

but I'd also stipulate that we DO need a system where you COULD become a millionaire

Why do we need that? Do we need a system where a janitor could become a millionaire, or a plumber, or a bus driver? What is so special about the occupation of being a musician that they deserve more than a living wage just like everyone else?

Re:STFU and give us free music

[Pecisk]

If I will like your performance, I will spare some serious coin (as much as I can afford). I will just past by, sorry, it's not a obligation to feed you.

P.S. I have played on the streed for money.

Re:STFU and give us free music

[lgw]

That system is here today: live performance. It's how most jazz musicians have always made it. Only a few make any real money selling recordings, while the majority play gigs. If you have regular gigs, you can do it full time.

Re:STFU and give us free music

[hiryuu]

If I can't make money off of the music I create, it will continue to be made only in the spare time I have. I will produce it slowly and sparingly.

For a non-musician example, I'll hold up Pete Abrams, creator and author of "Sluggy Freelance". (I have to imagine plenty of people here are familiar with his work.) Faced with the challenge of supporting himself and his young family several years ago while still trying to do the work he loved (and that was in quite a bit of demand from his fans), Pete mustered up a patronage-style program along with a renewed marketing effort on his merchandise. He made it quite plain that if things didn't change with the money coming in from "Sluggy," he wouldn't be able to keep it up as his primary occupation - meaning the fans would have to deal with significantly less output or possibly the folding of the entire effort.

The fanbase responded accordingly - many of them, faced with the extinction of something that was of value to them (a creative work they enjoyed), decided to pay more than the "minimum market value" by "subscribing" to his "Defenders of the Nifty" group, often giving more than the minimum requested donation. Many others went on merchandise purchasing sprees, and picked up lots of stuffed toys, books, and t-shirts.

In the vast and nebulous world of entertainment delivered via tubes of ones and zeroes, I believe the bulk of people are likely to keep consuming for free or for the occasional minimum purchase price. For the career independent artist (in just about any medium) to succeed in the future, though, there will have to be a class of patron-level fans who make more than an iTunes track purchase now and then - people who recognize that if they want their favorite artists to keep making art, those artists are going to need support.

Re:STFU and give us free music

[ConfusedVorlon]

> We don't need a system where I become a millionaire, but it does need to be enough that I can make music

No it doesn't.

There are plenty of fields where people could produce good work, but there isn't a customer base to support that work.
How many skilled pot makers can make a living throwing pots?

The thing is, there is no shortage in the supply of musicians. If nobody was producing good new work, _and_ there was demand for good new work, then you could charge people to come to your concerts.

The fact that you can't charge means that either there are plenty of other folks producing music, or that people don't want to pay for more/better music to be produced.

Carry on producing your music slowly and sparingly. Accept the fact that nobody cares enough about what you do to pay you to produce more.

Alternatively, I'm sure there are sites where you can promise to produce your next album in return for $50,000. Join one and see if you can convince people to pay to hear you.

Re:STFU and give us free music

[GrumpySteen]

Jesus Christ no!!!! We can't have diversity! Everybody has to have the exact same experiences! Our world would collapse if people started to live unique lives!

Re:STFU and give us free music

[mooingyak]

You win :)

Re:STFU and give us free music

[internerdj]

I need a system where I have access to shelter, food, water, and health care. So does everyone else. We (socially) need books, movies, music, dance, and other cultural and technical avenues of information distribution to improve humanity and promote the intelligence and compassion necessary that the next generation won't drop the idea that everyone needs a system to access their basic needs.

Re:STFU and give us free music

[Eponymous Hero]

Singer: Ok, then how about I give you recordings of the music for free, charge you to see me perform live and while you're there get you to buy my t-shirt?

Lady in street Oh, well that's reasonable.

Re:STFU and give us free music

[bws111]

Uh, we have such a system right now. Any janitor, plumber, or bus driver can name their own price. If they set the price too high they might not get any business. On the other hand, if you do not pay the price you don't get to ride their bus. On the other hand, with music you can wind up with literally millions of people who want your product, use your product, but find any excuse possible to not pay you for your product.

Re:STFU and give us free music

[PeanutButterBreath]

Indeed. The shitty boss has always been the customer.

Re:STFU and give us free music

[bolthole]

Lots of ok music out there from people who do just that, but there is a reason indie music hasn't completely toppled the industry... Hint: it's the same reason indie movies haven't toppled Hollywood. There is still something to be said for those who actually devote all their time, not just the weekend, to producing content.. and who can afford the cheaper than before but still expensive pro gear.

No, it has nothing to do with that, and everything to do with MARKETING. You need huge amounts of MARKETING, to make the movie get big box office. Possibly more amounts of money than the movie production costs. Probably more amounts of time for people getting on talk shows, etc, etc. than it took to shoot the movie.

Re:STFU and give us free music

[bws111]

I don't think anybody, musician or otherwise, thinks that simply making a recording is going to make money. However, it seems like a lot of people, including you, want a completely one-sided relationship. You want the situation to be that a musician only makes money by playing live, but meanwhile you are not restricted to only listening to their live performance. How is that in any way fair? If you want to be able to listen to any song at any time, why shouldn't the people who created that song benefit from it?

Re:STFU and give us free music

[mooingyak]

There are plenty of fields where people could produce good work, but there isn't a customer base to support that work.
How many skilled pot makers can make a living throwing pots?

I'm not saying we need to prop up an industry. My starting point is that there is a demand for said product. People will always produce beautiful things for the sheer love of doing so. I don't dispute this.

The argument I'm trying to make is that if I get paid enough to make a living for doing it, then I am able to spend more time doing it, and therefore my fans have more of my stuff to enjoy. My main complaint was with the idea that artists who want to be paid are greedy.

Re:STFU and give us free music

[Tharsman]

No, that would be wrong!!! You have to make sure to let the person know that singing is it's own reward and tell him he needs no money! You should know the drill if you played on the street for money!

Re:STFU and give us free music

[Kielistic]

So the same thing then? If the listeners don't want to pay the musicians price they won't get new content. Any artiste is perfectly able to say "donate 10 billion dollars or I'll stop making music".

Re:STFU and give us free music

[JustSomeProgrammer]

I can't tell if you're arguing against or in favor of his point. Your tone is against, but if the only music you have available is locally produced you would have a vastly LESS diverse pool of music to listen to. Where you are and what you experience has a lot of relevance to the whatever you produce. If everyone produced only locally and locally is all that is available then all of it will be similar.

In another example... northern climes don't produce pineapples very well. And I love me some pineapple. Southern drawl in music is pretty exclusively grown in the south... but has an awesome sound to it that I as someone living in the north can really appreciate. I'd be kindof sad to miss out on it.

Re:STFU and give us free music

[JustSomeProgrammer]

If a musician is not more beneficial to society than a plumber or bus driver then we don't. However if society does highly value them then it should be possible.

Re:STFU and give us free music

[Hatta]

No one's forcing anyone to make recorded music. If you don't want people listening to your music, don't record it. Try that, and then you'll see just how much you actually benefit from having people listen to your recorded music, even for free.

Re:STFU and give us free music

[Missing.Matter]

but if the only music you have available is locally produced you would have a vastly LESS diverse pool of music to listen to.

I think you're forgetting about the internet. Sure the music might be locally produced, but what's stopping it from reaching audiences around the globe? You'll still be able to get your fix of country music if you like... it's just that there will be no people like Garth Brooks coming to your town anytime soon, and if you want to go to a country show you can head down south to see an authentic one. It's a little like eating a pineapple in the tropics as opposed to your kitchen. Makes it a little more special.

Re:STFU and give us free music

[dnahelicase]

We don't need a system where I become a millionaire, but it does need to be enough that I can make music (or books, or any other form of art) my occupation rather than my hobby, if I'm good enough.

If you are good enough, you can. Being a good musician means you can make good music. Having your occupation as a musician means you are willing to assume lots of risk, network like crazy, travel all the time, and develop a following - which means you'll have to have an active presence on all forms of social media. Being able to make good music will certainly help you be successful, but it will in no way make it easy for you to earn a living. Like any entrepreneur, the majority will fail, some will do alright, and a few exceptional ones will wildly succeed.

You aren't going to make money on music in your spare time, just like you aren't going to develop a billion dollar clothing line in your spare time. At some point you have to summon your resources, devote yourself to the cause, and either succeed or fail.

Re:STFU and give us free music

[lgw]

Why would a musician only make money by playing live? If you're good, people will pay a small amount for recorded music - and the amount the artist has ever gotten per track is quite small, so it's not like you'd have to get $1/song to make what the old system paid.

But marketing is hard, and until you've got some sort of following to spread the word, how is anyone going to know you exist, let alone visit your site and tip for a few songs? Playing live gets it all started, if it's ever going to start.

But what's missing right now is a successful model to make new bands easy to stumble on without seeing them live - most of what I've seen has been too much like the old label-based model, though a good service might be out there already. ITunes works fine for established bands, but I'd love to find a similar service that's fundamentally a recomendation engine for new music, that makes it easier-than-torrents to both download and pay for music from unsigned artists, and that lets most of what I pay go to the band.

Re:STFU and give us free music

[sneakyimp]

[humor]This is a particularly interesting example because almost all Jazz is unlistenable.[/humor]

Re:STFU and give us free music

[TFAFalcon]

Can a janitor or a plumber determine who can use the toilet they just cleaned/repaired? Once the job is done, many people can get the benefits it provides. A toilet can be used by people who didn't pay the janitor, music recordings can be listened to by people who didn't buy the CD. Musicians aren't anything special.

If they want more people to pay them, they should sell a product that can be sold more easily - live performances.

Re:STFU and give us free music

[TFAFalcon]

For the career independent artist (in just about any medium) to succeed in the future, though, there will have to be a class of patron-level fans who make more than an iTunes track purchase now and then - people who recognize that if they want their favorite artists to keep making art, those artists are going to need support.

Don't we already have that - people who buy concert tickets and merchandize?

Re:STFU and give us free music

[HapSlappy_2222]

Let's say I make good food. Right now I have a full time job to support my family, which means that any food I make is in the spare time between work and sleep and whatnot. If I can't make money off of the food I create, it will continue to be made only in the spare time I have. I will produce it slowly and sparingly. I won't be able to serve that many people. We don't need a system where I become a millionaire, but it does need to be enough that I can make music (or books, or any other form of art) my occupation rather than my hobby, if I'm good enough.

Bold stuff is mine, of course. We DO have a system, and it's called "small business". Many people are great at a lot of things, and many things can be monetized. In my changes above, the "food cooker" could start a restaurant, if he's willing to risk failing at it.

A friend of mine is a very talented printer, and a moderately talented photographer. He is also moderately (ok, ok... slightly) successful, and sometimes he has to sell things that aren't his favorite things to create, but he's making it. It was a huge risk, and I almost gave up many times. It's looking like he's gonna be ok (knock on wood), but there are no guarantees. But this is his dream, and he was willing to risk everything for it. Are you?

Granted, securing your startup funds and skirting the big boys to get your product to the masses will be tricky, but I have no doubt it *could* be done. I'd love to see the record labels crumble, and allow much easier access to production and distribution facilities, but rather than blame reality, find a way to utilize it.

Re:STFU and give us free music

[avandesande]

Do we? Should their be a guaranteed market for buggy whip makers too?

Re:STFU and give us free music

[Fned]

So the same thing then? If the listeners don't want to pay the musicians price they won't get new content. Any artiste is perfectly able to say "donate 10 billion dollars or I'll stop making music".

This. Not producing something that hasn't been paid for is the only uncrackable DRM.

Re:STFU and give us free music

[composer777]

The problem is that the incomes of the majority are dwindling away, and pop music tends to be marketed squarely at average joes, the first people hit in a recession. So, if you are an artist and want to get paid, then you need be progressive, get involved in your community, and take steps to ensure that wages start rising again. Once that happens, I think this problem will sort itself out.

Of course in our free market economy, which is crass to the core, there are no guarantees that labels are even interested in the type of dedicated professional that you present yourself as. Labels are just as happy taking someone with no talent, targeting them at demographic niche, and making tons of money that way. They do it in sports too, if you listen to announcers talk, you would think miracles are being done every 30 seconds. In music, they market musicians as being uber-musicians, at the top of their field. This tactic, of taking otherwise ordinary people, and promoting them to a status slightly below that of your favorite deity, is a transparent attempt to explain why so many millions need to be exchanging hands in order for the concert, show, or game to happen. This severely disincentives the creation of good music, since one can be good but no match for the cynical marketing teams that are owned by the labels. Being good doesn't mean you'll make it.

The industry seeks to constrain choice for artists and consumers, acting as a barrier to music, artist, and fans, while at the same time, keeping them as exploitable as possible. The focus is less on the value of the work, and more about whether or not it will sell (and as a result, be maximally exploitable)., As a result, even talented artists tend to add in a bit of "flair", everything from non-stop vibrato of 80's metal guitar, to walking baselines, to changing accents. While charming at first, it has the (desired, at least for music industry) effect of giving music a short shelf life, which is another goal of music industry. Short shelf-life further constrains our choices by rendering large parts of popular music unlistenable after a decade or two.. Maybe that first year they sounded great, but now you can't get over their annoying accent, or that little signature riff that they use, or their marketing stunts, etc. This shortened shelf-life effectively destroys popular culture. It turns the art of music into something closer to the fashion industry. It also creates many market segments/genres, lowering the bar for talent in many segments.

My two step solution:
1. Make sure your fans are getting paid a fair wage and that they actually have money to spend. If their boss made an extra $50K from their labor while at the same time cutting their employee's pay, then this type of issues should be fixed. You won't have many customers if they are all broke, and I think this issue is causing problems across the board.

If this seems like an impossible task, there is an alternative. You could always turn the idea on it's head and simply acommodate your art to the needs of those that have a lot of money. Corporations love jingle writers, so you could make money that way. You could move your target demographic to one that is more upscale. One upscale market is christian rock. You could talk about how much it means to you. It would basically take selling out to the next level, but would probably work. You may think I'm joking, but much like workers in other parts of the economy, artists are being forced to compromise their values and beliefs.

2. Once you finish with that, then getting an indie label off the ground should be much easier. Either way, you'll win, but our current economic downturn is slowing down the inevitable, which is that eventually artists will produce and distribute their own music, and outsource any PR work to separate agencies, as needed. That's where I see it going.

Re:STFU and give us free music

[blackest_k]

Do you really?
Seems most of what you get is a bunch of hype which tends to lead to disappointment when you buy into it. The truely great movies do not need it. The mediocre need it big time. Movies are usually limited in supply If you wanted to go see a movie tomorrow you have a choice of maybe 12 locally and they are pretty much the same nationally (when i was younger it was a choice of what was on at the Odeon or what was on at the ABC 2 for the week maybe a second week if it was popular). These days we are all fairly well networked so if you want an honest opinion you can ask your friends or just download a screener and see for yourself.

You know what would be good, if movies were made available for the first half or the first half hour.
legally on torrents. Trailers are bull they tell you very little but the first half hour would either grab you and leave you wanting more or leave you looking for something else. As not everybody likes every kind of movie it could possibly result in bigger audiences for movies that might be seen as rubbish by some people or a brilliant chick flick (for example) for another section of the population.
that could work for ebooks , concert dvd's in fact why not give the option to buy the last half immediately...

             

Re:STFU and give us free music

[cffrost]

Lady in street: You greedy asshole? How dare you ask me for money?! Music should be done for the love of it!!! Performing for my pleasure while I eat should BE your food!!!! Now sing and stop begging!!!! If you want money go and get a real job!

Lady in street sounds like a harsh Mistress.

Re:STFU and give us free music

[T Murphy]

Someone asserted that money needs no place in music production, only passion. So he countered that he does, in fact, need money in order to fully pursue his passion (i.e. the two are inextricably linked to an extent). You then take his comment out of context, and get modded +5 insightful.

Please read what the comments actually say, not what you want them to say.

Re:STFU and give us free music

[RedDeadThumb]

You seem to be the one saying that musicians are something special and need special provisions to make money. Musicians have just as much opportunity to make a million dollars as the occupations listed. And I have seen talented work by plumbers, drivers, and cleaning people. Musician doesn't have the monopoly on skill. So you can move your fingers nimbly over 6 strings. You are just a bard. Get over your inflated self worth. All you produce is entertainment.

Re:STFU and give us free music

[Rakarra]

Sure the music might be locally produced, but what's stopping it from reaching audiences around the globe?

For the most part, advertising and promotion. It's not enough for good music to exist and for it to be available. You need a way for it to break through the din created by movies, video games, Facebook, and the thousands of other musicians who do have the force of industry behind them.

the problem is there is too much music

[alen]

the bosses aren't the problem, the problem is the amount of product

i like most rock from the mid 60s to present day. there are so many good bands to listen to that its impossible to buy it all on CD. too expensive.

recorded music is your advertising and you should be making money on live performances from the real fans

just like almost every line of business these days. break even or lose on 90% of your customers and make your profit on the rest. something like 4% of dropboxe's customers pay them, yet they make A LOT of money

Re:the problem is there is too much music

[Zaphod The 42nd]

just like almost every line of business these days. break even or lose on 90% of your customers and make your profit on the rest. something like 4% of dropboxe's customers pay them, yet they make A LOT of money

I really wish Hollywood would wake up and realize this, and stop fighting Netflix. They're ruining their own industry, and blaming it on piracy.

What was the quote from Tywin Lannister when he heard they had killed Ned Stark? "Stupidity. Stupidity and Foolishness." Something like that. :P

Re:the problem is there is too much music

[Beerdood]

Exactly the problem here. Until digital distribution was available, most of the music being purchased prior to that came from a select few artists. The record store would carry material from maybe 100 artists or so (rough estimate). They simply couldn't carry music from 10,000 different bands there, due to size constraints. 1% of the artists making 99% of the money.

The amount people spend on music hasn't really changes by that much of a factor - it's just that there's more available artists now. The other 9900 artists that weren't popular enough to get in the record industry are now getting heard. They're just starting to get a cut now, via spotify or whatever

Re:the problem is there is too much music

[alen]

there is no way hollywood can make money on $8 netlix subscriptions and letting them have first run movies before blu ray street date. and netflix refuses to have a tiered model

for $5 or so you can rent almost every new movie after it leaves the theaters and the apps are on most consoles and blu ray players and set top boxes

Re:the problem is there is too much music

[Bootsy Collins]

I was under the impression that it was always this way... that the records don't make you much, it's the gigs. Is that wrong?

You're not wrong that that's how it is; you're wrong that it was always this way. Historically, gigs existed to promote music sales. These days, for all but those at the top of the heap, it's the other way around.

Re:the problem is there is too much music

[Tharsman]

recorded music is your advertising and you should be making money on live performances from the real fans

I was under the impression that it was always this way... that the records don't make you much, it's the gigs. Is that wrong?

Either way, those dirty fucks at Ticketmaster need to be next.

Partially true. The artist himself was not making much money because between loopholes and fine print tricks, the studios end up keeping nearly all the profits of media sale, in some situations some artist may find themselves owing money to the studios (since every cd sent to a radio station was/is fully expensed at a full retail price as a marketing cost that you are supposed to pay for from your profits.)

But media sales have always been very lucrative, an indie artist that refuses to give away his music in Spotify and instead sells directly via iTunes and other digital outlets, or even burning his own disks, may make a LOT of money.

I was into Reggaeton a few years back, a lot of the "reggaettoneros" artists wised up darn fast. They didn’t go to any label, they self-published their stuff and got filthy rich fast. Don Omar is a good example. These are people that didnt really grow daydreaming about the rock star life, so they seem to have pursued things in a more sensible way (despite their appearance and image of being uneducated and thug-like.)

I still don't get why in this information age, the american artist still dreams of being picked up by a big label and become a super star the 80's way.

Re:the problem is there is too much music

[Anrego]

This is second hand, but from a few people I know who are (kinda) in the business.. it used to be the exact opposite (the live performances promoted the music sales) but has now switched around to what is described. Best way to support your favorite band now is to see them live and buy an overpriced cheap screen printed t-shirt or CD off their merch stand.

Re:the problem is there is too much music

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

the bosses aren't the problem, the problem is the amount of product

i like most rock from the mid 60s to present day. there are so many good bands to listen to that its impossible to buy it all on CD. too expensive.

recorded music is your advertising and you should be making money on live performances from the real fans

This is quite right in my opinion. Roughly 2 years ago I read an article on the BBC's website where they interviewed Mick Jagger. He shocked them with what he had to say. This is not in any way, shape or form an accurate word for word account of what was said but my paraphrase covering the main points.
BBC: So what do you think of digital music such as MP3 files?
Jagger: It's not a problem for me. (note: The Stones were on iTunes long before the Beatles were and were serious about their web presence earlier too.)
BBC: (stunned) You don't think you're being ripped off by illegal downloads?
Jagger: Look. The truth is that for all of our years in the industry, for very few of them did we really make good money just from the music. There was a period of about 10 years from the 1980s into the 90s where we got paid a lot of money, but for most of my career the actual royalties from music sales have not really been all that good. We have always made the majority of our income from touring.

The music companies hate this because they don't make money from touring so they are still trying to make the old models work in a world that rejects them. Paul McCartney can't sell CDs any more like he used to but whenever he feels like playing a concert he regularly sells out 50,000 seat or larger stadiums throughout the world and I've not once heard him bemoaning the current state of the industry.

Re:the problem is there is too much music

[0123456]

there is no way hollywood can make money on $8 netlix subscriptions and letting them have first run movies before blu ray street date. and netflix refuses to have a tiered model

I don't know. They could stop paying 'stars' $50,000,000 for a few weeks' work on a movie.

Much of the cost of a big Hollywood movie is 'star' salaries, and those salaries are justified because they bring in more revenue than they cost. So if they're not doing that any more, just reduce those salaries to the point where you are making money.

I'm sure you'd find plenty of people eager to act in or direct a big Hollywood movie for a mere $1,000,000.

Re:the problem is there is too much music

[Kjella]

recorded music is your advertising and you should be making money on live performances from the real fans

Which kinda defeats the purpose of having fans from all over the Internet, there's many many bands that won't come to my little corner of the world and you'd have to be a pretty big fan to travel very far just to go to a concert. And even then they still only get one ticket. And maybe that one weekend they are there it doesn't work because you got another important event. You can't live off just a handful of fanatic fans who'll go to any length to see you.

just like almost every line of business these days. break even or lose on 90% of your customers and make your profit on the rest. something like 4% of dropboxe's customers pay them, yet they make A LOT of money

Where the analogy breaks down is that it's easy for everyone who wants to get dropbox's paid service to do so. With a live performance there's probably 4% that'd pay and 4% that easily could go (remember anywhere you hold a concert is where >99.9% of the earth's population doesn't live) for a total of 0.16% that actually came and paid.

Re:the problem is there is too much music

[Pope]

Either way, those dirty fucks at Ticketmaster need to be next.

Why Ticketmaster? They're not the ones charging $80 a ticket to start with, then adding a venue fee, parking fee, etc.

Sure, I prefer going to my indie record store, where the service charge per ticket is clearly laid out and never randomly changes.

Blame the bands that want a guaranteed payout for every gig. Hell, the top floor tickets for Rush at the ACC are $140. That's pretty ridiculous. But they're the ones choosing to play hockey arenas for a very large guaranteed payout per show.

Re:the problem is there is too much music

[alen]

yeah, that's partly the problem of hollywood

years ago on some talk show Julia Roberts said that out of a $20 million paycheck on a movie she's lucky to see $4 million

between agent fees and taxes there is not much left. and if a movie is going to gross $500 million around the world including home video sales why should the top talent settle for pennies?

Re:the problem is there is too much music

[bolthole]

Which kinda defeats the purpose of having fans from all over the Internet, there's many many bands that won't come to my little corner of the world and you'd have to be a pretty big fan to travel very far just to go to a concert. And even then they still only get one ticket. And maybe that one weekend they are there it doesn't work because you got another important event. You can't live off just a handful of fanatic fans who'll go to any length to see you.

Good point. You guys need to go the "webcomic" route. Do virtual concerts. "Pay per view" as it were. Those then become the equivalent of selling hard-copy versions of the comics.

You could have both "live" versions of this thing, but also fancyschmancy "music video" type stuff.

Oh, and sell DVDs, that are specially decorated and branded, of the videos. Some people still like to "collect" stuff. hence all the biz that popular comic artists do, selling autographed books of the comics that people have already seen for free on the web.

and/or hook up with the "cafepress" type vendors, and sell merchandize through da net.

Re:the problem is there is too much music

[frank_adrian314159]

The other 9900 artists that weren't popular enough to get in the record industry are now getting heard. They're just starting to get a cut now, via spotify or whatever

Not really. Power laws still hold. And, unless you are signed with a major and get enough tracks played via Spotify, you don't get a check.

Of course, each response I've seen in this thread is covered with a rebuttal in the article, which in typical geek-arrogance manner (which is also covered in the article), will never be read - so much better to pontificate from your talking points than to be challenged.

Re:the problem is there is too much music

[commodore73]

Not "too many notes"?

Re:the problem is there is too much music

[Eponymous Hero]

yep, this is correct. something nobody seems aware of is the massive glut of "artists" who want a piece of your disposable income. before streaming and mp3 players, bands had no route to exposure other than the demo tape. they sold themselves like any other kind of contractor to a music label, hoping to be one of the rare few who would get the marketing and nurturing they needed to become superstars. record labels held that kind of control due to the technology for recording and distributing music. three things happened that changed the industry to what we see today.

1. recording costs went WAY down. it wasn't all digital then, you had to splice really expensive magnetic tape with expert precision. doing multiple takes was expensive, so labels chose bands who not only had appeal, but the talent to perform in studio with few mistakes. now it's digital, and you can easily delete a take and record again in no time with little effort. this lets labels treat artists like mcdonald's cashiers rather than skilled creative labor - no skill is needed. it creates a revolving door of musician/singer employees, and the one-hit wonder phenomenon became something the labels sought after instead of trying to avoid. innovation and quality went down, and soon entered the autotuner as a crude airbrush for flaws.

2. distribution became ubiquitous for unsigned artists. the almighty demo tape gave way to self-owned labels, or a la carte sales in the internet marketplace. bands who struggled to tour and sell cds out of their trunk found it easier to make a MySpace page and sell zip files. the value of the music-as-product went way, way down for the general public, who were getting tired of paying $20 to find out if a cd had more than one good song -- which happened less and less because of #1 above. at this point supply for artists shot way past the demand. and that's why the real value of a recorded album is <$1, as opposed to $20.

3. distribution costs went way, way down in the digital marketplace when broadband reached critical mass. hosting one file on a server and charging for access carries much less operating cost than printing a cd and shipping it physically around the world. before broadband, i remember ripping cds and mailing copies via snail mail to my friends. that was expensive and now with broadband access it's pointless too.

there are far more artists today competing for your dollar because of these two things: cheap, accessible recording tech, and cheap, accessible distribution. it's just the way it is. i've been on the artist side of things, and it's just a cold reality that your cd price, your mp3 download, are just not worth as much as they used to be. this is the whole point of innovation in capitalism.

by contrast, merchandise has not changed much in its business model. you can't download physical t-shirts. you can't download physical stickers. (although you can download the design for each, the costs of making them physical are left to you the consumer). and attending a performance is something that can't be duplicated in any way that makes it equivalent. you can't download the experience of being in the crowd and feeling the music vibrate your body, feeling the presence of the performer. of all the things an artist tries to sell, this is the only one that will always have a constant value.

so in the same way that the recording/distribution costs of the past encouraged "survival of the talented" in the music industry, the buyer's market of music performances is filling that void. as a consumer you can own all the music you want, but you can't possibly see every artist in concert in your lifetime. you have to choose what experience you want, and you'll choose for very different reasons than you use to choose recorded music. labels must adapt to this or perish. the public is too savvy and too poor to judge a cd by its cover anymore. advertising dollars need to be allocated to offering recorded music -- it is the ad, the ad for the performance. right

Re:the problem is there is too much music

[tepples]

for $5 or so you can rent almost every new movie after it leaves the theaters

Yet some recent movies still take 55 weeks from theatrical release to Redbox availability, and many pre-1950 films still haven't been released on DVD.

Re:the problem is there is too much music

[MightyMartian]

Neil Peart recently bought a three million dollar house. How many people seriously think that it was funded by the sale of Rush CDs? It was paid for because Rush is a successful touring band, which has done a helluva lot of it over the last decade (four major world tours in that span, and they're about to kick another one off just over a year since they finished the last one). When Peart briefly retired after the death of his daughter and wife, there was a point at which he asked his accountant if he could actually retire completely and he was told "No.", this was somewhere around 1999-2000, so it gives you an idea that the fortune he has now didn't come from record sales.

Touring has always been the maker of vast fortunes. The Beatles were being paid absolutely shit in royalties, Brian Epstein having "negotiated" a terrible record deal. The publishing rights made them pretty good cash to be sure, but at the end of the day, I suspect a good deal of their personal wealth came from the brown paper bags filled with cash that each promoter would hand over to their road manager, Neil Aspinall, before each gig.

If guys like Tom Petty or B.B. King had had to rely on royalties, they would probably have starved to death.

Re:the problem is there is too much music

[rastoboy29]

That may be, yet nonetheless the old ways are not going to work any more.  The poster you replied to was just offering one alternative.

Re:the problem is there is too much music

[Rakarra]

What a reference. :-)

But this is what 'we' want, right?

[QuasiSteve]

But this is what 'we' want, right?

We don't want there to be multimillionaire 'artists', or hundreds of supposedly indie (but really signed with GenericIndieLabelX that's part of IndieGroupY that is a wholly-owned subsidiary of QuirkyMusicZ, a division of SONY Music Entertainment).

'We' want bands to be able to stand on the merit of the quality of their music - be that through being highly popular at the whim of the way the 'popular' wind blows, or through a devout share of followers who will buy merchandise and go to concerts. We want the remaining artists to perform music not for the money but because they want to perform it for their own joy (either out of performing or out of the reactions of the crowd) and any money they get out of that is just a nice little bonus.

'We' don't care if that means most current artists will just have to find something else to do, and others will just have to make it their hobby next to an 'honest' job.

And if that situation is not to particular people's liking, they would be more than welcome to become patrons of the (musical) arts if they have the wealth to do so.

As long as 'we' get to enjoy music for next to nothing or completely nothing, and certainly with as few middlemen as possible - because that is what the process induced by technology has allowed us since the days of the cassette tape, which the internet has merely accelerated.

tl;dr: Something about horse-and-buggies and all that.

Re:But this is what 'we' want, right?

[marnues]

My thoughts precisely. Thanks for spelling it out so nicely.

Re:But this is what 'we' want, right?

[cdrguru]

The problem with patronage is you get what you pay for. In the case of music in the 1600s and 1700s nearly all "popular" music came from patronage and overall it was very alike. So you had all the artists striving for patronage and the rich patrons were paying for a particular sort of music.

Today, the folks that are likely to be paying are over 40 and not so much into hip-hop, trance or electronica. Lots of 70s era stuff. OK, if you want two centuries of music in the mold of 1972 be my guest.

Re:But this is what 'we' want, right?

[Frosty Piss]

OK, if you want two centuries of music in the mold of 1972 be my guest.

Ah, the zenith of popular music. All else since is garbage.

And please pull your damn pants up.

Re:But this is what 'we' want, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

We're DROWNING in entertainment. We can't all be millionaires. Something is going to give.

Re:But this is what 'we' want, right?

[Sal Zeta]

'We' want bands to be able to stand on the merit of the quality of their music - be that through being highly popular at the whim of the way the 'popular' wind blows, or through a devout share of followers who will buy merchandise and go to concerts. We want the remaining artists to perform music not for the money but because they want to perform it for their own joy (either out of performing or out of the reactions of the crowd) and any money they get out of that is just a nice little bonus.

Sorry, I don't get what's so special about working as musician that any earnings should be considered "just a little bonus". It's a job as good as any other. People buy your records and the recording label make a profit out of it, like every other goods-based business. Most labels, excluding some more specialized and/or famous, don't really care if my record is just complete whitenoise; If people buy it, then it's good enough for them./p>

If an engineer working at Sony yields the company, let's say, 100.000$ worth of work per months and gets paid 2500$/mo, then why a musician under contract for a Sony Records label, making the same returns/mo for the company by recording an album, gets paid less than 5000$ in total? I'm talking about Top-40 chart (or US equivalent) musicians; not some washout at his first record.

Most artist, especially electronic/hip hop acts, are becoming savvy enough to create their own label before releasing anything, creating their own pressings, handling the contracts with venues for live events, and directly managing the royalties for licensing and OTA & digital rights. They shouldn't be considered "indie" or "independent" anymore, but at least it's not being "assraped-by-lawyers" too.

Competition?

[Zaphod The 42nd]

There are more music acts than ever, and they are each individually able to reach a FAR greater audience than before. The number of people and the amount of spare money the public has to spend on entertainment has been fairly constant. So, of course, each individual artist is going to make less. There's new genres and new artists every day.

Futhermore, now we have videogames and other new media competing for our entertainment dollars.

Its not that artists are making less money. Its that there aren't as few mega "rock stars" as before. You don't have the beatlemania where people are going crazy for a particular one act, who effectively has a monopoly on popular music.

Finally, they can't force us to buy 12 song albums with 2 hits and 10 crap songs anymore. We've broken their hold on that business model. Now we expect to be able to pay .99 cents to get the 1 song we want. That isn't "unfair" to artists, rather, it was unfair to the consumer before, and now its been made right.

I'm so sorry you can't afford to drink top shelf champagne on your private jet anymore.

Re:Competition?

[JustSomeProgrammer]

Just to throw a couple contrary examples out there

I heard on a radio interview with someone from Blink-182 that they originally thought "Adam's Song" was a bad song and were surprised it ended up being a #2 on the US Modern Rock Charts. In an environment were you only get to release "hits" it probably wouldn't have been released.

I personally like every song on "Let it Ride" by Mighty Mighty Bosstones, my favorite song on that disk is also not even one that got a video or I have ever heard played in another other place.

Not every non-hit song is crap. And variety is good. Even if you don't love every song on a disk by an artist you like, you probably do like one or two that never would have made it onto the radio. I'm kindof sad the venue to try out songs you aren't as comfortable with is sortof going away. I feel like I'm going to miss out on alot of music I might have enjoyed.

Re:Competition?

[Zaphod The 42nd]

I heard on a radio interview with someone from Blink-182 that they originally thought "Adam's Song" was a bad song and were surprised it ended up being a #2 on the US Modern Rock Charts. In an environment were you only get to release "hits" it probably wouldn't have been released.

No part of the new digital sales business model is an environment where you only get to release "hits". It is merely a market where you can choose how much or how little to buy. Songs are still free to be popularized through radio or youtube, and the song can always sit there for sale. If anything, since its digital, it costs almost NOTHING to offer every song you've ever written for sale. Who cares? Even if the song is meh, you can put it out there, if a few people like it, they can buy it, and you can make as much money as possible. That is ENTIRELY different from forcing consumers to buy extra songs. I don't think "Adam's Song" was popular because we were forced to have it on our CD players. No, it was just that they didn't realize it would be a hit. Entirely different.

I personally like every song on "Let it Ride" by Mighty Mighty Bosstones, my favorite song on that disk is also not even one that got a video or I have ever heard played in another other place.

I love the Bosstones too! :) But again, that has nothing to do with digital distribution whatsoever. If anything, once again, with digital distribution, its EASIER to distribute niche material. You reach a wider audience, for less manufacturing and distribution cost. So you can do MORE crazy niche songs.

Not every non-hit song is crap. And variety is good. Even if you don't love every song on a disk by an artist you like, you probably do like one or two that never would have made it onto the radio. I'm kindof sad the venue to try out songs you aren't as comfortable with is sortof going away. I feel like I'm going to miss out on alot of music I might have enjoyed.

And you're always free to buy more for .99 cents. Not being forced to do something isn't the same as not being allowed to do it.

Re:Competition?

[meta-monkey]

Wait, are you saying it's SUPPOSED to be hard to be a rock star? Damn, Dire Straits lied to me

I RTFA, andI think he only had one good point. It is kind of ridiculous that Apple is still getting like 30% of sales for the service ofhosting files and processing payments. At least back in The Before Time in the Long, Long Ago the record labels would invest in creating new content. Today Apple just tells you how wonderful they are for distributing it for you. And selling your mp3s direct to the public doesn't work well (unless you already have a massive following from having been signed with a label before) because nobody leaves facebook to go to your website and is too lazy to pull out a credit card when theirs is already on file with iTunes.

Besides that, mostly whining about how "well sure, there are SOME success stories, but what about MOST musicians? They can't even afford their weed!" Wellyeah. It's not easy being a rock star. That's why they're called rock STARS. Because 99.9% of the people trying to be professional musicians aren't good enough at it (or lucky enough. Mainly lucky enough. Talent doesn't matter as much as marketing and luck.)

That's the way it is in any "profession" that's also an awful lot of people's hobby. Pretty much anything that when you tell somebody at a party what you do for a living, they say "I always wanted to do that." Because nobody ever says that about working in accounts receivable. "Oh, you work in accounts receivable? I dabble in receivable accounting myself...ya know. Having accounts. Receiving them. Always wanted to do that...professionally."

Re:Competition?

[NulDevice]

> I'm so sorry you can't afford to eat top ramen in your efficiency apartment anymore

There. Fixed that for you.

Seriously, this idea that musicians were just somehow raking it in the moment they got a record contract just needs to die. I *did* get an indie label contract, long ago, and the first thing that happened was that my band photographer started demanding a cut of our "royalties." I asked her if she had change for a $5 (and then fired her). Most of what the label paid us ended up being eaten by production costs (and we kept those pretty low by doing a lot of the work ourselves). After all was said and done, and we'd sold out a run of a few thousand CDs, we had roughly a couple hundred bucks to split among the band members.

That is WAY more common than "oh, hey, I got a record contract, let's go drink Cristal on my boat with some strippers."

Re:Competition?

[Zaphod The 42nd]

Thats true, but that's always been true, and hasn't changed. Its always the few popular acts which can promote their music and sell it to everyone who make a killing, and the less popular bands do what they can. This is about the big names saying they get less money from the modern music industry than before, and if anything, I would think that is because the no-name bands are more accessible with the internet, so they get a fairer share. Its the big names who aren't making insane money anymore, and I don't feel bad for them at all.

I never meant to insinuate that every music group instantly becomes megarich. Obviously this isn't the case or everybody would be playing music. My point was about the popular bands which rake in lots of money, and I think it is a very fair point. They may be making less, but that's how it should be.

Publishers

[Zaphod The 42nd]

If the artists aren't making as much money as they used to, how about they do the logical thing and vertically integrate? With music stores like iTunes now, there's almost no need for a publisher, where before you were completely dependent on one.

Cut out the middle man, sell directly to consumers, keep all the profits, and probably end up making more money.

Re:Publishers

[houghi]

Many people might ask what the alternatives are to e.g. iTunes.
One is http://bandcamp.com/ with a clear policy on how they charge and in what way explained right here

And placing your music online (even for free) is pretty simple. Or as they like to say themselves: So Easy Even Your Drummer Could...Well, Perhaps Not That Easy

That site does exactly what you say. Cutting out the middle man.

Re:Publishers

[JohnG]

No you didn't fix it. He said profits, not income. Unless you think that the record companies are getting 100% of the money from iTunes sales, or that record stores sell records out of the kindness of their own hearts, and pass 100% of the sales price back to the labels. It amazes me how many people complain about Apple's 30%, as if it is the worst thing to happen to the industry, when it actually it is better than the amount gotten back from brick and mortar stores. As a software developer, I am much happier with my 70% of the pie than I would be if I had to go through separate publishing, distribution, and sales channels and be lucky to get 10-15% off of my work.

Re:Publishers

[KhabaLox]

So Easy Even Your Drummer Could...Well, Perhaps Not That Easy

LOL
Worth the price of my /. account.

Re:Publishers

[NulDevice]

That's what a lot are trying to do, but it is easier said than done. Most artists still generally need some sort of middleman to get their stuff on iTunes, Amazon, etc - aggregators like Tunecore and Reverbnation exist for this reason. They're nto expensive, but they are on the order of $40-50 a year per submission (album, EP, single, whatever) so that adds up. Services like bandcamp are super-great for cutting out as much as possible - they take only a small fraction of your download costs, but they (currently) lack the straight-to-device integration of an iTunes or an Amazon, and it's a lot harder to promote. Now, imagine you decide to run your own web store, selling direct. Awesome. I've done this. All the profits are mine! But also so are all the server costs. And maintenance time. And technical support.

Veritcally, from start to finish, if you cut out all external entities, then you're responsible for:
writing the song
performing the song
recording
mixing the song
mastering the song
publishing the song
promoting the song
selling the song

Conceivably do-able for a band. Except for one thing: time. All of these are very time-intensive activities. And some are skill-intensive. If you're lucky enough to have 4 band members who can devote lots of resources to all this, there's STILL no guarantee that any of them will have any talent for anything other than songwriting or performing. Sure, if you're an electronic band, you're probably lucky enough to have at least two IT guys playing keyboards, so you can get your web store running...but are they going to be good at creating ad campaigns? Trying to get radio play or sync licenses? Will they have an ear for mixing or mastering? Tour booking?

That's where it all falls apart. There's a lot involved in going end-to-end and usually bands are pretty resource-starved in at least one area. So you end up paying someone to do it for you, whether that's publishing or promoting or mixing or whatever.

Marketing

[Pecisk]

It's quite simple - in online, you have to handle your marketing yourself. If you just replace old model with new one, but keep old way of doing things, sorry, it won't fly. Online gives posibility to compete a lot more bands than old system. And in result of course you get less money. Don't like it? Then try to stick with old system. Didn't like it too? Do pros and cons then and see what's working for you.

Also sorry, while I recognize that artists should get something about their efforts - but only then if their art is "consumed". There's tons of music out there. Tons of CC (lot of them really good ones). And it's a pitty, but some of artists can crunch really high class stuff without any sweat, but some has to do lot of pushing. So maybe it's not worth then.

Re:Marketing

[vakuona]

But people _want_ their music curated. Why do you think it took Akon to launch Lady Gaga, or Usher to launch Bieber? Why do you think Simon Cowell exists? That is the power of the establishment. As long as that curated music is the mass market music, then the whole industry will be built to reflect that. Yes, once in a while a small artist makes it into the big time, but most times, 95% of the top 100 will be artists represented by the big labels because that is how people "discover" their music.

Collaboration and self-publishing are the answer

[Zondar]

Not to be prophetic or philosophical, but it will be in the end like it was in the beginning.

In the beginning, bands formed and recorded music in their garage, with the best equipment and recording technology that they could afford. The collaborated in the best space they could find (someone's garage) and they self published the recording they made. Maybe they made money, maybe they didn't.

Today, musicians can record with (nearly) the same quality in their house as they can in a major studio. Musicians can collaborate over the internet either directly or with the help of a collaboration service that helps musicians find each other and exchange / submit tracks. Musicians can publish their tracks on services where they either get money per track or as a donation model (see http://coryjohnson.bandcamp.com/ for a perfect example of this).

Musicians can self-promote on the internet, and perhaps reach greater audiences than they can through traditional media and distribution channels.

The musicians simply need to embrace these new ways of doing things and be willing to take on these tasks directly instead of having someone else do it (and probably rip them off in the process).

I can believe it.

[cpu6502]

The internet is hurting everybody, by making things cheap. DJs, singers, authors of books..... Correction: Not everybody; it helps the billons of people who are lower and middle incomes to afford buying entertainment and education online.

So it's a matter of choice: Do we choose to help the small 0.1% of singers, artists, authors by protecting their income with ~$15 CDs and ~$25 hardback books. Or do we help the other 99.9% by offering them cheaper $3 albums or $5 books that you can download from the comfort of your chair? (And also a lot of free material like college lectures.)

I choose the 99.9%.

Re:I can believe it.

[cjc25]

I reject your false choice.

The money here went to Apple and Amazon (shareholders and execs, which is a separate discussion) for developing new legal pricing strategies and distribution channels that did not and could not exist before. On the musician side, recently money has been pouring in floods to House DJs who wouldn't have been given a chance on mainstream radio in the 90s.

In other words, some people got very rich off of making something new very cheap for everyone else in a new way. There was a loser, like there always is, in some musicians and traditional labels, but the loser was making money off inefficiencies in consumer access to music, which is arbitrage and inherently risky.

There doesn't always have to be a bad guy...

Re:I can believe it.

[cpu6502]

>>>So, if the 99.9% wants to enslave and rape the 0.1%, do you still choose the 99.9%?

Fucking a. I invoke Godwin.
Musicians are not raped or enslaved.
They can choose OTHER careers that pay better.

Re:I can believe it.

[cpu6502]

Your point does not nullify my point: The 99.9% of non-musicians/authors are getting cheaper product. The 99.9% are benefitting from this new model, so I support it. Just as I think the printing press was a positive good for the 99.9%, even though it put thousands of scribes out of work.

Re:I can believe it.

[lgw]

That's the entire history of technology in a nutshell, right there. Technolgy makes it more efficient to make stuff we want. The upside is more stuff cheaper, the downside is less people employed to make the stuff. Thus far, that balance has always been quite positive: we live a life of unimaginable splendor compared to anyone (even the quite rich) pre industrial revolution.

Re:I can believe it.

[PeanutButterBreath]

Correction: Not everybody; it helps the billons of people who are lower and middle incomes to afford buying entertainment and education online.

I've never in my life spent as much money on books/music/movies per month as I currently spend for internet access to all these new "cheap" alternatives.

Re:I can believe it.

[cpu6502]

I have. I spent cash on VHS movies (rentals usually) and music (CDs) and books. Also blank VHS to record off the television. Plus gasoline driving to the store. Now I spend just $15/month or $180/year for internet which is much less than what I used to spend.

*
* To be technical: I've always spent $10-20 on internet, ever since the 80s. So it's not really an additional cost... but now the entertainment is free (hulu, youtube).

Re:I can believe it.

[jd]

Nobody is saying the old way of doing things was good - it's almost universally accepted that the labels would gouge the artists of every penny they could (and more).

What IS being said here is that the new method is NOT helping the artist and is really not helping anyone else either (since it takes money to make art).

The solution is NOT to help the 99.9% (you're still helping the 1%, the record labels, via this new approach). It is better to stick with supporting the artists AND the consumers. If this means that it will be at the expense of the labels, so be it, but it is the labels that should suffer, NOT the artists.

Re:I can believe it.

[jd]

The scribes didn't create anything, though. They merely copied. Here, the people being put out of work are NOT the scribes (the record labels), but the artists who actually produce the stuff. The scribes are making MORE profit than they did in the old system.

Re:I can believe it.

[jd]

So you'd be happy if all the authors, musicians, actors and scriptwriters quit? They CAN choose other careers, right? What these other careers are, given the massive unemployment, is something you don't seem keen to delve into.

I choose to live in a world where there is new art. The day we lose art is the day the world is no longer worth living in.

The labels, the brokers, the headhunters - those are expendable and the sooner we're rid of them the better. They produce nothing, they create nothing, they do nothing except sponge money out of the system and into the jets and flash cars. Artists, for the most part, are on the edge of starvation. More than a few work when homeless and malnourished. If you were in those conditions, you would rightly object. But you find it fine for the labels to treat their artists this way. Interesting. Have you seen a doctor about this?

Re:I can believe it.

[cpu6502]

>>>So you'd be happy if all the authors, musicians, actors and scriptwriters quit?

Stop asking ridiculous questions. "All"? No I don't want "all" of them to quit. But maybe if 90% of them packed-it-in and learned a new career, then the wages for the remaining 10% would rise high enough to pay the rent.

Re:I can believe it.

[NulDevice]

The thing is, here, that a lot of these .1% are the 99.9. They don't give a crap one way or the other about the $15/CD model. Most of them are hoping that "hey, if I sell some music, I'd like to be able to live above the poverty line doing so." They'd like to be able to get more than $.0001 for every spotify play. They'd like to know that if someone buys their album from an online site, they'll get a cut (and not have it just go to some suspicious russian grey-market website or whatever).

It's always been a myth that signed musicians are rolling in the dough. Even guys that have had big hits have had to take day jobs just to make ends meet. And it might be better to *be* a musician now, since you don't need to be picked up by a label to sell your music, it's a lot worse to try and make a *living* as a musician. You look at someone like Clyde Stubblefield, one of the most famous drummers in modern history (as part of James Brown's band), and one of the most-sampled drummers ever, and see that he had to have a benefit concert to bay his medical bills, and you can't help but think "wait, why is THIS guy, of all people, just barely scraping by?"

Of course you can make the argument of "they should find better jobs"...well, great, but then we wouldn't have musicians at all, and who'd want that? You can't really do much with a few megastars and a bunch of weekend warriors. There needs to be a musical middle class for there to be enough music for people to enjoy.

Who cares?

[stewski]

What money did Van Gough make, if you need to make it do so. If you've got a hair cut some jeans and a record label you bore me.

Boo hoo

[spiffmastercow]

So now you can't do something that both gets you laid *and* makes enough money to live on. I here the waaambulance coming..

Cry me a fucking river

[starworks5]

Just because what you do is time consumptive and requires skill, doesn't mean that your somehow special and entitled to make large sums of cash. I mean the food that you eat is inherently more important than any music you make, however people slave at near or below minimum wage to produce it for you, and somehow you presume your labor is more important? Because you have the force of government on your side to protect your interests, because you end up lobbying them with massive amounts of money to do so? The idea that you should limit a limitless resource, so that you can extract alot more value out of it, sounds alot like extortion to me. Just because that sort of extortion is propping up our economy doesn't mean that its right, its a form of non productive consumption and people would rightfully so, switch to a form of production that the market finds more valuable and scarce otherwise.

Re:Cry me a fucking river

[Anonymous Coward]

And judging by 99% of the music today... any retard can make music.

Re:Cry me a fucking river

[starworks5]

As you might have noticed, its almost impossible to find an american who is willing to farm, because its hard fucking work. Which tells me that the wages for farming ought to rise, instead of allowing high unemployment and immigrant labor to produce it. Perhaps then americans will stop shoveling their fat faces full of food, and we can stop wasting money subsidizing the farming companies, which will make unemployment start to fall considerably.

Re:Cry me a fucking river

[nomadic]

"And judging by 99% of the music today... any retard can make music."

Nonsense. Pick the most obnoxious, mass-market, suburban Florida pop singer. Her session musicians, backup singers, producers, and recording engineers are going to be extremely skilled; you couldn't manage what they do. Of all the people you're hearing, only the singer herself sucks.

Re:Cry me a fucking river

[NulDevice]

Who said anything about large sums? Some of us would just like to be able to pay the bills doing this. You make it sound like all these musicians are asking for Bentleys and caviar. Most of the ones I know just want enough to afford health insurance.

Re:Cry me a fucking river

[volmtech]

Farmer here, yes it is hard work, and more fun than should be legal. You remember those farm workers we imported 200 years ago? They all got uppity and most of them moved to New York and got on welfare. Actually it's competition. Why pay 100 people 8 dollars an hour to pick up potatoes when one man in a two hundred thousand dollar tractor pulling a one hundred fifty thousand dollar harvester can do the same job cheaper with much less hassle. You know why Europe subsidizes it's farmers? The WWII generation remembers being HUNGRY! You do not want to see a food riot. Are you volunteering to pick up some potatoes? They're harvesting in Texas and New Mexico now. Bring lots of sun screen and Gator Aid. Every business and everyone is subsidized. Lord knows where all that money comes from. You could move to Cuba. I here it's a workers paradise and everyone has a job.

Sucks to be in a industry? Change industries!

[SmallFurryCreature]

This is rather fundamental to the entire copyright debate when it starts to focus on artists being unable to make a living anymore.

Well, how is that different from ANY other profession being unable to make a living anymore? In Holland it has been decades since the coal mines closed and not because of lack of coal. How would you, or indeed any artist, support any law dictating the installation of gas networks to keep the demand for goal high?

It goes further. With printing and the translation of the bible came the possibility for the faithful to get their fairy tales from outside the church and my my did the church hate that and not just try to ban this but committed murder on a massive scale to stop this.

Tech, changes, the, WORLD. It is not just about you holding a computer in your pocket now more powerful then early spaceships BUT it is about our very society changing because of tech. Anything from the pill, to the automobile and the post office box (before the post office box, women could not post without everyone knowing about it, mail became a great liberator long before the Internet).

And that change isn't always good for everyone. Modern artists have taken the bread away from many of their predecessors. Recorded music? Took the place of live music. Once every movie theater had a small band playing and of course movies took the place of real life artists on the stage.

You can't stop tech, well you can, red flag in front of cars and all that but ultimately, tech will prevail because for the majority, the good outweighs the bad. The Internet will continue to be. You can't stop the digital age just because you don't like that bits can be copied at near zero cost and be distributed for only slightly more.

And if you argue different then why do you care about artist who make millions while ordinary factory workers are unable to feed their families because that same tech has outsourced all their jobs? When those same millionaire artists flee the country to tax heavens and buy foreign goods?

Oh sure, not all artists are like that, they just dream of being like that one day.

There is still a normal average salery to be made as an artist, you just got to work hard, just like everyone else and not hope people will just buy your 1 good song with ten crap ones for what amounts to several times minimum wage EVEN if you had to perform it live. 5 minutes 1 dollar == 12 dollars an hour wage. Takes more time to write it? Take me more then 8 hours to keep an 8 hour job to and I know who is in more danger of throwing in his back.

The world has changed, either change with it or get steamrolled. If the artists cared that much about it all, let them strike. I will happily they get the same treatment as the coal workers around the world.

And if I sound angry? In Holland we have a recession, so how does the leftist (elitist) green party react? Impose taxes on public transport reimbursement payed by employers so you can make art and antiques have a lower tax rate. FUCK THAT.

And you might think I am extreme but when I voice this in real life, you see people going... well I don't agree, sure I don't buy any music anymore either and I am totally untouched by any plea from the industry or artists... oh wait... I do sorta agree.

Once people loved artists and were fans of record labels. Now that is no longer true except for the future burger flipper generation.

And if you don't believe me... do you have adblocker installed? Yes? So it is okay to steal from websites but not artists?

See? Once the people have been pushed to far, they can stand by and see a group destroyed with no remorse whatsoever. Human beings ain't nice and the world does not owe you a living.

Re:Sucks to be in a industry? Change industries!

[cpu6502]

>>>With printing and the translation of the bible came the possibility for the faithful to get their fairy tales from outside the church and my my did the church hate that and not just try to ban this but committed murder on a massive scale to stop this.
>>
I know it's fun to bash on those religious people you liberals consider "whackos" and "clinging to their religion and guns", but that does not excuse making false history. One of the FIRST customers to buy the printing press was the Catholic Church in Rome. And the first to lay-off the scribes. They thought the printing press would be a great way for the Pope's messages to reach millions of people. (Source: Professor Lehrer of Harvard University)

Re:Sucks to be in a industry? Change industries!

[cdrguru]

There is still a normal average salery to be made as an artist, you just got to work hard, just like everyone else and not hope people will just buy your 1 good song with ten crap ones for what amounts to several times minimum wage EVEN if you had to perform it live.

Sorry, but that salary isn't there today. The problem is in the US that (1) almost nobody is actually paying for music anymore and (2) the ones that are paying are spreading their payments across thousands of artists. End result is recorded music is free and live performances are expensive to put on. Gone are the days where a bar would invite a group in to play and pay them - the expectation is they will do this for free or even pay the bar for the opportunity to be heard.

Europe has a strong tradition of supporting artists of all sorts by directly paying them from public money. So maybe in Europe you can decide to be a musician and survive. In the US it is unlikely many will choose to even learn to play an instrument in school because it is an avenue toward ... nothing.

A long time ago a friend of mine told me a story about a job he created. He was interested in pipe organs and learned how to make organ pipes. He found a few places that had antique pipe organs that needed some pipes replaced and he was the only person around that could make them. He did this for several years but discovered that there simply was no market for organ pipes in the 1960s in Chicago. He could no longer do this and survive. Today, music is what pipe organs were back then - there is no market for it. Sure, there is plenty of music but it is being given away or taken for free.

I suspect the guy with the horn in the subway tunnel playing for change is getting about as much as most people from sales of their music today.

Interesting idea, wrong conclusion.

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately the writer completely ignores is the real reason profits are going down for everybody. Competition. The old model granted exclusivity and control of the distribution channel. That, and a huge degree of social manipulation. They were both able make sure that there were a small number of artists/records and that those got exclusive play all distribution channels.

With the new model there are many many many more artists, more styles, more availability. I can listen to several albums from a band called "Austrian Death Machine" that makes songs exclusively based on Arnold Schwarzenegger movie quotes. (Not kidding) This band has several albums. This band could not exist in the old model.

Ultimately artists make less because the pool of money has more players to be spread to. Demand is lower because the supply is high, and the price is lower too. Ultimately, the price of a song really is as low as an audio ad every few tracks. (Going off Pandora as a model here)

Personally I welcome this, because 99.5% of what large music companies publish is pure garbage. Statically optimized, designed by committee, autotuned, sensationalized celebrity worship audio filth. The faster we bring these dinosaurs down the better for the human race as a whole.

This Part

[Herkum01]

It took a while to find anything solid but these I considered informative,

Under the new digital model I calculate that most label artists get between 15%- 35% of wholesale. For example the most recent of my recording contracts says I should get a total of 20.5 cents on a 99 cent song (including mechanical royalties). This works out to 29.7% of wholesale. So this part of the new digital paradigm is about the same as the old record label system.

So when you compare share of revenue for artists on record labels under the new digital system to the old system it looks pretty good. At least until you consider the fact that the price of music has dropped. For instance, an artists royalty on an album is now calculated at 6.90 not at a $10.00 wholesale price as it was in the 1980s. . This drop in the price of music was inevitable. But the record labelâ(TM)s expenses fell considerably in the switch from physical to digital products whereas the artistâ(TM)s expenses (the recording budgets) did not. So this had the effect of reducing artists net revenues and shifting revenue towards the record labels. For the new digital distribution model to be as âoefairâ to the artist, the artist share of download revenue should have increased. It stayed the same or increased only marginally.

and

And then there is that iTunes store 30%. Seems kind of high to me. What is their risk? Today in 2012? Do they really deserve more per album than the artist? At least the record labels put up capital to record albums. At least the record labels provide the artist with valuable promotion and publicity. Historically in the music business when someone was taking more than 20% of gross revenues that had some âoeskin in the gameâ. They risked losing a lot of money.

This does show a problem with the economic system that the industry has set up. Consumers ran screaming from one oligopoly to another. Is it this really surprising that artists are still taking the brunt of it when you are still dealing with the same businesses?

Re:This Part

[alen]

for a long time itunes would only deal with wholesalers which after the itunes cut and their cut the artist got 30%

i hear now they let anyone sell music

Re:This Part

[SirGarlon]

Consumers ran screaming from one oligopoly to another.

Yes, but the new oligopoly is less stable. Someone could open a new online music store tomorrow and give artists a bigger cut; in fact that would be a good way to attract lots of artists to the new store.

Re:This Part

[tlhIngan]

And then there is that iTunes store 30%. Seems kind of high to me. What is their risk? Today in 2012? Do they really deserve more per album than the artist? At least the record labels put up capital to record albums. At least the record labels provide the artist with valuable promotion and publicity. Historically in the music business when someone was taking more than 20% of gross revenues that had some Ãoeskin in the gameÃ. They risked losing a lot of money.

This does show a problem with the economic system that the industry has set up. Consumers ran screaming from one oligopoly to another. Is it this really surprising that artists are still taking the brunt of it when you are still dealing with the same businesses?

Anyone who claims Apple is ripping them off for taking 30% doesn't know how payment models are. If you sell songs individually for 99 cents on Paypal or a merchant account, guess what? Paypal will take at least 30 cents out of that transaction!

And it's not guaranteed people will buy more than 1 song at a time, so those transaction fees have to be paid. Apple gets around this by bundling up transactions and doing it all at once so they're charged the 30 cents once, but that's assuming people consume media multiple times.

Granted, it looks silly at the higher values but back when it started, everything was 99 cents.

Hell, you can find iTunes gift cards 20% off at Best Buy and other retailers extremely easily (it happens at least once a month). You can bet the retailer's not losing money off it, and Apple's not losing money off it - it's coming from that 30%. (E.g., Apple sells cards for 25% off face value - retailer pays Apple $75 for a $100 card, for example, leaving Apple with 5% of the leftover and the retailer with the rest - to which they can discount and offer users 20% off and still pocket 5%).

Artists are free to set up alternative payment methods, but if there's only one song of interest, they're going to find the payment processor will take 30% or so off that one 99 cent song. Hell, dealing with merchant accounts manually (or Paypal) will probably eat into earnings as well purely due to the time involved.

There's a reason why many sites take a flat 30%. You'd think wiht competition Amazon would take less, or Google, just to undercut Apple on the supply side.

Re:This Part

[RatherBeAnonymous]

A related issue, which the article did not bring up, is that digital music sales are predominantly singles, rather than albums. Looking at the data in Lowery's article, when comparing a $15.99 CD in 1996 to a 9.99 digital album in 2012, the loss of 46 cents per album is significant, but the bigger loss is that people, by and large, are not buying the 9.99 albums. In 1996, if you wanted to own a copy of that hot new song, you went down to the music store and probably bought the album. I know singles existed before digital, but for the life of me, I don't ever remember seeing singles for sale in a record store. In 2012, if you want a copy of that hot new song you fire up iTunes and buy it for 99 cents. Album? pffftt.... why would someone pay 10 bucks for the one or two songs they really love when they can buy them individually for 2 bucks total.

What that tells me is that 99 cents is too cheap for a single. Singles should cost more, making that 10 dollar album look like a bargain. If singles were 2 bucks a song it would be more like, "I could pay 4 bucks for two great songs, or I could buy the album for 10 and get those plus 8 more pretty good songs. It's a bargain!"

The best graphic I have found showing the relative growth of singles vs decline of albums is from a 2010 article from FastCompany. The graphic is from 2010, so everything past 2009 is a projection, but just the data up until 2009 is remarkable. (http://www.fastcompany.com/1695418/should-albums-only-cost-1)

From the article...

At the New Music Seminar in July, Tommy Boy Records founder Tom Silverman suggested a different approach for the industry.

"Historically, the price of an album was five times greater than a single," argued Silverman, who believes setting the price of a single at one-tenth of an album's cost was a mistake. Even $1.29 -- the top price on iTunes for a single MP3 -- is too low, he contends. "It should've been $1.99, and then we would've seen higher digital album sales because it would've been a bigger discount for buying an album." Based on increased revenue from digital album sales, he says, the $9.99 price tag is becoming more reasonable for consumers.

The article also quotes Rob Dickens of Warner Music...

And that's why, according to Rob Dickens, who headed up Warner Music in the UK for more than decade, album prices must be "radically" slashed--to around £1 ($1.50).

Personally, I think 10 bucks is a perfectly reasonable price for an album and that 2 bucks is a perfectly reasonable price for a single. Some would argue that many impulse sales would be lost, and that is probably true, but it is pretty apparent that impulse sales on singles are not enough to pay the bills.

Re:This Part

[NulDevice]

Yes. Thank you.

That kind of cuts to the heart of Lowery's argument. While I like his blog I think he goes off on a few tangents that undercut his message.

The fact is that under the new model, musicians are now absorbing the brunt of the financial risk while still only reaping a tiny, tiny percentage of the reward. In the old model, they only reaped a tiny eprcentage, most of the time, but someone else shared at least some of the risk.

While the new model may be a lot better at some things - barrier to entry, for example, is much lower - this new artist's utopia that a lot of the "make it in music wooo!" blogs love to go on about simply isn't true. We've traded one form of artist exploitation for another, slightly more insidious one.

Why should we care if the artists are making less?

[Maudib]

The artists were part of the problem in the old system. So long as they are trying to perpetuate the abuses of the current copyright system, they are still a problem. Until the DMCA and CTEA are overturned, we should celebrate the losses of any musicians that rely on these for profit. They are party to the greatest theft from the commons ever. They can work for free until that debt is repaid.

Point, You Missed

[Anonymous Coward]

This guy is well reasoned, but he is missing the point:

While services like Spotify give you exposure, they are still a middle man and they have to take a chunk out for their expenditures.

If you truly want to make more money as an artist, you gotta BE the middle man, and cut out the guys who take some of your money.

With Music/Movies/Video/Shows, thanks to digital media you don't NEED distributors. This guy is trying to play the game the new way with the old board.

And Amanda Palmer, And Steve Albini

[xrayspx]

Amanda Palmer just posted a very long and informative blog about where all the money goes when people donate to her Kickstarter effort to finance her upcoming tour/album. In that post, she references Steve Albini's classic rant against an industry churning through young talent and keeping all the candy for themselves (well, one of his rants on the topic, anyway).

I'm glad to see these issues starting to get major traction and hopefully change can come from without, since it will never come from within.

Re:And Amanda Palmer, And Steve Albini

[meta-monkey]

These issues aren't starting to get traction. "Musicians are getting ripped off by somebody!" Nobody cared when it was the big labels, and nobody cares now when it's Apple or Google or Pandora or whatever, and they won't care when whatever evil empire after Apple/Google/Pandora rips them off. People just want to press buttons and have entertaining sounds happen. They really don't care about how much the artists are getting paid. People have their own problems and don't really care if you don't feel like you're not getting paid enough in your chosen profession.

Re:And Amanda Palmer, And Steve Albini

[xrayspx]

I'm "people", I'm "people" with a couple of thousand CDs. I'm "people" who go to 20-40 shows a year.

Do I think anyone "deserves" to achieve Ozzy wealth, or Mick Jagger wealth arbitrarily because they're musicians? Shit no. Do I understand the economics behind /why/ it costs $1MM to produce a record and stage a short tour? Absolutely. Lots of "small" bands live very close to the edge and I think it's good to support them. For this reason I don't go to movies very often, because A:) they don't interest me particularly, and B:) I don't want to support an ecosystem that gives Brad Pitt $10MM to crap out Oceans Twelve.

People make choices, I choose to spend money on music. Other people choose to spend money on video games, or comics, or movies, or expensive cars. I think the Amanda Palmer Kickstarter is up around $850k now, so it looks like some number of people get enough value from what she does to contribute.

The Real Problem - Less Crap

[rudy_wayne]

The real "problem" is that musicians and record companies con no longer make as much money selling crap as they used to.

Prior to iTunes and other legal methods of downloading music, there was only one way buy music -- you went to a store and bought an album. Whether it was a CD, vinyl LP. 8 track tape or whatever, and it didn't matter if half the songs where crap. That was your only choice. Period. And that was a great deal for both musicians and record companies because it meant that they sold a lot of albums and made a lot of money. And lets be honest. Even the all time greatest "classic" albums have some filler on them. Songs that absolutely nobody cares about. In the past, it didn't matter, you bought the whole album and the musicians'/record companies got the maximum amount of money

But now, that's no longer the case. Only like 3 songs from an album? You just buy those 3 songs. And the math is pretty simple:

-- A million people buy those 3 songs from the album -- the artist royalties from 3 million songs sold on iTunes is a lot less than 3 million albums sold.

-- A million albums sold with 12 songs per album = $1,080,000 in publishing royalties for the songwriter (9 cents per song). But if a million people just buy those 3 songs publishing royalties = $270,000.

In the end, it's really no different than any other technological change. You can't make a living delivering packages by stage-coach anymore either.

Re:The Real Problem - Less Crap

[TheGoodNamesWereGone]

And here I am with no mod points. You're absolutely correct. I'll go even further and say the market for recorded music will shrink even more whether it's record companies or Apple doing the distribution. The days where you can add a gimmick and Autotune & then foist off on the musical consumer a talentless flavor-of-the-month so-called 'artist' that doesn't even play an instrument are hopefully gone. Musicians will have to make their money honestly by playing in front of live audiences. There will always be recorded music in some form, but this is where everything's headed.

Re:The Real Problem - Less Crap

[ffflala]

Prior to iTunes and other legal methods of downloading music, there was only one way buy music -- you went to a store and bought an album.

Don't you remember Columbia House's successful mail-order business? 12 albums for 1 cent!** (**plus you have to buy 10 more albums at ~$10-$15 a pop.) No store overhead, no need to walk further than the mailbox.

Who here thought they were talking about games?

[slack_justyb]

Who here read the title and thought they were talking about the background music during a boss fight?

New boss still trying to copy the old boss

[gman003]

A lot of his criticisms of the current "new" system are valid. But the fundamental problem, as I see it, is that instead of truly "breaking the paradigm", everyone is treating the business the same way it had been.

In short, they know the players have changed, but nobody's realized that the game can be changed. Artists still expect some form of publisher to pay for their studio time, they still go to some publisher to publish their music. And now they complain that the publisher is still taking too much money.

Here's an idea (and it's just that, an idea): Go completely, 100% independent
Use Kickstarter or the like to get the cash to record an album. Having a demo of one or two songs should suffice, if you can market yourself properly, and you can self-fund demos easily enough.
Once you have the album, sell it on your own site instead of iTunes or Amazon. Maybe Humble-Indie-Bundle it with other, *similar* bands, if that can give you more publicity.
Either use the profits from the album, or ticket presales (Kickstarter may work well again), to go on tour. Get merchandise to sell - t-shirts, physical CDs, posters, etc.
Make sure to have some sort of contact for licensing. If Hollywood Director Q wants to use your song in Summer Action Movie Part XIV, you shouldn't make it hard for him. Commercials. Radio play. Anything - if someone wants to pay you to use your music, it needs to be possible. And price yourself lower than the Big Media bands do (since there's no publisher to take a 90% cut, it should be easy).

Between album sales and concerts, it should be possible to make a good living. The era of the multi-millionaire superstar is probably over, but honestly, I won't mourn them.

There are some problems with this. The publisher is normally the one to do all the advertising, so you'd have to do that yourself. It means a band *will* need some sort of marketing person to succeed, from Day 1. Music critics will also have to do a much better job - they can't just look at the list of what Big Media inc. is publishing this month, listen to the CDs mailed to you, and write down 4 stars for all of it.

There's probably a million other problems, too, but we won't find them until someone at least *tries*.

Re:New boss still trying to copy the old boss

[GlobalEcho]

Here's an idea (and it's just that, an idea): Go completely, 100% independent.

I think Lowery's response would be that in such a case, one would mostly find the extra revenue going to what he terms the First Leg of the "new boss" (File sharing/Cyber Lockers).

Lowery's analysis seems cogent to me, and I am pessimistic about the world of digital distribution to match previous decades' spikes in artist revenue. I agree instead with the numerous posters above, who argue that the future profitability for musicians will be determined by having fewer musicians and more live revenue.

Music critics will also have to do a much better job.

A very important point!

Re:New boss still trying to copy the old boss

[NulDevice]

I'd wager thousands have tried. They just failed.

The model is good IF everything works out right. But if one of those things goes wrong it all falls apart. Kickstarter is no gaurantee unless you can drum up support well enough to fund things. I know plenty of guys with great bands and good fanbases who couldn't, simply because they personally can't seem to motivate their fans to give money *before* the album is in the can, for whatever reason. Lack of the right kind of charisma, older fanbase, whatever.

Lost of people have contacts for licensing. The demand - and payout - for licensing is a lot lower than one would hope.

Selling it yourself is great, and does work...but only if you're technical enough to set up and maintain your own webstore. Some musicans are. Others aren't. Then you have to get people to go *there* instead of the very convenient itunes or amazon.

All these things CAN be done, but so far, very few have successfully been able to pull of each step in the game.

Re:Collaboration and self-publishing are the answe

[sdavid]

Today, musicians can record with (nearly) the same quality in their house as they can in a major studio.

Just to be clear: they can't. The recording equipment has become much cheaper, but the the cost of making an acoustically designed studio has not. Nor has the cost of hiring an experienced engineer for the recording. I love what can be done with today's PC-based recording equipment, but a real studio is still a real studio and a garage is still a garage, even if the tracks ultimately end up on a Mac either way.

How to make money in recorded music

[mypalmike]

Write songs that are catchy enough to be picked up by ad agencies to be used in TV commercials. Best if they have choruses about freedom, cars, or hair. Niche songs might obscurely allude to feminine pads.

Duh

[ThatsNotPudding]

There is a reason Big Music has to bribe, threaten, buy out and coerce media and sellers: on the whole, 95% pop music has never been any good, requiring brutal tactics to shovel shit into the public consciousness. Therefore, hones marketing and buying of music has to be a smaller business. Also: where is it written in stone by God that musicians have to be wealthy?

Too soon to tell

[FranTaylor]

The Internet is burning down market models all over the world

You can't pass judgement on the new models, until the smoke and ash from the old ones is gone.

He had me until...

[R3d M3rcury]

It’s usually after someone like myself suggest that if other people are profiting from distributing an artist’s work (Kim Dotcom, Mediafire, Megavideo, Mp3tunes,) they should share some of their proceeds with the artists.

Maybe I'm not hep to the way you kids are getting music these days because I have to spend time keeping you all off of my lawn, but these services advertise a way for me to access the music that I bought from any device anywhere that I happen to be.

Is he implying that Mp3tunes should be paying him to store my music and make it accessible to me from wherever I am?

Let's see...I have a SanDisk MP3 player. I have a bunch of music on it. Should he be getting paid by SanDisk? After all, SanDisk made a profit selling me a device to listen to their music. Without that music, why would I buy a SanDisk MP3 player? Shouldn't some of that go to the musician? How about that CaseLogic case I have to hold CDs? They made a profit from that. Shouldn't some of that go to the people who make the music that I hold in that case?

You made your money selling me the music. Now go away.

Re:He had me until...

[NulDevice]

I admit his rant in that are kind of went off the rails, but I see what he's trying to say, I think. A lot of these services profit from an artist's music whether the usage of their service is legitimate or not. That's his big beef. They wash their hands of the responsibility, while still making money.

I am interested only...

[Mister Liberty]

in the future of GOOD music.
I suppose therein lies the crucial difference.
But then again, I am a consumer, not a 'music' 'pusher'.

Have a nice day!

If you're in music to make money...

[benjfowler]

then you're probably in the wrong business.

The arts have always been a 'winner take all' tournament. To then come along and think the world owes you a living because you're a musician is naive and ridiculous.

Obliquity and all that. You're in the music business to make good music, not make money. The best enterprises in the world don't exist to "create shareholder value". They exist to be the best at what they do. Profit is merely a means to keep score.

Re:If you're in music to make money...

[coldsalmon]

I once heard a poet say that she loved poetry because it was the one thing that nobody had yet been able to commodify successfully. It's still worth absolutely nothing.

Re:If you're in music to make money...

[David Gerard]

Good thing no-one ever told her rap was popular.

Re:If you're in music to make money...

[tehcyder]

Good thing no-one ever told her rap was popular.

Rap is to poetry as Uwe Boll is to Ingmar Bergman.

The problem with his argument

[jakegmerek]

Here is the problem with his argument. He is ignoring the fact that in a capitalist system there is supply and demand. The demand for recorded music has not decreased, however the supply of recorded music has gone to infinity. When a song can be copied for free with no real world costs then the supply becomes infinite and cost goes down to zero. If the market for recorded music were truly a free market that cost would have gone to zero as soon as Napster was invented. However, we have a protected market in the form of copyright that has artificially propped up the price of recorded music and thus has delayed the inevitable.

To use an example that he uses consumers want other things for free such as cars but can not have them. This is true do to the basic laws that are killing the price of recorded music. However to equalize the analogy, if GM were to somehow produce a trillion cars next year, there would be way too much supply and the price of cars would drop to probably near zero but not zero because a trillion cars is still not infinite as music is.

So how are musicians supposed to make money? They have to innovate and compete with free and it can be done. The greatest example of competing with free is bottled water. I am willing to bet that the vast majority of people reading this can walk a few feet and find a source of fresh, drinkable water for essentially free, yet the bottled water industry has made billions selling what is ultimately the same thing. How did they do this? They provided the product in a convenient manner that consumers wanted and people are willing to pay them for it. Is it hard to do? Yes. But look at how long water was around before someone put it in a bottle and became rich off of it.

Giving up software patents?

[jjo]

This guy does make some reasonable points, but for all that he thinks himself an uber-geek, he is apparently disconnected from the realities of the tech world today.

I’ll make technologists a deal, I’ll give up my song copyrights if you give up your software patents. Software patents are even less unique than your typical song.

He thinks that technologists like software patents. Most technologists who are familiar with the issue are strongly against them; the only group consistently in favor of software patents is the patent lawyers.

The downside of his proposed deal, in my view, is not abolishing software patents (which would instead be of tremendous benefit), but abolishing music copyrights. For all that the strength of copyright protection has weakened in the Internet era, it is not zero by any means, and still plays its role of promoting the 'progress of science and the useful arts'.

The big problems come if you attempt to recreate, via stringent and draconian restrictions, the strong copyright regime we had before the Internet. These attempts are doomed to failure, and will create significant collateral damage while failing in their intended goal.

Re:Giving up software patents?

[NulDevice]

He's got a weird obsession with certain copyright issues that I don't fully understand, and I think it tends to undercut his arguments. He makes a lot of good points but then goes kidna weird with OMG TEH EFF IS EEEVIL and I'm like "what?"

His main point is sound, that the model has changed but artists are still taking it up the back of a volkswagon.

I believe that's where you are right now!

[kawabago]

Look at Justin Beiber, no internet, no Justin. Also, the author of the article completely overlooks the fact that the largest downloaders are also the largest purchasers of entertainment. File trading has replaced radio as the medium of choice to find new music. If we eliminate file trading we also eliminate the path to the audience. People won't buy what they can't find or can't hear.

Re:I believe that's where you are right now!

[sneakyimp]

Also, the author of the article completely overlooks the fact that the largest downloaders are also the largest purchasers of entertainment.

I think you've overlooked the fact that what you state is not a fact. It may be suggested by a study here and there, but I know plenty of downloaders who never buy a single thing.

Two birds with one stone

[Roger W Moore]

Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.

If that is the moral then the article author might be in trouble given his stance. His last sentence is:

I’ll make technologists a deal, I’ll give up my song copyrights if you give up your software patents.

So how do we accept? More telling is that I think it shows he really does not understand the digital side of things very well. Outside major corporations or patent trolls I imagine many people would happy see software patents disappear.

Laugh

[koan]

Facebook page is filled with angry comments from their followers that seem to all be unsuccessful Canadian hip hop artists who proclaim:

“We are gonna turn you into Lars Ulrich and bitch your band sucks anyway”.

Man I haven't laughed out loud like this in a long time, and it's amusing because the image of the "unsuccessful Canadian hip hop artist" is J-Roc from Trailer Park Boys.

I think the real issue with the "new boss" is you don't have it figured out yet, where the "old boss" was tried true and set in its ways, we are better off with the new boss, fuck the labels.

The bad songs subsidize the good

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, with all their creative vision, artists don't necessarily know which songs are going to be crap songs and they certainly don't try to write them. They still had to invest time and money into the songs you don't like: maybe one in five turns out good, and those good songs are what they make their living from. You're subsidizing their efforts to make more good stuff by also paying for the ones they developed but didn't turn out. The artist is assuming a hell of a lot of risk when you come out and say "I don't ever plan to buy most of what you make, and I won't know what I want until you put it on the shelves".

Re:The bad songs subsidize the good

[marcosdumay]

The artist is assuming a hell of a lot of risk when you come out and say "I don't ever plan to buy most of what you make, and I won't know what I want until you put it on the shelves".

How is that different from any other kind of entrepreneur?

Magnatune gives 50% of gross to the artist

[ODBOL]

This is where I buy music today: http://magnatune.com/ I bought their entire list, past present and future, in a lifetime subscription. I listen to everything, whether it's something I think I like or not. I like lots of it, and the rest expands my listening capacity.

Music distributor?

[FrozenFOXX]

Wouldn't this be wholly dependent on the distribution channel? I mean if you're going through Spotify and they're not paying you but beans, or iTunes isn't exactly working out, couldn't you...you know...use *another* service? The cost of reproducing the songs is nil given that it's already in a digital format, so it doesn't hurt to shop around. I know they don't have a lot of popular support (last time I checked anyway) but what about services like Ubuntu One and Magnatune? Especially on the latter the payout model's pretty simple and straightforward. You could also say, "fuck it," and just put your stuff out on YouTube/ThePirateBay/Facebook/Google+/Wherever for free, with links to your event calendar for shows and something like Magnatune if they want to support you otherwise, maybe even a Cafepress/similar site for swag. I'm not saying it's all the artists' fault mind you, industry execs are some evil filth, but they're not exactly lacking in options.

Celebrity worship.

[MaWeiTao]

It could be argued that making money as a musician has been a short-lived thing. Outside of top-tier composers producing music for nobility no one could earn a living. But over the last century, with the advent of various technologies being a musician became a viable career. Now, because of the commoditization of music and easy access to entertainment the opportunity to make money is evaporating for a lot of people.

Of course, it will never go back to that. Independents will flock to whatever service offers the best deal, or find their own methods of distribution. Music as a big business will always exist. Most consumers, especially youth, are not picky. Their music selections are based on what conforms to their lifestyle identities. And that's all based around conforming to whatever group they've pigeonholed themselves into. So they will continue to lap up whatever garbage the studios produce. Those catering to that demand, supported by the studios, will continue making a lot of money. It's every one else beneath them, who haven't reached that level of celebrity, who will struggle. This is all firmly intrenched in celebrity culture. Complain all we want but that, unfortunately, is not going to change.

Re:Collaboration and self-publishing are the answe

[lgw]

In the beginning, bands formed and recorded music in their garage, with the best equipment and recording technology that they could afford.

Did you know? Humans, including musicians, inhabited the planet for a long time before you were born. Its true! Believe it or not, professional musicians existsed long before garages or technology.

The old model of "play for a room full of people in return for dinner and the hope someone will throw me some money" will wark far better now that the whole internet can fit in your room, but this is not exactly a "new" way for a musician to earn a living,

Geek needs an econ course

[w_dragon]

He claims to out-geek most people, but he misses the obvious economics. Every year the supply of music grows, every modern band has to compete not only with all the other bands recording today, but with every band that has recorded a song since we started recording music. Most of us aren't going to greatly increase the amount of money we spend on music, so as the music selection grows each individual artist should expect to get less. Add to that that it is now possible to go find public domain or creative commons music and you're trying to compete with 'free', which is hard to do in general. There will probably always be a few bands that can make millions just making music and putting on a show, and there will always be money for the teenage pop junk since that's never really been about the music anyway, but beyond that it will probably only become harder for a band to make a living solely from music.

Controlling reality and entitlement to profit

[fermion]

The Labels now have limited ability to control reality. They can no longer pay off radio and television interests to produce a hit. They can no longer put one popular song on an album, and control costs by adding 10 low quality tracks. I have seen artists without a label do this, and the results is that those people are doing much anymore. So supply is no longer limited, it is a buyers market, so it more likely artists that do novel or interesting things are going to succeed. Radio and TV still have a role to play in promoting it, but they are less likely to promote crap as consumers have other channels in which to compare. It is like movie studios putting out crap movies that are a failure by sunday morning because everyone who paid to see the movie have tweeting how much it sucked. The fans control reality

This loss of control has nothing to do with the internet, it has to do with Labels losing control of prices, i.e. the loss of the price fixing case 10 years ago, and reduction in cost of entry into the market. Fifteen years ago, bands I saw had to work hard to get the money together to press a CD. Now most of the costs is studio time and marketing, which has also fallen Labels can't keep prices high, lower cost of entry means more competition, profit per item falls.

Then, of course, if the ludicrous idea that the new system is worse than the old system because less profit is generated in the new system. No one who creates a product automatically deserves to profit. At least in the US, we are guaranteed the right to pursue profit, but no one is guaranteed profit. With both conservatives and liberal trying to prop up failed models that is hard to remember, but it is the truth. If I put out an album, there is no law that says someone has to buy it, and no law that says some one has to buy it at a price where I can make a profit. That is why Walmart exists, and why so many products are no longer made in the USA.

So the question is can creators keep up with new market realities, not does the market have an obligation to prop up legacy suppliers. If an content creator is still making a profit, then all that matters is if the content creator leaves or stays. If the content creator leaves, is there someone who will be willing to work for prevailing rewards, and if not does it matter? For instance, if the rewards for pop music were so low that no one would want to do, would society fall. Note that for jobs that are critical to society, we often prevent these workers for asking for high wages.

So while i think the paper has some interesting content, the idea that we should pass laws or change society to guarantee a profit is simply silly. We have already critically wounded our democracy by passing laws that allow copyright holders to overwhelm the rights of arbitrary citizens. Let them make a product people value instead of insisting that god have given them the right to be rich.

Re:Collaboration and self-publishing are the answe

[0123456]

I love what can be done with today's PC-based recording equipment, but a real studio is still a real studio and a garage is still a garage, even if the tracks ultimately end up on a Mac either way.

An acquaintance of mine has recorded music tracks for multi-million dollar movies in his garage (not Hollywood level, but not two guys and a camcorder either), so I would suggest you may be wrong.

New boss - your content will play in 30...29...28

[jaypaulw]

There are literally thousands of brilliant rock/pop groups in the world - as to why they don't make the money and circulation and distribution they should? It's a complete mystery to me.

P2P is absolutely not helping things though. Way to many casual music fans "check out" lots of music, buy very little and then keep what they've "borrowed" permanently. Most good indie records can be streamed for free in its entirety for a limited time. A perfectly reasonable middle ground to give people the opportunity to hear the album.

I like mog though (it's worth the 5/month to not hear ads on spotify) and then when I like something I buy the physical product (either LP or CD)

JP

Iron law of wages

[coldsalmon]

One could argue that people can now take the money that they would have spent on buying commodified music and spend it supporting new/local/independent artists. This argument can be applied across any field that is rendered less expensive by technology. However, I think it is more likely that wages will fall, now that people need less money to satisfy their desires, while still feeling just as content. Back in the 30s and 40s, you needed to have a whole community of local artists to sustain any sort of access to culture. Now all you need is a cheap smartphone or laptop. I'm no luddite, but technology is not a one-way road toward a better life.

Re:Collaboration and self-publishing are the answe

[sdavid]

Since we're telling stories: a friend of mine who is, among other things, a proper audio engineer, recorded the narration for my wife's last film in his office since a studio wasn't available and renting one wasn't in the budget. He used an excellent microphone, an excellent D/A converter, and the result sounds very good. Her narration sounds great, as do the trucks and streetcars going by. Studios do matter.

Re:Perception of value

[NormalVisual]

Of course it did. There's no reason whatsoever to think that basic laws of supply and demand would apply to music any differently than any other product. There's a lot more supply in the form of artists and songs, and relatively constant demand in the form of disposable income, therefore the music is worth less than it was back before the Internet broke the distribution monopoly.

Re:Just one hint

[The Mister Purple]

And that will stop digital distribution how?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Just what music "demands" an accoustic studio?

[swb]

Some of the greatest rock and roll records ever recorded were done in non-studio environments, in live venues or very low end studios where carpeting on the walls was what mattered. Exile on Main Street was recorded in the basement of a 19th century French Estate.

And what percentage of the listening public would even notice when so many are happy with 128k MP3s played back on cheap Skullcandy headphones?

I'm sure there are some kinds of music (acoustic, jazz, classical) that attract the kinds of people who claim they can hear the difference between 3/0 and 4/0 speaker wire or who made the tubes in their amplifiers. For them, the studio location may matter.

But for most forms of popular music, the music is either totally electronic and thus doesn't care what physical space it was created in, or it's likely to be the kind of music that might actually sound better in a more raw setting.

All-in-all, with decent microphones and basic engineering, a band of today in a garage can probably make a basic recording that's as good or better than what many studios could produce in the 1960s.

Dear Mr. Lowery

[Mathinker]

Dear Mr. Lowery,

The Internet is so, so sorry if you are having a harder time because it exists. However, in general, it seems that it is easier for many other musicians because it exists.

Details can be found at the Techdirt article where you prove, in your reply posts, that you're an idiot, in either your business skills, your public relation skills, or both.

Oh so sincerely,
The Internet

Re:Dear Mr. Lowery

[Mathinker]

>> in either your business skills, your public relation skills, or both.

Lowery's posts are a total fail from a public relations point of view, which is why my post is modded to 5, contains data, and was composed in "snarky mode".

While burning up his PR karma, he unfortunately discredits his own arguments about the music business --- which is wrong, being an ad-hominem. However, your post, which dismisses Masnick's arguments with no analysis is equally flawed ("argument from authority of an AC on Slashdot"? Give me a break.).

Your post is a puerile attempt to save Lowery's image. I hope you're doing out of the goodness of your heart; I'd hate to think he's wasting money paying you.

Re:Dear Mr. Lowery

[prime_implicant]

My comment was posted as AC because I didn't realize that I was not logged in. As far as your assertion that Lowerly's posts were a fail, I disagree completely. After reading in full both Lowerly's posts and Masnick's criticism of apparently Lowerly's Facebook posts, I came away with much respect for Lowerly and zero respect for Masnick and for TechDirt. Your implication that Lowerly somehow pays me to comment is simply idiotic and paranoid.

Re:Dear Mr. Lowery

[Mathinker]

OK, I'll bite: I repost Lowery's first reply post on that Techdirt article:

digeridiot.
David C Lowery (profile), Feb 20th, 2012 @ 10:52pm

Wow. Mike you didn't even come to the talk and then you rebut me?

what the fuck? i mean if i wanted to fucking sue you i could?

You should change the article title to

"If you're gonna rebut someones talk, you might ought have heard it"

1. whatever you took from Facebook was some ramblings from a few weeks earlier and it was not my argument that i presented at sf music tech. One of the paragraphs did share the title. But otherwise IT HAD LITTLE TO DO WITH WHAT I TALKED ABOUT.

2. The talk I gave was based on a University of Georgia bit of academic research. I teach at University of Georgia when i'm not out touring. I teach music business finance. Unlike TECHDIRT I can't make up things out of my ass and just print them.

3. you didn't even present my actual argument. It's quite narrow comparison of the percentage of gross revenue that flows to the artist under the new digital model vs the old record label model. my tentative conclusion is that less revenue

4. I have shitloads of data. nearly two decades worth. hundreds of artists. all kinds of artists. hobbyists to platinum.

5. I like most of you here expected that although the overall revenue for the recorded music business is down (-64%) I expected artists would be doing better. Disintermediation etc. direct sales to fans. long tail revenue. It turns out the data does not agree. Don't shoot the fucking messenger.

6. How the fuck can you say the argument don't make sense? you didn't even hear it.

7. for those of you who think i somehow don't understand the digital world? I have a degree in mathematics and i've been programming computers since you had to RPG on punch cards. my first job out of college was as a CPM/MPM system operator. Since the early 1990's i've been operating a successful WEB based business. It's called being in a band. Don't fucking tell me I don't understand the fucking digital paradigm. Finally if you still don't think i have digital/web credentials just google "david lowery groupon"

I expect a retraction and an apology. fuckface.

You say that you "came away with much respect for Lowerly [sic]" --- from that I understand that your respect for someone is proportional to the number of times they gratuitously insert "fuck" into their arguments, added to the number of times they insult the people with whom they are arguing? I think I am understanding how you don't respect my reasoning. LOL

Re:Dear Mr. Lowery

[prime_implicant]

what's that supposed to prove? That Lowery can use non-censured language? That's it? I read the whole 5-part article that Lowery wrote, which is well-argued and deserves much respect. I also read the link that you provided in which a blogger criticizes his position without any qualification, then in the comments tries to weasel out of it by saying that he is really responding to a facebook post. That criticism contains nothing persuasive for me and no real data. If you care to point me to what specifically you agree in that criticism, then maybe I'll understand your position. Otherwise, what I see is a well-written, long article by Lowery and half-assed criticism of what turns out to be a facebook post by Lowery from a TechDirt blogger (sorry I forget the name) and then uncivil comments after that blog, which don't sway me one way or the other.

Re:Dear Mr. Lowery

[Mathinker]

> what's that supposed to prove? That Lowery can use non-censured language? That's it? I read the whole 5-part article

I didn't, and none of this discussion is about that article. You fail, interestingly in exactly the same way Lowery did.

This particular discussion is about whether Lowery manages to project an image of someone who deserves respect, in those particular Techdirt posts. I understand that you are free to disagree. What bothers me doesn't have to bother you, and visa versa.

> That criticism contains nothing persuasive for me and no real data.

Actually, I was curious enough to look for your 5-part article. Is it the one linked in the summary? Posted almost a month after Lowery's Techdirt escapade? I find it silly that you're dissing Masnick for not having good arguments against something which was obviously posted after Masnick's Techdirt post.

Looking at the article which impressed you so much, I don't see a lot of data in it either (it is, I admit, chock full of claims --- but that's different from data.). One statement did impress me with its honesty, though:

I like to think that I am uniquely qualified as an artist, entrepreneur and geek.

Yes, that is exactly the impression one gets from Lowery's Techdirt post. Someone who believes he is uniquely qualified, in fact, so uniquely qualified he couldn't possibly be wrong --- in fact, people should apologize for disagreeing with him.

Re:Dear Mr. Lowery

[prime_implicant]

The slashdot's story is about Lowery's article, which has the same title as the Slashdot's story. I believe that this is what the majority has been discussing. You, however, came in with a snarky post without qualifying that you want to discuss his facebook post from a long time ago and the TechDirt's criticism based on the same. In other words, you want to create your own discussion, based on your own perspective, and your main concern is how Lowery presents himself on Techdirt. I believe others may have been misled by this, as I was, thinking that this is discussion of Lowery's actual position.

Re:Dear Mr. Lowery

[Mathinker]

If you want, we can segue into an argument over the article, too. However, from my cursory perusal of it, I get the impression that it largely reflects Lowery's self-image; it starts with several slides solely about himself, rather than the topic --- in order to set himself up as an "authority". He throws around all kinds of anecdotal numbers and talks about "14 academic papers", but doesn't give us any references or actual access to his data or data collection protocol, so we cannot actually judge to what degree his adamant backing of his argument is due to confirmation bias rather than him actually being correct. Because of his Techdirt run-in, he feebly tries to discredit Masnick's report on the music industry:

Totally misleading fake studies. Like the Computer and Communications Industry Association’s ”The Sky is Rising” Report. First off this was passed around as independent research when it was actually industry lobby generated propaganda. Among the most outrageous obfuscations and bizarre metrics: Including gaming revenue to help disguise recorded music revenue decline, Not mentioning the drop in live music revenues in North America, and creating the bizarre metric of “number of recorded music transactions” instead of using recorded music revenues. Recorded music transactions are up because people buy individual tracks now instead of 1 album of 10 songs. Get it?

When he dismisses Masnick's report, his main argument in doing so is because it is sponsored by a particular group (it's rather typical that people who argue from authority use ad-hominem attacks to discredit other points of view). He continually calls it various names, like "fake", "propaganda". His actual attacks target a few specific points without quoting the paper itself, and are largely specious (if you want, we can address them in further discussion). In comparison, the paper's intro to the music industry section starts with this paragraph:

Defining the music industry is tricky -- it can be defined in several different ways and each method can leave out significant segments of the market. For instance, various music organizations and government statistics don't count (or vastly under-count) contributors to the music industry, such as self-employed artists who might work part-time or musicians working for non-profit entities like schools, churches or other cultural venues. There are also several independent music distributors that aren't counted in mainstream music industry statistics. Ultimately, music is a pervasive part of life, and the music industry is not a centralized, monolithic business. The music industry is made up of several music industries -- ranging from the major labels to piano teachers. If the book industry looked almost too vast to account for, then the music industry could seem even more daunting.

Personally, I find that so refreshing compared to Lowery: "reality is complex and hard to understand" vs. "I'm an expert and you can rely on my understanding of the music business".

Within the context of Lowery's emphasis of his own expertise, the Techdirt post is actually cogent. He complains that "he gets the digital world" while at the same time he laughably threatens "i mean if i wanted to fucking sue you i could?" --- even more pathetically, he's threatening to sue Mike Masnick, coiner of the term "Streisand effect". Riiiight.

Re:Dear Mr. Lowery

[prime_implicant]

How exactly is his criticism "feeble"? Lowery catches several specific problems with the report, such as including game revenue in its metrics and using "music transactions" instead of music revenues. Are you saying these don't count or are somehow invalid?

I see no problem with Lowery establishing his credentials upfront. It allows the reader to understand his biases and also decide what statements can be taken at face value. For instance, I know upfront that the author actually understands what is involved in the process of producing a record and the process of making a recording. The same cannot be said of the majority of those posting on slashdot. For instance, I saw someone commenting negatively about Lowry's description of needing to position microphones, which takes time. The process of recording is still a labor-intensive process, in spite of the technical advances.

I think it is quite relevant to establish whether a report that he criticizes may be biased. Whether or not it rises to the level of "propaganda" or if you want a more politically correct term, does not matter. This is still relevant and from what I understand it is not stated clearly in that report and that site.

Pretty much all of your criticism comes down to presentation, rather than substance.

Re:Dear Mr. Lowery

[Mathinker]

> How exactly is his criticism "feeble"?

OK. I understand that you've checked all Lowery's criticisms by yourself, so we can discuss them, one by one:

Among the most outrageous obfuscations and bizarre metrics: Including gaming revenue to help disguise recorded music revenue decline

The only place I see in Masnick's report where income from video games was included in the music section was when he reports the results of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, as far as I can tell, verbatim (let me know if you found a different place during your review).

Another way of looking at the music industry is through the numbers that the IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) publishes on what it calls "the broader music industry." In 2005, the IFPI estimated the global music industry to be worth $132 billion -- which included revenues from music in radio advertising, recorded music sales, musical instrument sales, live performance revenues and portable digital music player sales (among a few other income categories). By 2010, the IFPI estimated the market to be worth $168 billion, but it had also changed how it categorized some of the revenues and added categories such as audio home systems, music-related video game sales and music revenues from TV advertising (in addition to a few other categories).

Hmm, what have we here? Seems to me that Lowery is misrepresenting the lumping of that income to Masnick trying to disguise something else, rather than it being a lumped metric reported by a respected industry group, the IFPI. I guess Lowery knows better than all of those deadheads at IFPI who decided that "Guitar Hero"-like game income should be attributed to the "broader" music industry.

Not mentioning the drop in live music revenues in North America

OK, I cannot judge anything about this one, except that Lowery doesn't post any data backing his claim. He could be right.

creating the bizarre metric of “number of recorded music transactions” instead of using recorded music revenues

This criticism address the data Masnick reports from Neilsen Soundscan:

On the consumption side, music is also being consumed at near record-setting levels. According to Nielsen SoundScan figures, the overall sale of music (including albums, singles, digital tracks, etc.) exceeded 1.5 billion transactions in 2010. That's up from 845 million transactions in 2000. These overall sales figures seem to rise and fall a bit over the years, but they don't necessarily drop during economic recessions.

Masnick didn't "create" this metric. Those idiots at Nielsen, who obviously don't know squat compared to Lowery, did. Masnick does address various problems using the metric:

Again, there are a few caveats with the Nielsen SoundScan sales data that should be mentioned. First of all, these are transactions without regard to the price of an item, so as we'll discuss later, this does not necessarily mean that consumers are spending more when they buy music.

Re:Dear Mr. Lowery

[Mathinker]

> Not mentioning the drop in live music revenues in North America

Looks like Lowery isn't quite up to date, there: from January 2012:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2012/01/06/live-music-in-2011-revenues-up-attendance-down/

Of course, as Masnick emphasizes, "live music" is an enormously wide range of activities not all of which are covered by Neilsen SoundScan. You must forgive me for refusing to believe Lowery has reached his conclusion by gathering more data or different data than them; however, if Lowery would actually cough up the data in a way which could be reviewed, I could possibly be convinced.

Re:Dear Mr. Lowery

[prime_implicant]

If Masnick didn't "create" this metric, which is faulty, it doesn't absolve him from using it to justify his claim that "the sky is rising" for music content creators. He also says:

Generally, independent musicians aren't necessarily registering their works as they perform them, but that shouldn't take away from the trend that it's easier than ever to record and play music and that the production of music is rising.

This contradicts Lowry's observation, based on his wife's recording business, that music production has decreased. Musicians no longer have the budget to make professional recordings, compared with the past and also are less willing to invest in it as in the past, because it doesn't recoup costs because of piracy. They instead concentrate on live shows.

One problem in Masnick's report, as I see it, is that he does not acknowledge that the "technical giants" do well for themselves in selling music without passing the gains along to the musicians who created it. He touts kickstarter, as if it's a viable route for most of the musicians. He mentions bandcamp without saying its actual share in music sold.

Re:Dear Mr. Lowery

[Mathinker]

> If Masnick didn't "create" this metric, which is faulty, it doesn't absolve him from using it to justify his
> claim that "the sky is rising" for music content creators.

Why should he need "absolution"? He qualifies his use of the data immediately after presenting it --- I even quoted the text of where he does that.

> This contradicts Lowry's observation, based on his wife's recording business, that music production has decreased.

Well, if you prefer to rely on someone who is basing their arguments on their wife's recording business rather than the reports of companies like Neilsen and industry groups like IFPI, I suppose we don't have to continue this discussion any longer. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

Re:Dear Mr. Lowery

[prime_implicant]

Masnick only acknowledges that the metrics are faulty, he does not acknowledge that they don't actually support his statement that the music production has increased, which is contradicted by Lowry's direct observation, even if it's based on a limited sample size. All these metrics only reflect the side of the sellers of music, such as apple and amazon, which as it turns out is not the same as the creators of music. The only exception would be kickstarter, in which musicians both raise the funds and sell directly, but Masnick does not give any data on how prevalent its use is.

Different, but perhaps fundamental issue

[whoever57]

Maybe the market just doesn't value musicians that highly -- maybe their talents just are not so unique in most cases that they deserve to make much money. From the article:

Seattle's Grunge Bubble. Historically the companies that tried to be selective, pick the stars were no more successful than the companies that were not selective.

So those companies who tried to find the best artists made no more than those who signed anyone. Perhaps the successful artists are not successful because of any extra talent, but rather because of the support they received. Perhaps the "new boss" just makes this lack of special talent more obvious!

Re:Collaboration and self-publishing are the answe

[Zondar]

Since we were talking about the RECORDING INDUSTRY here, I had hoped you would limit the conversation to the realm of the RECORDING INDUSTRY and RECORDING music.

The thing that is new is that the musician(s) / band no longer absolutely needs the studio executives, the studio marketing people or the studio provided recording facility / engineers to produce a quality product and successfully market it directly to the consumers. The musician also no longer needs the studio to make the connections to those who need music produced, such as filmmakers and TV ad producers.

I haven't seen a single interesting comment here

[frank_adrian314159]

I haven't seen a single comment here that wasn't rebutted in the original article. Of course, it's always better to mouth platitudes from talking points and say tl;dr than to actually read the thing and... you know... be challenged. It's the geek-arrogant way (also covered nicely in the article, BTW).

Re:Collaboration and self-publishing are the answe

[Pecisk]

Just to be clear: they can, but I wholeheartly agree on having good engineer at least and/or recording producer for it. Having acoustically perfect studio is overblown. You can record vocals in it, but for rest lot of interesting tricks can and is used. Radiohead recorded their last LPs in various places, most of them wasn't studios.

But having good engineer at least is a must, because it speeds up things considerably.

This is how cartels collapse

[trout007]

My first problem is that you don't have a constitutional right to IP. It isn't in the Bill of Rights. It's in the power of Congress section. That means it is up to congress how to deal with IP. We could get rid of it tomorrow with just a plain old law no amendment needed.

Most importantly is the ignorance of economics. The author doesn't go far enough back in music history. Go back before there were recordings of any kind. How many people made a living being an artist? How many we're wealthy? It was the recording technology that let artists reach a large audience. Coping records was capital intensive so the recording and publishing industry was able to make lots of money.

But now technology advanced to the point where coping is nearly free. The recording cartel can no longer exist. Sure they will try to use laws to keep it alive but it's a losing battle. There will be no money to be made in recording.

The answer? You will have to work. That means playing for audiences, selling merchandise, and figuring out how to get people to pay you for real goods and services.

How many geeks here would live to return to the 90's where all you had to do is make a website and go IPO? Well too bad those days are over.

getting rid of the middleman can never work

[iothal]

obviously, http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/amandapalmer/amanda-palmer-the-new-record-art-book-and-tour never, ever, never - nope, impossible

Anyone considered concerts?

[gtirloni]

AFAIK, there was a time when musicians would earn their living by performing their music.

Re:Anyone considered concerts?

[mmcxii]

Maybe so but I like a lot of artists who have to be as impressive in concert as watching someone man a lightboard ata high school play. Some music just doesn't translate well into the concert medium. For that fact alone I won't pirate music.

Re:Anyone considered concerts?

[NulDevice]

You willing to go to a concert every day of the week.

If you think your average artist can make a living performing, you should really try it sometime. The profit margins are razor thin, unless you're selling out big venues, and few people do that. Even a big band can have a hard time selling a big room out on a weeknight. Not every market has big venues. Not every fanbase is centralized around, say, New York and LA where there are lots of venues.

Multiply that by a few thousand bands. You've got thousands of bands competing for a limited number of venues, and those that do sell out a smaller venue are unlikely to make more than "what it'll cost to get to the next show."

It's not a sustainable model.

that isn't hurting the artists..

[foradoxium]

market saturation

you sell 100 albums at 15, or 300 albums at 5. you still make the same amount..however..the scaling might actually be better, allowing you to sell 500 albums at 5.

The bolsheviks of the EFF.

[David Gerard]

"Further the new boss through it’s surrogates like Electronic Frontier Foundation seems to be waging a cynical PR campaign that equates the unauthorized use of other people’s property (artist’s songs) with freedom."

The EFF? This guy's a lunatic and his career is completely fucked.

Perhaps Wikipedia's part of the conspiracy to destroy his business too.

Re:The bolsheviks of the EFF.

[David Gerard]

I just looked,and apparently Wikipedia is indeed part of the conspiracy to destroy his business.

Fucksake. If musicians are this stupid they deserve career opportunities asking if people want fries with that. And I speak as someone with 400kg of vinyl records.

Re:The bolsheviks of the EFF.

[NulDevice]

That bugged me too. I was afraid that his baffling rant against the EFF would be used to discredit what up to that point was a pretty cogent and sound argument.

And apparently, for at least one person, it did.

Re:The bolsheviks of the EFF.

[David Gerard]

It was the rant on his site against Wikipedia as a Web 2.0 startup (rather than, e.g., an educational charity) that really nailed his cogent and sound arguments for me.

Re:Collaboration and self-publishing are the answe

[Mal-2]

Isolation booths big enough to house a person doing narration can be had for a few thousand dollars. Ones big enough to hold an entire large drum kit, maybe $10k. Sure it's not free, but it fits in a normal residence and pays off quickly when compared to studio time.

Oh, look who it's from

[David Gerard]

"Artists For An Ethical Internet". I'm sure the grass there is 100% organic and not artificial in any manner.

Re:Collaboration and self-publishing are the answe

[Grishnakh]

It doesn't cost very much to build a studio, all you need is some plywood and acoustical tiles. It isn't rocket science. Lots of people have built such things in their garages or better yet basements.

Re:Collaboration and self-publishing are the answe

[Grishnakh]

Where do you get a good engineer, though? You certainly can't trust the "professionals"; look at how those morons have ruined a whole generation of CDs with their excessive compression.

We need a scorecard for ethical music systems

[jimharris]

I use Rdio and Rhapsody for my music because I want to be legal and pay for my music, but I don't know how much I'm helping the artist. I wish there was some kind of scorecard that rated the various music services so it was easy to see which company to use if we wanted to support the artists. This article was convincing but confusing. It doesn't even mention MOG, Rdio and many other of the new streaming music services. We need something like the old Goodhousekeeping seal of approval. Some agency for the artists should rate the various forms of music distribution, maybe A+, A, A-, etc., so fans can easily tell what company to support or avoid.

Re:Collaboration and self-publishing are the answe

[Pecisk]

Quite a simple idea - make yourself one. As I did. I still have lot of learn, but got basic ideas quite right. They are not that difficult.

And learn, learn, learn.

My Experience

[rabtech]

I tried to start an indie label, partnering with a band that was well-liked locally and had some regional fame. We recorded at home with a TT-24 for digital I/O and monitoring and Logic 7 & Profire Lightbridge for getting it onto disk. Were able to do 24-bit 96khz and plenty of plugins. I had more multi-track channels and more processing power/virtual gear than any studio in the early 1990s. Grabbed a set of self-powered studio monitors for under $1000 (which blow away anything that was available for purchase in 1990).

We did the Tunecore digital distribution method, got into the local record shops, and generally tried to take advantage of any avenue we could.

Ultimately we lost money, here are the mistakes we made:

1. We pressed Vinyl. Granted, we got a good deal and it was a quality product (including MP3 download card using software I wrote myself) but the economics make it such that you need to sell at least a couple hundred to break even and there wasn't enough of a market for it. We sold over 100 in the first year, just from a few local shows and two local record stores. Come to find out this was more than almost everyone else - the local record store sold out (and paid us out) several times - the store manager was shocked to actually be paying money out as most of the indie albums don't sell enough to reach the threshold. Lesson: Don't press vinyl. Unless you can sell out a 5,000 seat venue in at least 10 cities you will lose money.

2. We thought CDs were on their way out so we didn't make that many of them. It turns out we should have - we sold through the CD run quickly and it was our biggest money maker, even at $5 each. This was in 2009 but still - people are more likely to buy CDs when out and about because they are small and easy to carry. Vinyl means a trip back to the car or having to lug it around town for the rest of the night.

3. Digital only works if you have access to some channel to get noticed - a friend with a very popular blog, a host of a very popular podcast who likes you, etc. There is too much music in the online catalogs - often good music. It is extremely difficult to stand out in the crowd, no matter how good you are. You should plan on about 1% conversion rate of people at the show to merch sales, so if 1000 people show up 10-20 will buy something.

4. Publicists and marketing don't work unless you can put a huge budget behind them. Thankfully we didn't spend a ton on this but others we know spent their life savings or thousands. Yes, they got local college radio interviews and blog mentions but none of it translated into increased sales of albums. It did bring a few people to shows but not enough to make up for the outlay in merch sales. This seemed to apply regardless of the genera.

5. We spent money on the launch show - it was a huge loser. If I had to do it over again, I wouldn't have bothered. It just takes too much money to put on a good light show so unless you have access to moving lights or projectors that you can borrow for free, or can play to a venue that already has the gear, don't bother. This leads into the next item...

6. Unless you are a well-known act, you will get screwed by the venues (who are often trying to squeak by themselves). Always charge a cover and make sure your deal is for the cover if you can (and have *your* helper work the door!). Local promotion is difficult - people are bombarded with Facebook notices, emails, etc about a ton of shows all the time so most people tune out. If possible, find out where the crowds already show up locally and make a deal to play there. It is much easier to make a new fan by going to where the people already are than trying to convince a bunch of strangers to come see an unknown band.

7. You must take credit cards. Period. Get an iPhone and Square and make sure you have signal. Make each band member get on a different network (VZW, ATT, Sprint) so you can be certain you will have coverage at the venue. Taking cards will often more than double your take vs not taking c

Re:My Experience

[NulDevice]

Yes. This.

Except maybe #8. I've got boxes of unsold tshirts in my basement that contradict this. They are, however awesome for washing the car. So there's that upside.

Artist remuneration

[sapgau]

The real question is, for the amount of work and creativity invested in an Artist's work, how much should he/she be compensated for his/her creations??

Is it ok to make them millionares over night? Or maybe remain in equal footing like a doctor, lawyer, et. al.?

Is it reasonable to think the work, team effort and resources used for making a movie be compensated LESS than the creation for a song?

Re:Collaboration and self-publishing are the answe

[avandesande]

The Red Hot Chili Peppers recorded one of their albums (can't remember which) in a deserted mansion.

Is it just me...

[airdweller]

..or he makes some good points, but mostly it's crap.

"the music business, which was once dominated by six large and powerful music conglomerates, MTV, Clear Channel and a handful of other companies, is now dominated by a smaller set of larger even more powerful tech conglomerates. "
Why not name that "smaller set"?

"In fact it is nigh impossible for me to pursue my craft without enriching Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google. "
When was it possible to keep everything for yourself? Did the record companies let you keep everything in the past?
Don't like sharing with Apple, Amazon, etc., sell it yourself.

"Further the new boss through it’s surrogates like Electronic Frontier Foundation seems to be waging a cynical PR campaign that equates the unauthorized use of other people’s property (artist’s songs) with freedom."
First, the guy obviously doesn't like EFF for some reason. Second, I don't see any sources that would substantiate his claim.

"Everywhere I look artists seem to be working more for less money."
Sources again?

"Touring revenues up since 1999. Because more bands are touring, staying on the road longer and playing for fewer people. Surely you all can see Malthusian trajectory?"
I re-read this several times and still didn't get it. I'd guess more bands touring longer meant playing for _more_ people. Hence the higher touring revenues.
What is the "Malthusian trajectory"? Is he talking about the geometric progression?

"I can out geek most of you."
Definitely a sign of a smart person.

"Musicians are constantly derided by the Digerati. It’s usually after someone like myself suggest that if other people are profiting from distributing an artist’s work (Kim Dotcom, Mediafire, Megavideo, Mp3tunes,) they should share some of their proceeds with the artists."
Are we still talking about the "new boss"? Are the "Digerati" the "new boss"? Who are the "Digerati"?

"I can only surmise that part of their anger seems tied to the hatred of the record companies that rejected them."
First, I can only surmise that their anger might be justified. No record company ever rejected good artists, right?
Second, looks like the point of the article - so far - is just to let the author vent... well... whatever he needed to vent.

"Successful even marginally successful musicians are often viewed as some kind of traitors."
By everyone on the web?

"Despite the tech lobby’s portrayal of musician as luddites or doddering old hippie,..."
Sources again? I can't recall anything like that.“

"“The consumer wants music to be free” they shout as they pound their tiny fists on their Skovby tables."
The author seems to be hallucinating. I'm pretty sure most people don't think so.

"Recording budgets are lower because artists spend dramatically less time recording. They just don’t have the money."
Right, b/c all artists used to have the money before.
A small number of them did. Which they had to pay back to the label later. Most of them never did.

"Sound recordings are very labor intensive. If you want to make good ones you are relying on highly skilled labor. The cost of sound recordings is largely dependent on labor costs. Technological advances have little effect on recording cost."
BS. I doubt anybody needs an explanation.

"But what many of you forget is that IT IS MY CHOICE whether I choose to give away my songs or sell them. IT IS MY CHOICE how and where to distribute my songs. IT IS MY CHOICE to decide which websites get to exploit my songs."
So you wrote this just to say that you don't like that somebody doesn't pay for your music?

"Trying to bully artists into giving up their rights so that companies like MegaUpload or YouTube can make money is the same thing."
Umm... Excuse me? Who bullies "artists into giving up their rights so that companies like MegaUpload or YouTube"?

"The New Boss wants to take ALL of your songs, past pre

Re:Is it just me...

[hexagonc]

+1 Informative. You win the prize for actually addressing most of the arguments in the article. Too bad I don't have mod points. And in answer to your question about who the "New Boss" is, I think it has to be Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google. I can only infer this from the following quote:

On one hand it doesn’t bother me because the “new boss” doesn’t really tell me what kind of songs to write or who should mix my record. But on the other hand I’m a little disturbed at how dependent I am on these tech behemoths to pursue my craft. In fact it is nigh impossible for me to pursue my craft without enriching Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google.

Okay, that's fine. Amazon, Google, Apple and Facebook(?) control most of the legal music distribution. But then he later claims:

The New Boss wants to take ALL of your songs, past present and future and pay you nothing.

So he's saying that Amazon, Google, Apple and Facebook want to take his songs and pay him nothing? That doesn't follow from his own data since toward the end, he complains about Apple getting a 30% cut of music sells on iTunes. Notwithstanding the fact that that is a lower cut than retailers were getting before digital distribution (40%), if he doesn't like Apple getting 30% then he needs to complain to his "old boss" the record labels since they're the ones that negotiated this payment breakdown. And for somebody who claims to be some uber-geek, he shows an astonishing ignorance of the way technical systems like Amazon or iTunes work. He is dismayed that Apple gets a 30% cut of music sells, because he thinks this is so much higher than the hosting/infrastructure costs of selling on iTunes but since when has the costs of a service been tied to its price? I'm not saying 30% is right -- I have no idea what Apple's cut should be -- but if you're going to play the game about costs of production versus market price then I can turn that argument around and ask why he thinks $15.99 is a fair price for a cd that oftentimes only has one song that people care about?

In the end, he ends on a hyperbolic, grossly exaggerating note, implying that Amazon, Google, and Apple are basically just freeloaders, deserving no credit for their IP and their work:

My only explanation is that there is just something fundamentally wrong with how many in the tech industry look at the world. They are deluded somehow. Freaks.

Taking no risk and paying nothing to the content creators is built into the collective psyche of the Tech industry. They do not value content. They only see THEIR services as valuable. They are the Masters of the Universe. They bring all that is good. Content magically appears on their blessed networks.

Because no one ever took any risks or spent any money or intellectual capital to build Google, Amazon or Apple. If those like David don't like the "new boss" so much then I would challenge them to lobby the "old boss" to make its own digital music store. Any takers?

Re:Collaboration and self-publishing are the answe

[0123456]

If I remember correctly, Sean Connery recorded the voice-over at the beginning of Highlander in his toilet.

Royalties for devices and blank media

[tepples]

Let's see...I have a SanDisk MP3 player. I have a bunch of music on it. Should he be getting paid by SanDisk?

Under the Audio Home Recording Act's royalty requirement, then yes, the label would be getting paid by the manufacturer of the MP3 player or other "digital audio recording device".

Your point?

[raehl]

The people that "make it" in the industry (and while I know this is true in music, it's probably true in film and other arts as well) aren't necessarily very good at their given craft anyway. Most of the time, it's just a matter of being in the right place at the right time.

First step is realizing that "the industry" is producing records that people will buy. The industry is *NOT* about producing good music. In an industry that produces records people will buy, musicians are rarely qualified for the position of "person who appears on record cover and performs concerts". That position is filled by models/dancers.

And they get paid a lot not because of their musical talent; they get paid a lot in exchange for sacrificing any shred of privacy for the rest of their lives.

not worth the read

[almechist]

"The fact that artists are spending much less TIME recording can only mean they have less money or expect to make less money.

What??? There are so many things wrong with that blanket statement - which he bases solely on data self-supplied by the large recording studios, no less - that I didn't read any further in the article. There were other statements equally as nonsensical. The summary indicated Lowery had both the experience and the data to back up his rant, but after reading a good chunk of it all I see is another idiot with preconceived ideas, barely coherent logic, cherry-picked data, and multiple straw-man arguments. Seek elsewhere for a reasoned analysis backed up with solid evidence.

Conspiracy theorizing at its lowest.

[WOOFYGOOFY]

From the article.

Further the new boss through itâ(TM)s surrogates like Electronic Frontier Foundation seems to be waging a cynical PR campaign that equates the unauthorized use of other peopleâ(TM)s property (artistâ(TM)s songs) with freedom. A sort of Cyber â"Bolshevik campaign of mass collectivization for the good of the stateâ¦er .. I mean Internet. I say cynical because when it comes to their intellectual property, software patents for instance, these same companies fight tooth and nail.

Let me get this straight EFF is a surrogate for Apple and Google is making money off your music? By illegal downloading?

Your problem isn't any of the players you're citing. It's that computers are gigantic copy machines that make perfect copies. That's what all this is about. The new business models that can leverage this new fact about reality aren't here as far as I know. They will come in time. It's a new thing , this gigantic distributed copy machine, and some people are going to get screwed.

FWIW I would buy an album I liked directly from the artist for 5.99 US dollars. More than that and I am either looking for a used copy (for less than 5.99 or just waiting until such becomes available and listening to / reading something else until then.

I think with no real evidence there are a lot of people like me.

Anyways EFF is your friend and Goggle is your friend. Your missive is a study in how many different (really different) ways people can slice and dice innocent parts of reality into a conspiracy theory so long as no evidence is required to support said conspiracy.

Re:no one bothered to read the entire article. gre

[WOOFYGOOFY]

This is not a popular position to take around these parts, but I have made the same point myself. We all know the ugly side of corporations and this is the ugly side of consumers- they want shit without paying anything for it. In some markets - the academic journal market springs to mind- the price is unjustifiable to the point of being ludacris. But look at so called beggarware where the software author asks people to donate whatever they can to keep it going and makes it available for free. In this instance people pay .... nothing.. I just read yesterday a blog where the guy was complaining that people are using it but not paying anything at all.

The book Freakanomics went over a case something like the beggarware involving bagels and it turns out if other people see whether or not you paid, nearly everyone pays. Otherwise, nearly no one pays.. it was in the single digits.

Is this a thing culture can overcome? Obviously the impulse to get free stuff is genetically based, but so are a lot of bad impulses.

Re:no one bothered to read the entire article. gre

[WOOFYGOOFY]

It's not morally wrong, it's temporarily technically and socially not possible. That's just a reality of today's world. I am not anxious to spend time money and resources on defeating this ubiquitous fact. In the future, something either the product or the business model or whatever will change and all will be well again. When will that be? ...mmmm some of us are trying to make the future happen ;

Finally...

[robbiedo]

I am glad to see someone finally write this. I worked for one of the major labels for nearly a decade, largely on the business side. Frankly, I am fed up with hearing how "evil" the records companies were, and how exploited the artists were under the old system. When it comes right down to it, we invested in people. The vast majority of those investments never paid off. We made a lot of guesses about which bands and artists would be "commercially" marketable. As a front employee, I spent tremendous amounts of time and effort evaluating up and coming artists, made the pitches to my bosses that we should invest in specific acts because they had talent and marketability. We spent money trying to help them create an image, and try to give them an edge to compete in the marketplace. Occasionally, it would pay off. Personally, I never saw what I was doing with quite the cynicism, and malice people usually ascribed to record label "fat cats." Our company executives, were like any company executives. They were reliant on all the hard work of their front line employees. To me, the interesting part left out of all this is the fact that you could make a living in the music business. You could be skilled as a producer, engineer, session musician, manager, etc and make a living at it. Most of that money is just gone because artists do not get the venture capital to find their business anymore. Interestingly, I make my living at one of the big tech companies now. (and I really like my job and make a good living).

Artists Collateral Victims In Larger Battle

[cmholm]

David Lowery makes excellent points. Yes, Google looks like a major ass playing the Chilling Effects card. However, although the EFF, et al look from Lowery's POV to be asshats fighting for free-everything, the copyright and patent issue is a lot bigger than musicians trying to earn a living. The old & new bosses are trying and thus far succeeding at a new enclosure movement, to preemptively and proactively put all IP under lock and key, and rented out. If not rented out, then quashed if the material appears to be bad PR for whichever powers that be.

Where we're headed is an environment where creative expression becomes almost impossible to market/share/use unless you're party to one of the patent cross licensing schemes, or corporate copyright back catalogs. Yes, the musicians are getting fucked, as are many small players in creative endeavors, and as most labor in general continues to be devalued.

The horse is long out of the barn. Making money at playing music is going to revert to the pre-Edison model. We are going to get less new music, and it'll be harder to find, web search or no. The model of the future is the Chinese music scene, and I'm not going to pretend that it's a good thing.

Blasphemy!

[tehcyder]

How dare anyone suggest that the record ndustry isn't 100% evil!

Risk Capital

[alexander_686]

Qualifying for a car loan does not mean an artist can qualify for a business loan.

Banks do loans, which means they have a small upside if you pay back a loan (interest) and a large downside if you default. One of the ways the offset the downside risk is by the use of collateral - the car. Can't pay the loan, they take the car and sell it at auction. Fast and quick. So they do a lot of low risk loans.

Business is riskier then a car loan. Having a solid business plan can offset that risk. And it's not because they bad business people (I know a lot, some are, most are not). It because you can put out a great product and 1/2 the time it fails. And a bank is not set up to quickly sell a 2nd rate album in the secondary market. On the other hand, when an artist succeeds, it big. Just the opposite of bank. Few big upsides, lots of big downsides.

It's one of the reasons why I mentioned Risk Capital. The risk profile of artists suggest that investors want to invested in the equity side instead of the debt side - which is where the music labels come in. Their business plan is to lose 9 times out of 10.

For most artist the only bank loan they can get is to max out their credit cards. This can work - See Spike Lee's She's Gotta Have It. But taking on personal credit card debit is different then a business loan.

Re:Risk Capital

[HapSlappy_2222]

Here's how I did it:

https://www.americafirst.com/business/loan-products/line-of-credit/sba-unsecured.cfm

Working great so far.

Re:Risk Capital

[HapSlappy_2222]

I should provide more details. If I default, I suppose they could take all my printers, computers, etc but it affects my LLC, not me (http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/biz/Biz_ops/20000831.asp), and really, I would be stupid to let it get to that point. If I can't cover fixed costs, I close my doors. Econ 101. My brother actually closed his shop up, no longer selling his welding supplies or artwork, though he's still got the LLC and business name. He's just not spending or generating until he's ready to give it another go.

My whole point is there are loans *specifically* designed for the high-risk business of... err... starting a business. All you have to do is look, though having spotless credit and knowing an accountant and a tax lawyer helps a shit-ton. Even the bank will be super helpful; they WANT you to succeed. I also don't know if a band can do this; maybe banks don't look favorably on "we want to play music" as a business plan (though, realistically, any business plan needs more flesh than that). However, this model works for LOADS of businesses, and if the big labels die in fire, it should totally be something a band can use to get started.

If, on the other hand, your goal is to get on the Billboard 100 with your debut album, you're talking more about winning the lottery than starting a band. I guess I just don't understand why "making it big" always means making millions of dollars per year for your music, and having every person in the country know your name. I met a musician in Key West once.

She was playing at a bar called Tapas and Tintas (wonderful seafood paella), and she was terrific. I'm talking one of the best shows-I-ever-attended terrific. She took home about $500 that night in tips, and I personally bought a half dozen of her self printed and stamped CDs for 8 bucks each (she gave me one for buying her a shot). She also made another $150 for the gig itself. She played 4 nights a week during heavy tourist times, and in case you missed it, she LIVED in Key West the rest of the year. Do you know what she needed to start up? A guitar, an amp, a macbook, and a cd stamper. Maybe a ride to Key West in the first place; we never got that far in the conversation. Happiest person I'd met in a very long time.

I also met a band called "Clumsy Lovers" here in SLC a few years ago. Great band, unique sound (a fiddle for the motherfucking win!), amazing show, crowded venue, and they love what they do. Not sure if they were signed or not, but they were pro, did their own recordings, and were able to travel (http://clumsylovers.com/about/). I think they're with Nettwerk Records now, who are based in Vancouver.

Even The Used used to play small shows in Provo before getting extremely lucky and attracting the attention of Reprise (I think they've since gone indy?). I don't know if their goal was to get signed from the minute they formed the band or not, but I do know they used to play some pretty kickass local musice.

All anecdotal, sure, but people are succeeding at this while we all bitch about how impossible it is on /..

Re:Collaboration and self-publishing are the answe

[NulDevice]

True, you don't need a studio. There are lots of interesting spaces to record in, as Radiohead (among many others) have proven since the early days of recording.

However, most of those interesting spaces are not your average 2-3br suburban ranch home.

You don't need an acoustically perfect space to record. But you also don't want and acoustically awful place to record. You record your vocals in a closet? They're gunna sound like they're recorded in a closet. I recently had to remote record an ensemble in someone's living room (it was the only space they could get in the timeframe) and despite my use of baffles, reflexion filters, tight-pattern mics, etc and then a crapton of post-processing you can still tell it was done in a living room.

*mixing* too...doesn't need to be perfect, but if you want a good mix, you'd better have a pretty frickin controlled space. You can get close in a home, with a decent room, a lot of rockwool and some know-how, but it requires time and effort (and a room you can pretty much dedicate to the purpose).

(And good monitors. And good converters. And good processors. And someone who knows how to use it all).

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion