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ex-CBOT quant) talks about the economics of the music business and how the 'old boss' — the record labels — have been replaced by the new boss — file downloading services, song streaming, and commercial online music stores.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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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]

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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]

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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

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

[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.

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?

[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.

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:The moral of the story

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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.

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.

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).

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.

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: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.

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

[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.

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.

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: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.

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.

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.

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: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.

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.

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: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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

[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!

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: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: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: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.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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?

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

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.

Anyone considered concerts?

[gtirloni]

AFAIK, there was a time when musicians would earn their living by performing their music.

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.

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:If you're in music to make money...

[David Gerard]

Good thing no-one ever told her rap was popular.

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