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As Music Streaming Grows, Royalties Slow To a Trickle
concealment sends this excerpt from the NY Times:
"Late last year, Zoe Keating, an independent musician from Northern California, provided an unusually detailed case in point. In voluminous spreadsheets posted to her Tumblr blog, she revealed the royalties she gets from various services, down to the ten-thousandth of a cent. Even for an under-the-radar artist like Ms. Keating, who describes her style as “avant cello,” the numbers painted a stark picture of what it is like to be a working musician these days. After her songs had been played more than 1.5 million times on Pandora over six months, she earned $1,652.74. On Spotify, 131,000 plays last year netted just $547.71, or an average of 0.42 cent a play. 'In certain types of music, like classical or jazz, we are condemning them to poverty if this is going to be the only way people consume music,' Ms. Keating said. ... The question dogging the music industry is whether these micropayments can add up to anything substantial. 'No artist will be able to survive to be professionals except those who have a significant live business, and that’s very few,' said Hartwig Masuch, chief executive of BMG Rights Management."
Is negotiating a higher price not possible?
Every time there is a change, every time there is something new, every time there is a shift, the publishers find a way to twist the numbers so artists get an even smaller cut of the profits.
That sounds like an amazing high rate of return. I can't think of any music that I would consider worth paying 42 cents per play for.
'No artist will be able to survive to be professionals except those who have a significant live business, and that’s very few,' said Hartwig Masuch, chief executive of BMG Rights Management."
Personally, that's what I would like to see. That's why I support live music.
I don't think streaming should be free, but considering how many times Pandora plays the same song during a workday based on my "seeds", I can see that adding up if you're even marginally popular. And did an "avant cello" player really expect to be in the same income bracket as the Rolling Stones. How popular is she in other media... really?
No longer do you need a sleazy music company executive to steal your rights and material, a posh recording studio, expensive band or studio musicians. You can now make up your own music in the comfort of your own home and sell it yourself. Perhaps, after all the megastars and millions and billions extracted by an industry, we are coming back to the common music of the people, no more difficult to obtain than to go down to the pub and listen to a band of minstrels who wandered into town.
You want quality music, you pay for quality music. You want garage music, you pay far less.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I wonder how much time these artists actually spend on live performances. Intellectual property creation is the only business that I know of where you can do something once and get paid for it forever.
People still like to purchase music. I really doubt radio airplay royalties were the majority of any musicians income and that's the analog.
Basically streaming is advertising to sell digital download (or physical, I buy vinyl since it usually comes with digital as well and like collecting the vinyl) and of course promote live performances. I know a few people in the music business.. one band is just starting out and while they aren't doing amazing they are doing ok (but have to tour to do so). It has never been easy for indie or up and coming, the thing is now indie and up and coming bands don't have to sign their souls over to some record label to make a name for themselves.
"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
I have a hard time getting worked up about their dire predictions. Let's pretend the worst comes to pass; as a consumer, the downside for me is that the crap being produced is even less varied than previously. If that's really a problem, then a need will develop for more interesting music, and inevitably, someone will address that need.
These "artists" are not owed a living. They are not exempt from capitalism because of their chosen profession.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
I'm surprised that an Avant Cello musician isn't pulling in the coin
So you're telling me that you made a recording a few years ago, and now you just sit back and do nothing and a stream of money comes trickling in? Wow, that sucks. I feel for you.
The royalty model is screwed, old, antiquated and invites corruptions from many sources.
Provide your music free to the world and charge for live performance.
Your free music is your very best promotion.
Musicians now have the power to control their own destinies on a level playing field. The cream will rise and the crap will fall, thus guaranteeing much better entertainment than the music industry would provide when it was relevant. If your "avant cello" music doesn't bring crowds to performances, you are either performing at the wrong venue , or perhaps you should practice. Perhaps targeting your promotions would be a better consideration. New York will have better opportunities to fill rooms than say, in Cleveland or Oklahoma City.
Free the music and charge for performance, you can't go wrong. It's nearly idiot proof.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Could it be that the mid-20th century distribution model created an unsustainable transfer of wealth towards performers? If you can't make a living performing "avant cello", perhaps this is just a regression to the mean. For most of recorded history, you had a few performers with patrons, some traveling minstrels scraping by, and a lot of home performances for nothing. It looks like we might be returning to that. Peak music, like peak oil. Come to think of it, aren't LPs and CDs made of petroleum based products?
This has been the case throughout history. For every Mozart or Beethoven, there were 1000s more just singing or reading poetry aloud to a small drunk audience at the pub.
Manufacturing workers in the US lost their jobs by the millions through no fault of their own. Thats the way the economy works. We aren't condemning anyone to poverty. If you want to do nothing other than make music, you get what the job pays. You can try to do something else to earn more money, if you'd like. The economy of a free society in uncertain times is a harsh mistress.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
the world needs more Avant Cello music?
A CD costs ~$13 retail which normally works out to about a dollar a song. Subtract things like the record labels cut, distribution, physical materials (I don't know how much these are normally) and I imagine you'd end up with something like 50 cents per song for the artists. Anyone have figures on this?
Then you have to figure that this artist's music is getting far more exposure than they would through any kind of physical media or brick and mortar store...
What am I missing?
It's my opinion that if your plan is to make money as a musician, then maybe you should rethink your career path.Leave the creation of music to those that are passionate about it and not just trying to make a buck.
No, we're condemning them to getting a fucking day job like the rest of us mopes.
Alternatively, our dear cellist can get a gig in a house band, though that may clash with her sensitive artists' feelings.
It may pain all of us a bit, but perhaps as a society we can't afford to have full time professional avant guard cellists no one has heard of.
What the AC said. I seem to remember this concept, but I don't remember which founding father said it:
"I study agriculture so that my son can study medicine or engineering, so that he can make enough money so that his son can study art and liturature".
I'm sory, but nobody ever intended artists to be rich in a meritocracy. Art is too easy. It is what you go into when you are *already* reasonably financially independent.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I would imagine the the royalties Ms. Keating would receive from the radio would be far less than what she's getting now from sites like Pandora. In fact, as an "avant cello" musician it's probably right around $0.00. I think she should be thrilled that people have heard her music 1.5 million times. How many of those 1.5 million listens then went on to buy her music? I don't know the music industry all that well but I would think far more money is actually made from album sales rather than radio plays. Radio/streaming is a way to advertise yourself to get people in to buy your product.
"Armed forces abroad are of little value unless there is prudent counsel at home" - Cicero
This is propaganda for the RIAA.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/katy-perry-rihanna-sign-ad-attacking-pandora-for-copyright-proposal/
There are a lot of musicians and there is a lot of music around. Like it or not the field is saturated, competition is fierce and music is a commodity (and there is in fact a lot of free music around in case you were not paying attention). You need to deal with profit margins like we all do.
The part I don't like is, we are supposed feel bad and sympathize because you are high and noble with your "art" and "culture".
If you can't make enough money you are supposed find a different job (shocking, right?). A lot of people deal with it every day. You can still play your music on the side.
If your hobby doesn't earn you enough monetary units to purchase food and shelter, perhaps you should find a job.
As an apprentice goldsmith working for my father... when I would whine my dad would look up at me with a big smile and say, "Well you can always go flip burgers if this isn't cutting it for you!"
If anyone is condemning these leeches to poverty it is they themselves. Certainly if she can perform "avant cello" she can bus tables, wash dishes, shovel horse shit...
the publishers find a way to twist the numbers so artists get an even smaller cut of the profits.
Under the traditional model, sure.
But for something like Pandora or Spotify - just what profits are those the artist is being robbed of exactly? The amount of money those guys are charging makes me wonder how the artist is even getting as much as she says she is.
I still prefer to buy music for that reason, that I like to give an artist I enjoy some significant support. If all I ever do is listen to Spotify then over time there simply will not be as many musicians who work full time at it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Ya, Lars Ulrich led the charge against Napster way back in the day and got stomped like a fool for it.
Since then he's wised up and got back to work and today Metallica makes its bones doing bigger and better shows and more touring with more musicians along side them in the big 4 concerts.
The point is: if you aint making money, your music is probably just boring background music and nobody is willing to pay extra to see it live no matter how many times they play it over streaming radio.
Music itself has its own evolution and natural-selection and survival-of-the-fittest kinda thing going on out there. Thats why the harpsichord aint as popular as it used to be.
Isn't the point of getting your music played on the "radio" exposure? How much money did/do artists make per play on normal radio stations? For less-well-known or niche artists, it might be difficult to have your music played on a local or regional radio station, let alone nationally. Pandora, Spotify, etc. provide a variety of artists with national exposure. I'd be interested to see if the artist in question has noticed a correlation between plays on streaming services and her album sales. Or, how about her social network presence. More listeners means more fans, followers, Likes. I've heard of performers using social networking to essentially pre-sell a venue for a live show. There are ways to make money, just have to be creative and innovative - defining traits for most artists.
when you hear old Jazz musicians talk about New York, they frequently reminisce about the day they got their Union card.
the tech industry is so anti-union it would make people from the 50s blush.
so basically thats the end of music. except for auto-tuned horse shit puked out by quasi strippers who can't sing.
Truly, this is the Triumph of the Nerds.
and all of its promises are bullshit.
Good, I say.
This situation where a single performance (recorded and heavily manipulated) results in several multi-millionaires is an historical aberration long overdue for a correction. The fact that the artist is only sometimes one of the big earners is irrelevant.
For ages, musicians and performers of all types were told to, "sing for their dinner", with the implication being they should be both good enough to earn it, and humble enough to do it.
Live performance are the only way to make money? That's as it should be. Entertain people, entertainer, not the autotuner.
You were wrong on the Internet! Decimal places matter! This chicken is raaaawwwww!!
No artist will be able to survive to be professionals except those who have a significant live business
And how is this a problem? Even for classical music this should work out as those who listen to this genre are mostly able and willing to pay more than for a rock concert.
The music industry is always crying that there are artists who do not earn enough to live solely from making music. First off, it seems ironic to me that the publishers are complaining - those who make a boatload of money. Second, there will always be those who are just not good enough or otherwise do not play what people want to hear - and this is the way it is supposed to be. We cannot pay people who are doing something nobody wants.
Pandora pays at least 2 cents per listener hour. That's the minimum. The maximum is 25% of revenue generated during that playback. So the artist should be getting paid whichever is larger.
http://www.digitaltrends.com/music/does-the-riaa-even-want-pandoras-golden-eggs/
$1,653 equals 82,650 hours.
82,650 hours over 1.5M listens means average length of song is 3.3 minutes.
So, if her average piece is longer than 3.3 minutes, she's getting ripped off.
Otherwise something fishy is going on. Is BMG taking a big cut?
It seems to me that 25% of revenue is way more than fair for what is essentially radio play.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Her experience means very little in the real world...
Show me the details on a more mainstream person, show me details on her pre-pandora pre-digital royalties.. was she even in a position to share her music outside of her hometown before being "self published" digitally? Its all well and good to cry about *ONLY* earning 1672$ from 6 months of airplay on a streaming service.. how much would she have earned in direct downloads at 99 cents a track over the same time? what about selling tape/cd/cassette/etc pre-digital?
Most artists make the bulk of their income from live performances even once they are "superstars" the tours are the big $$ items.. that never really goes away from the time you are a starving artist playing on street corners for donations, till the time you arrive at a stadium for 70,000 fans paying 100$ a ticket.. your still at the core a performer..
The music industry figured out that they can screw the musicians even more...
They become part owner of the sites...and keep the "per click to play" down to a low sum..
So they can tunnel back money via the part ownership direct to them instead of the musicians...
So soon we are back to the same time as before music rights...just the thing music rights was supposed to solve..give an income to the creators, not the leeches of an industry!
I'm sory, but nobody ever intended artists to be rich in a meritocracy. Art is too easy.
Do you seriously think that the creation of art, in whatever form but for this discussion let's restrict it to music, is easy? Have you ever attempted to learn to play, including reading music notation, the classic guitar, the cello, of the violin/fiddle? In the days of the "Founding Fathers" life was considerably less specialized so a person could grow their own food, build a shelter, and reasonably have some time to pursue other interests on a part-time basis. Today, good luck trying to build a house, grow your own food, and survive without the authorities shoving their hands into your pockets demanding payment of various economic rents. In a just society, the young would be free to explore their interests with the financial support of their family, and as middle-age approaches these same people would be ready to assume the burden of work to support the next generation. Forty-five years to enjoy life followed by twenty years working to support oneself, family, and the generation of youth behind them, and finally another twenty years to relax and once again pursue your interests financially supported by oneself this time and with no further obligations.
So here's what I don't understand. Before streaming, how much would an "avant cello" musician actually make? What would their distribution be like?
There's no denying that 1.5 million plays equating to 1600 bucks sounds like too little, but I highly doubt there would be 1.5 million listeners were if not for this distribution model.
Traditional radio does NOT play songs for free. They pay royalties when they play songs, so does every coffee shop and grocery store you've ever been in, or at least they're supposed to.
and take real jobs contribute in a meaningful way to society, music and art are recreation not a career. embrace your destiny to die hungry and unappreciated and hope later generations appreciate your work
'No artist will be able to survive to be professionals except those who have a significant live business, and thatâ(TM)s very few,'
I'm sure it is very few relative to a much larger number. It is probably also quite a few relative to a smaller number. Merely chanting this refrain does not make it a meaningful measure.
Copyright is not a free market system. It is a regulatory monopoly. That is a good thing, because zero cost reproduction means that artists would be under-paid if we did not have copyright. At the same time, however, the market does not naturally self-regulate. If we do not carefully monitor and adjust the strength of the regulation, the market can show shortages or surpluses.
Do we currently have a shortage of people entering the music field, or a surplus? Are we having a hard time finding people who want to get into music, or are there more people who want to be musicians than jobs? Is the music industry taking anyone it can find, even if they're a little raw, or is it cherry-picking the pretty people because it has a line of talented musicians around the corner to choose from? If the latter, then it suggests a surplus. It implies that our regulations are currently too strict, that we are paying too much. If we have a surplus in a regulated market, we should be happy that the price is decreasing, and we should be decreasing the strength and duration of the regulations.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Her experience means very little in the real world...
As I posted above (not saying I really expect anyone to see it), Keating's views aren't very well reflected in the article; they're actually pretty neutral. I think a story hit /. a while back about her saying she would rather have more listener data from places like Spotify than more money.
Show me the details on a more mainstream person, show me details on her pre-pandora pre-digital royalties..
Pandora beat Keating's musical life to the market by several years (2000 vs 2005).
Many jobs manage to be difficult and unprofitable at the same time. Often art is one of them. While I agree with the spirit of your post, I assert that art is not easy.
I am not really surprised. It looks like the amount of offer in music grows with time. There is more directors and composers than before. According to [1], there are 2.5 more music director and composer than 3 years ago while the number of musician appears to have decrease by roughly 10% in the same time. Since 99, it went from 52K people to 67K people. So there are 15% more people to pay. Meanwhile the US population only increase 12% [2].
I do not think the average entertainement of famillies changed a lot but if anything the music budget went down. So I am really not surprised.
Moreover, I feel like Internet concentrated music interest on a smaller number of artists which performs better than anybody else for no good reason. I mean gangnam style from psy shipped more than 6 millions albums in not even a year [3].
I do not know the artist that is speaking and I never listen to her music. But she is a cello artist which is not a popular style. So of course making money out of it is difficult. Yet her income increased according to her own numbers [4].
The real numbers we lack are the numbers from 10 or 15 years ago. How much money did an independent artist make in the 90's ? Is it really worse in 2013? (I ma not saying it is not, I am asking a real question)
[1] http://money.futureofmusic.org/how-many-musicians-are-there/
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangnam_Style
[4] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkasqHkVRM1OdGhjdExSMzYyMXFZUkZNSUJrY3MwNXc&pli=1#gid=0
$1,652.74 in 6 months for writing one song? This is a problem? I'd be interested to know how much time she spent composing and playing the song in order to earn that much. Even if this is considered by some to be a low wage for the work she has done she will continue to earn on it for the rest of her life with no additional effort.
You know there's something wrong with the industry when someone complains about not being mega rich for a few minutes of creative audio content and nobody thinks it's strange.
I just looked at the spreadsheet in question (found here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkasqHkVRM1OdEJFUnhyNFFkZjVSUWxhWGl1dE9lQXc#gid=4) and found that all told, she made 82k in a six month period. She's hardly living hand to mouth at some dead end job she hates.
Does her income from streaming services compare at all to what she gets through iTunes? No, but it's just a little extra icing on the cake for basically no work on her part, especially considering her style of music is unlikely to have much of a traditional fanbase (radio, top 40, etc). The nice thing about it all is that, as she gains more media exposure and traction, the basic infrastructure is already in place for her to make more as she gains new fans.
Again, 82k in six months is hardly a starving musician, especially considering the fringe nature of her music.
And get a job that can pay the rent. Call me a philistine but that's the way lots of writers, photographers, and even free software programmers survive. My literature professor in college was a published writer. He made his money teaching Shakespeare and Hemmingway to us "illiterates". Many, if not most, free software programmers earn their keep working as system administrators, teaching, or doing other stuff not directly related to the art of writing beautiful code.
Another way is to treat your published works as a digital resume or business card for the people who can hire you for media projects that pay. It's a long shot, but how many classical musicians make more money selling records than performing live anyway? A jazz musician that doesn't play live is no jazz musician at all.
She probably could have made more just carving out a web site somewhere, hosting her own MP3s and throwing a paypal tip jar up. She couldn't have made much less. Except someone probably would have filed a DMCA takedown under the assumption that any MP3s hosted anywhere are a copyright violation. That's what the RIAA really wanted with that thing to begin with, a way to prevent individual artists from finding a way around the middlemen who are the only ones getting rich from the artists' work.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
What's interesting about that is how black and white the music industry is. If you're a top act, like the ones signing that ad, your label really does take good care of you. You make tons and get to basically blow your life away doing whatever you want, for the roughly 10 years you keep putting out new records and selling out venues.
It's the rest of the musicians, the majority, that get shafted by the RIAA business model.
One aspect of this is the relative popularity of the various music genres, a factor that is independent of (or at times anti-correlated with) the quality. In the new model, popular means more money, while higher quality might not. In the bad old days, many of the major labels took some of the money they made off of the popular genres and used that to subsidize not-so-popular genres such as classical and jazz. My brother plays in a symphony orchestra, and he has watched the support for his orchestra drop as the labels stop this “transfer of wealth” (if you will). The non-popular genres will eventually die out if the new model continues on as it is. All we’ll have left is Justin Beiber and The Spice Girls.
Instead of sitting in a studio every now and then, work while someone else records you working, and then sit on your arse and live off the royalties, you might want to consider to actually do some, more or less daily, work - just like the rest of us. I hope she also had a spreadsheet which details her time, so we can gain some insight into that.
It would be great if I can set up a video camera on a tripod, tape myself working, and then just put a monitor up with a player and have my boss pay me every day for watching that same tape over and over - in a loop if possible and get paid overtime.
Unfortunately, the current system where copyright is being abused to facilitate business models like that, there is too much collateral damage which will inevitably lead to copyright and related rights to be drastically changed to fit the current realities.
We're using an "avant cello" artist to make a point about how dismal fractional royalties are? Should we also be outraged if a "classical banjo" artist or "neo-Accordionist" also aren't making a sustainable living on completely passive revenue streams like Pandora, Spotify, iTunes, etc. etc.?
While we're at it why doesn't the guy who races dirt-track on the weekends complain that he's not making a sustainable living at what he does. What about painters, sculptors, writers, actors, and other artists... perhaps they should be complaining too that someone isn't providing them with a sustainable living.
Should they, realistically, be making $50-$80K a year selling streaming music? More importantly is there even a remote shot that an "avant cellist" would have made that kind of money in the pre-Internet days? I'd say the chances are essentially zero that an avant cellist would have a break-out year and make even a sustainable living. There's an occasional break-out classical artist - VERY occasional - but most of them make money from performing not from CD sales.
The truth is that artists - even the most talented - from time immemorial have had to do something else to make a real living and pay the bills. Perhaps not the best example but I was watching a little thing on luxury RVs - ah, my idle TV watching habits - and they interviewed Bret Michaels. He spends over 200 days a year on the road performing. THAT is how he makes a living - by working his butt off. If this gal expects to make survival income from just creating music and watching the big bucks flow in from Pandora or Spotify she's just dreaming. If she really wants to make a living she'll have to do it by building a reputation performing and, as the article indicates, that is very, very hard to do.
Honestly $2000 for 6 months of doing absolutely nothing to promote your music - ESPECIALLY "avant cello" - doesn't seem like a bad chunk of change to me.
A fairer perspective might be huge artists like the Rolling Stones or Rihanna or Katy Perry or Justin Bieber - what kind of money are they making on these services? No doubt it is much much more and are they and their business managers content with the revenue streams from these sources? Probably.
Analog radio pays only the songwriter, not the recording artist.
. 'In certain types of music, like classical or jazz, we are condemning them to poverty if this is going to be the only way people consume music,
Has anything actually changed? For as long I've been alive, the music industry has been starkly stratified. The big stars make lots of money but most musicians barely get by if they are even fortunate enough to not need a day job to pay the bills. It's hard to sell CD or tapes or LP's of 'Avant cello' when few people have heard of the genre, much less the artist, and only the largest stores carry anything close.
As video equipment explodes in variety and lower cost, and Joe Schmoe gets an idea for a "killer you-tube" video — or a wedding videographer edits last weeks video — I'm constantly struck by the complete lack of options for the DIY cinematographer.
When you post something on YouTube with a musician's music, you get the take-down; yet, people persist in trying it.
So, why hasn't the RIAA, who *supposedly* represents the better interests of content providers, come up with a licensing plan that would enable the would-be Spielberg to legally use music in the production of their comedy/sci-fi/drama/whatever video?
I've talked to a *lot* of people who don't keep up on copyright/patent/trademark issues, and overwhelmingly they say they wouldn't mind paying $25—or more—to license a song for their video. Baby showers, weddings, and other home-made content are ripe for a balance of producer and user, yet the music industry thinks suing people will solve their problems.
Dammit, we live in an age where setting up a system of home-user licensing commercial music should be easy. Not only that, but the mechanism for indie artists to profit from this system should be relatively easy to set up!
Why is this not happening?
No disrespect meant, but she isn't particularly 'avant-garde', as it were. More like pop-cello or easy-listening-cello. This is what I would consider 'avant-cello':
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ep6joCRmWxg
If I were a musician I would have a website and sell my tracks as downloadable FLAC files and maybe as redbook CDs. If enough people buy your music then you can survive without a day job and life is good. Otherwise you'll need a day job. Fuck the record companies. They are not needed anymore.
Or if you do get a record contract for your first album only give them the rights to that album and then self-publish after that. Not for the money, because they will be making nearly all of that, but for the exposure.
Another alternative is crowdfunding. Once you have a few good tracks to show see how much you can get for a whole album with kickstarter or indiegogo.
It's the new millenium already. It's time for blood-sucking, greedy record companies to die.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Coffee shops are a totally different licensing scheme, usually ASCAP, and they're assholes too:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100518/2341299481.shtml
As per radio:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/05/business/media/fight-growing-over-online-royalties.html
publisher = songwriter
If I build a chair for someone, I get paid x dollars. If 1000 people sit in that chair I do not get paid 1000x dollars. I've never quite understood why copyright artists get "royalties". You create a song, you perform the song, you get paid. Why should you get paid every single time someone hears your song? As an artist you should not be set for life based on a single miraculously successful song.
Ok, first, if you are a musician and the word "avant" applies to the genre you play, guess what - you're going to be poor.
Second, the music industry is such that you can sell a million albums and still be six figures in the hole.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcwgdB0NltY
Speaking pragmatically, if you aren't one of the lucky ones, you will never make a profitable career out of music. I shied away from it coming out of high school because of the prospect of not getting paid to do what I love for a living. Did I want to earn a pittance in some local orchestra and make rent by teaching some 8 year old how to play the clarinet? No thank you. My brother made that mistake, and now he's in the military doing something completely unrelated because it turns out that having a degree in trumpet performance doesn't do much for your job prospects.
It's like those kids who go to college on a football/basketball scholarship and fuck around in class because they think they won't need the material anyway once they've gone pro. Simple math dictates that most won't, so all need a backup plan. So if your goal in life is to join a field that contains both superstars and starving artists, you need to prepare to be in the latter category. And that means relying on something other than your .42 cents/play as your primary source of income.
Getting paid while sitting on her ass not working and She still complains? Wow.
I want to get paid 0.42 cents every time someone sends an email through one of the servers/routers/cables I installed. And my children, and their grand children, They should also be paid for that!
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
No, some venues do not have to pay royalties in the US. This is because of the so-called home style exception at 17 USC 110(5), the gist of which is, if a venue plays a radio or a TV, uses ordinary consumer equipment (and not too much of it), doesnt charge for it, and isn't too big, it need not be licensed. The idea is that a small coffee shop can leave a radio on or a bar can have a tv and not get dragged into the complicated and annoying world of copyright.
(Ironically, given recent events in Antigua, the US lost a case against IIRC an Irish music organization that claimed that the exception was not allowed by mutual copyright treaties. And having been told to abolish the exception⦠we ignored the WTO and continue to have it, because the restaurant lobby is powerful enough in Congress, and the US is powerful enough in the world)
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
With Spotify, you can hear the same song over and over without buying it. And you don't have to listen to the rest of the album.
It's the same with broadcast radio, only you don't get to pick the song. Broadcast radio plays what Clearchannel has been bribed to play because that's what they want in the top 40. They want specific songs in the top 40 because they come from bands which, while mediocre, are capable of churning out nearly identical songs periodically to keep the pipeline full.
This is rent seeking behaviour. We should not really support it beyond the prices we already pay. Let's be honest, we listen to the radio, it costs us $0. We listent to spotify, it costs very little. We don't want to pay more, if you want to make more do something other than make recordings. License your recordings yourself to those who need them. Perform live. Sell tshirts. This is all the rent you can muster from recordings.
I'm curious how much she would make if she put her songs on Youtube and served ads.
as music streaming by artists grows , royalties that were stolen by labels grows to a trickle
Live performance isn't always an option. Personally, I make electronic music, and my style would be completely different if I were focused on live performance. Tons of the stuff you hear nowadays was made on a computer and has no real place in a live setting, unless you want to pay cover to watch an artist hit "play". What you probably will do is go see a DJ, live, who may or may not be buying their music from the actual artists. DJs can make a living easily, but whether or not the artists making the music they play do... well, unless they're really big, they're making less than the DJ. And sure, there's a lot of live electronic performers, but again, it's a much different way of setting up the song. I'm under the impression that a lot of the sort of 2nd tier producers of electronic music actually make their money by DJing.
Is it somehow our responsibility to make sure everyone has an equal income at everything they choose to do? That sounds a lot like communism. Here is a tip:
Musicians, along with many other kinds of businesses have struggled and failed since the beginning of time.
It is not society's job to prop you up and support your hobby. If you're just not good enough to make it, go out and get a different job.
Just like it isn't society's responsibility to support your failed business model.
Can't compete with online markets? Too bad.
Can't compete with big box stores? Too bad.
Your greed and selfishness hurts consumers, and they are a larger group than you are.
I do artistic photography, do you know how many people are making a living at that? Outside of a few iconic photographers who have created books or sold a few sought after pictures, nobody. Bu I don't sit around pissing and moaning about it because I believe in personal responsibility. I do it because I enjoy it. If I ever made money from it, great, but despite it being my main interest, I realize I still have to put a roof over my head and food in my belly, so I go out and go to work.
Art is, for the most part, just not valuable to the main stream. There is no way around that.
Do you seriously think that the creation of art, in whatever form but for this discussion let's restrict it to music, is easy?
Yes. Especially by your definition that the creation of musical art only requires being able to play an instrument and read musical notation.
Write a short story for Harlequin? That's art. Garage-based grunge band? That's art. Blair Witch Trial? Art. Star Trek? Art. Mass Effect? Not art. (One of these is just like the others, but still counted out for some reason...)
Art is easy. Making money off of art is hard. You either need luck and talent, or dedication and perseverance. Basically, a failing artist is one who has not yet persevered. It's easy to want shortcuts so that they don't have to persevere through as much for as long, but it doesn't change the fact that the major acts are the 1% of the musical population. Sometimes you just have to suck it up and accept that you'll never be a big-name act and just work to survive rather than work to succeed.
By the way, your idea about a just society (implying we're not living in a just society) is exactly what's happening today. The young are free to explore their interests as the parents pay their tuition fees, and as middle age approaches these same people are expected to have a career plan and a job already working their way towards success. The concept of retirement at 65 was originally so that old people could relax in their few remaining years. So even at the time that retirement age was set at 65, you'd only have until age 25 to enjoy life, then until 45 to raise a family, and the next 20 are preparing for retirement. It hasn't changed.
Streaming services are a ghetto. As big of a rip off as the major studios.
The major studios ARE a rip off, because literally they are "ripping" a huge percentage of sales from you.
But again, with streaming services there's no-one being ripped off because there's no money for anyone, and what little there is seems pretty evenly distributed.
The fact that it's hard to make a living from is irrelevant to it being a rip-off or not. It simply doesn't pay well. But it looks to be the future so it's best to figure out how to work in that world.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
cause there assholes
how hard is it to get the software tuner to get FM radio working on a smartphone? it's not
so how come i know of no smartphone that offer it?
it can't be a tech decision, so it has to be a business decision
in which case, who is saying "no freaking FM radio on smartphones"? the manufacturers? the cell companies? the content cartels?
and depending on who is blocking it, why? what's the business logic?
and how come clear channel communications or whatever union of radio stations isn't screaming bloody murder about this status quo?
and i follow tech pretty closely. so how come i never see or hear any media coverage of this odd glaring oversight?
as for TV, i understand that QAM signals do not work for a receiver in motion
so my question is really just specific to FM radio (and AM too, why not?)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Yes, the bar has been lowered. Myspace has somewhere upwards of 5 million bands. Some of which might not suck. There are more "band members" in the US than construction workers.
The notion of "rock stars" comes from a period when the tooling cost for vinyl records was high. That's so over. It's running on inertia and old fans now. I was just looking at a list of "big concerts" for 2013. Some of them raise the question "are those guys still alive?" Elton John? The Doobie Brothers? Rush? The Who? The Beach Boys? They have to tour; anybody who wants a copy of their content already has it. The highest-paid musician in the US is Dr. Dre, but that's from his line of headphones.
Stream directly from the artist to the fans. If an artist doesn't have an obscene amount of fans it will probably be profitable for the artist.
The problem is you'd still need something like Google to allow for a search mechanism. Streams don't produce much revenue and this has to change as streaming services figure out how to make more money.
Artists also can go to the services which pay the most money out when the industry develops. You just wont get the best music if you go to the wrong service.
I agree, and I also find it odd that so many musicians feel like they should not have to work. Compare to me as a programmer. Both have to build their skill set, both have to use creativity and logic, we both have to produce works and others consume these works. I have to go into work at least 5 days a week, and they want to sit on their ass and plunk away on an instrument while getting paid a ransom for what they put out. Me, I'm constantly improving what was done, producing more and supporting those consumers. This applies to a programmer in a large corp all the way down to a lone wolf. We fail to do this we end up not making money.
Maybe I should go in to work on Monday and tell them they need to pay me my salary for the rest of my life for the work I've already done. I wonder how well that will go over.
Not all musicians are like this one who laments not having "a significant live business". No, I like bars with live music where some guy I've never heard of is plugging away at his trade. If he is cool I'll buy him a drink, and if I like his music I'll perhaps buy a CD. This person is actually working... they show up for work dressed, skilled and with equipment in hand. I respect this person for it. If you want my cash you better be offering more then some recording tweaked digitally, mastered and mass produced with zero engagement from you.
IMHO, Zoe Keating and musicians with the same attitude are the patent trolls of the music industry. If Ms Keating wants to earn more she needs to engage her fans more. Do more shows... hell, some rappers make their money just walking up to people in public, meeting them, to sell them their CD for 5$. They have their hustle on, where is yours Ms Keating? I find it ironic that some thug ass gansta rapper politely asks me if I would like buy his CD to support him... signed at no extra charge, yet at the end of this posted story we have a group who would love to reach into everyone's pocket and just take our money.
I'm a musician too Zoe... check this out, I'll play the world's smallest violin for you.
The radio plays it for free, go cry somewhere else
The radio doesn't play the songs you want when you want to hear them, even if you have a zillion channels you still have to zap through them trying to find something good. The radio was never a replacement for buying CDs but most people I know who subscribe to music services do that instead of buying CDs. I've never been to a party where we listen to the radio (no really, tapes, CDs, MP3s, but never radio), but I've been to many parties where they use Spotify or something similar. The biggest issue for the subscription services is that they're like an all-you-can-eat buffet with very different appetites. The people who used to use thousands don't and yet the average person is only so music interested compared to all the other forms of entertainment that are easily available.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
My main use for Rhapsody and Pandora, and even for streaming "radio" stations, is to discover music. When I find stuff I like, I try to buy it on CD (and then rip the CD to FLAC and never touch the disc again).
What I like best about Rhapsody is that it is a world-wide web for music, where I can listen to the entire track or entire album and decide if I like it. (Sometimes it takes me a few listens to decide whether I like something!)
For example, on Rhapsody I went to the "Electronic Music" section and looked at what was most popular, and found a band I had never heard of called "Zero 7". I bought a CD by them. (It's called Simple Things and I do recommend it; I like every song on that album.)
I go to the page for bands I like, and click on one of the "related" links, and find bands I had never heard of. And sometimes I buy CDs.
When I was in college I pretty much bought music by bands I already knew. Now, with the help of the Internet, I'm branching out and finding all kinds of new stuff.
Trust me, I have never heard of this avant garde celloist, but with an Internet service there is at least a chance I might. So, instead of looking at this as lost revenue, she might want to look at it as advertising that pays her (albeit not very much).
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Yes, but then she would have to work several hours every single day, and as soon as she stopped busking she would never make a single cent.
Provided that her music has staying power, she stands to receive something on the order of $100,000 over her copyright term for the music she has produced with not a single minute of additional effort, outlay, or risk. That's not bad for a style which, to my knowledge, has never even had a sub-section in a traditional music store and produces only six hits on arguably the largest music site in the world.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Ever seen the guys who paint/chalk all those cool trompe l'oeil images on sidewalks? That's a pretty amazing talent, and it takes a lot of time, but nobody seems to be willing to pay them for photos of them, or the pay to walk down the street and look at them.
Sometimes what you love to do is something that makes enough money to form an income. For 99+% of humans on this planet, that means getting a day job.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
There are licenses for that.
It's what you do when people do not find sufficient value in what you produce to commission you for works.
My passion is singing. There aren't enough people out there who will pay to hear me sing to support my family in the lifestyle I choose*. So for 40-50 hours a week I provide engineering services - design, analysis, consulting. See, there are enough people around me who need or desire the type of engineering services I can provide to support my family, so I have chosen to do that instead of sing for a living. Other members of my band heal children, give financial advice, or wait tables at local restaurants. Not everybody gets to live their passion with an income that satisfies their every need.
*Or likely in any reasonable first world lifestye
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I have been listening to the same 20 songs for 5 years.
Congratulations, you appear to be perfectly qualified to work as program director for any contemporary commercial music-playing radio station. Now if you can just get that down to 15 or even 10 songs, your future with Clear Channel seems assured.
http://www.basicincome.org/bien/aboutbasicincome.html
"A basic income is an income unconditionally granted to all on an individual basis, without means test or work requirement. It is a form of minimum income guarantee that differs from those that now exist in various European countries in three important ways:
* it is being paid to individuals rather than households;
* it is paid irrespective of any income from other sources;
* it is paid without requiring the performance of any work or the willingness to accept a job if offered.
Liberty and equality, efficiency and community, common ownership of the Earth and equal sharing in the benefits of technical progress, the flexibility of the labour market and the dignity of the poor, the fight against inhumane working conditions, against the desertification of the countryside and against interregional inequalities, the viability of cooperatives and the promotion of adult education, autonomy from bosses, husbands and bureaucrats, have all been invoked in its favour.
But it is the inability to tackle unemployment with conventional means that has led in the last decade or so to the idea being taken seriously throughout Europe by a growing number of scholars and organizations. Social policy and economic policy can no longer be conceived separately, and basic income is increasingly viewed as the only viable way of reconciling two of their respective central objectives: poverty relief and full employment.
There is a wide variety of proposals around. They differ according to the amounts involved, the source of funding, the nature and size of the reductions in other transfers, and along many other dimensions. As far as short-term proposals are concerned, however, the current discussion is focusing increasingly on so-called partial basic income schemes which would not be full substitutes for present guaranteed income schemes but would provide a low - and slowly increasing - basis to which other incomes, including the remaining social security benefits and means-tested guaranteed income supplements, could be added.
Many prominent European social scientists have now come out in favour of basic income - among them two Nobel laureates in economics. In a few countries some major politicians, including from parties in government, are also beginning to stick their necks out in support of it. At the same time, the relevant literature - on the economic, ethical, political and legal aspects - is gradually expanding and those promoting the idea, or just interested in it, in various European countries and across the world have started organizing into an active network. "
See also:
http://www.beyondajoblessrecovery.org/2009/11/16/can-unions-and-strikes-still-make-a-difference/index.html
"What good is it to get more money and more benefits for fewer and fewer remaining workers while they wait for their own jobs to be lost to automation and improved design? Yet, this has been the strategy of most unions for many years. The failure of the US American automakers in Detroit shows how, in the long run, unions creating private welfare states within individual corporations does not work well anymore for union members or anyone else in society these days. The companies become less competitive relative to other companies that pay less and embrace automation and better design, and so they fail, taking all the union jobs with them.
We are possibly past the point where union actions related to single companies make much sense. If unions are to have any major role in the future, it may likely be as part of larger efforts to rethink the underlying basis of our economy and society, like by somehow being part of a national effort for a basic income, or comprehensive single-payer health care reform, or reforming education, or things like that."
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Right now, royalty rates for internet radio are determined by judges in some commission, when they should be determined by the free market.
Set up an exchange, and let people buy contracts for 1000 plays directly from the owner of the music.
Either the government should run an exchange, or set up rules for such exchanges. That way, the market can set the price for music, just as it does with any other commodity.
Maybe now more music will be made by people who are passionate about making music, not by people who do it for money.
I don't think any musician in history has made a living off of streaming (i.e., radio) revenue alone. The money has always been in live shows and merchandise, and possibly album sales for artists who didn't get fucked over by bad contracts.
Basic economics: the numbers prove the point that the disk and per song prices are over-inflated. Were they to sell the higher quality song versions for 5 or 10 cents each, many times more would be purchased, and they would all make way more money. I won't spend $10 or $15 on a CD, but I would pay $1 for 10 that I liked. Make low quality versions and streaming content FREE and widely available, then charge a dime for the high quality version.
If I'm hearing you right RIAA = Scientology?
I will pay for any work of art (performed live or otherwise) if:
1) I really like it
2) I have money to spend on it
That's it, I'm not going to pay you more than once, because that does not changes the work of art I already paid for.
I'm not going to pay you so you can sit on your ass thinking about your previous work of art.
I'm not even going to pay you while you make the said work of art unless I ordered it from you.
I'll only pay you if 1) and 2) are true.
Exchange "work of art" for:" house", "pasta", "pizza", "oranges", or the generic "work".
I didn't read the article, just the Slashdot headline. I don't know who this woman is, whether she's good or bad or has any talent. That said, I'll launch into my rant. The days of selling millions of albums/CDs, or even downloads are long gone. The vertically integrated unholy alliance between the record comapnies and radio stations is imploding too-- It just too easy for people to find whatever they want for free. The one thing though that the internet can't do is physically put you in the audience at a live performance. Artists will have to make their livings the old-fashioned way, performing real songs, really singing, playing real intruments, in front of real people. If you're good, then you will always be able to earn a living that way; royalties from recordings won't disappear entirely (nor should they) but they won't be the main source of income. On the other hand, if you're some no-talent Autotuned gimmick like Lady GagMe then I hope you die and burn in hell for all eternity. I'm sympathetic to the artists who're really good, and I'm sorry the old paradigm has collapsed, but it was inevitable. Now go out there and succeed or fail based on your talent and merit.
Fuck off. High quality art is a lot harder than your mindless drone code-crunching slave labor that you self-deludedly think makes you part of some intellectual elite. As EvanED has pointed out numerous times, which you would know if your reading skills were equal to your ability to shit on others' accomplishments, she's wasn't complaining, she was trying to increase awareness of the math of streaming royalties. So that people could look at the issue intelligently. As it happens she makes north of 150K a year, mostly from the live performances that idiots on this thread seem to think she's not doing.
Meanwhile every week on Slashdot we get complaints from disgruntled programmers who slapped together a fart app in two weeks and are pissed off that they haven't struck it rich yet. Or other programmers who complain that their former employer found someone on the other side of the world to do their easy jobs for 1/6th their old salary. Or that they're 40 years old and nobody wants to hire their old MSCE toting ass any more. Or blah-blah "webmaster." I guess those are "real" complaints but musicians should just shut the fuck up and be happy they can play in a smoke-filled shithole for tips and free drinks.
Indeed. As a professional classical violinist myself I can attest to the difficulty of a classical career. If you aren't the creme of the crop, you will likely be competing with your local Burger King employees in terms of net income. It's hard. Plus, you can't just decide to just walk in and get a job in this field. You have to start when you are kid and train for 15 years before you have a hope of making a living. No exceptions! Still, the classical bunch take pride in live performance (even if almost nobody listens to us) and I'd say we are one of the industries least dependent on recording rights. Nobody gets rich off of serious classical CDs.
And stop going on the internet, and stop listening to music, and read old books... Do I owe anything to current millionaires for getting bored with them?
Gently reply
A lot of creative types seem to get sucked in by the Hollywood idea of "making it big". They seem to think that if people like their stuff, they should get a lot of money for it and be able to live the high life. Now that may happen in rare cases, but not in most, of course.
Just like all the rest of us. Some people, through a combination of luck, hard work, and timing, make it big and can retire young, live rich, and so on. However most of us have to continue working regularly for a good bit of our lives. We don't "make it big" we work, we make some money, we work some more.
Musicians need to realize that you need to look at having your own band/act much like any other small business: You have a small chance of making a lot of money and really doing well. You have a much larger chance of making some money, but having to work hard for it and keep working. You also have a non-trivial chance of making fuck-all and having your work amount to very little. Any time you do your own thing, that is how it goes.
Another problem is that most artists care about their art, they feel it is a good sort of art, otherwise they wouldn't do it. However they can have trouble understanding that not everyone else feels the same. They think their kind of music is the shit and don't get why everyone isn't after it.
This lady needs to STFU. If she can make a living as a one-woman cello act, well that is pretty lucky, actually, and it is going to be a lot of work. There's just not a lot of people who are in to that. I like classical music, but I'm not interested in that. Solo strings is all kinds of not my thing. If she's making a living at it (and she is, a pretty good one) asking more is rather silly.
Some forms of music, or any art, are condemned to poverty because nobody gives a shit. Same with really any other trade. Maybe you absolutely love writing some kind of obscure program that very few people have a use for, and none are willing to pay for. That's wonderful, just don't expect to make any money on it. You wanna make money programming? It needs to be writing things people want/need which may not be what's fun for you.
If you want to follow your dream, there's fine, just don't expect anyone else to want to give you money for it. If you want money, do something that others want or need done.
Because that makes too much sense.
Actually, as a DIY video maker myself, this is an awesome idea, but there's no way I could afford to license a song for even 0.1 to 0.5 cents per view.
My budget is usually around $10 or $11 dollars (on a good day!) and If my video gets, say, 500 - 600 views on youtube, that's way more money than I'd be willing to spend.
Now, if it was a flat fee - spend $5 - $25 or even $50 on the song, and use it in up to, say, 5 films, without paying per view, then THAT would be do-able for me.
I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.
-John Adams
I am not sure it really means what you were going for though.
Here is how I see it ...
Music sheet is like a database
Composers are like the people who key in the data into a database
Musicians are like people reading from a database and then interpreting the dataset into something else
And the so-called "Musicians" want to be paid for doing that ??
How about us, the geeky programmers, the ones who made the database engines?
We got paid ***ONCE*** for building the databse engines.
And those Musicians?
They expect to get paid every-single-time someone else looked or listen to whatever interpretation they did from the dataset they got from the database?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
The whole "count play times" is just stupid. When I was a kid and bought an album I played the same hit track over and over.
The number that would somehow be meaningful would be the number of users who have played the song. When you buy your CD or shop in iTunes nobody will count how many times you listen the song.
It just not right to think that you should get more money from the streaming services if 10 individuals play your song in a loop for a year compared to situation where 100000 users listen to your song twice.
Wow, musicians condemned to a life of actually performing music for a living!
She's not a starving musician and she's not an idiot. Pandora and Spotify's business model is a middleman deception just as the RIAA were. They're skimming the most off, just as the RIAA members were.
She knows what's going on and so do they.
The problem is that Pandora and Spotify have been able to capture market share by running at a loss, undercutting others. They can do that because they're well capitalized. Once they've got the market, they'll cut her share even further, and raise their prices back to competitive.
Welcome to the new boss, same as the old boss.
I will never support an artist or corporation that talks about me "consuming" music. I "listen to" music.
People are not cattle, and they are not consumers.
Now see if you can guess where I think you should put that cello.
I'm sure your post was quite helpful to the GP.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
Get a job then you bum
"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain."
--John Adams
Back in the day, the middlemen got a fair chunk of the revenue from a recording. Of course, they also had to deal with mastering, packaging, shipping, and accounting on paper. In addition they had to front big bux for very expensive analog recording equipment to get the album recorded in the first place.
These days, the whole reproducing and shipping part comes to less than a penny per unit in cost and they can record on not so expensive digital equipment but they claim the same chunk as ever for a lot less work.
There is probably room to make money making music, but there's a lot of now dead weight in the middle that will have to go.
"we are condemning them to poverty if this is going to be the only way people consume music"
Okay. And it's not, so we aren't.
The easier it is to get access to more music and different artists, the more artists that will get listened too. People only have so much money to spend on music/entertainment and secondly only so much time to do it. Those have not changed. With more artists and choices, each get less money.
I am 40 and I was always a die hard heavy rock and heavy metal fan. 5 or 10 years ago after I got Rhapsody streaming and also started listening to various Shoutcast radio stations or whatever came with winamp back in the day, I started getting a real interest in techno, downbeat, and ambient stuff. Then Pandora and similar came along and I was introduced to much more of it and listened to it more. Those are band and musicians that would have nothing at all from me if it was not for streaming.
I would think the record companies as a whole suffer much more from this trend than the individual artists do as a whole. Record companies like to promote a select few and rake in the money from them. With choices, that slips away. They still try though.
I've given a ton of medical advice in my life time, and nobody ever paid me a damn cent for it.
Does anyone else not have a problem with the idea that people who can actually play/sing actually be the ones making a living from ... playing/singing?
Full disclosure: I'm a dont-wannabe musician - I haven't played an instrument since quitting a band 20 years ago, and I wasn't much good at it anyway; my father, tho, has been a die hard life performer playing guitar and piano, singing, since he was a kid. He's 70 and still playing pubs and clubs, although the good people of my home town have finally drawn the line at letting him play steel guitar. I also spent a while working in a studio. So yeah, I have a chip on my shoulder against talentless pretenders like ... well, me.
I knew I had it wrong, thank you.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I had forgotten the war aspect- but it is essentially correct- Liberty, then Financial Independence, then you can mess around with the relatively non-productive arts.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Just because it is harder, doesn't mean it is worth anything.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Welcome to the Age of Information!
In this era artificial scarcity of information is obsolete! Bits are in near infinite supply, so their cost of reproduction thus tends RIDICULOUSLY close to ZERO! So sayeth Economics 101. Why, you didn't even have to perform each of those songs! Isn't it GREAT!? People actually have to KEEP WORKING to make more money! Make MORE CONTENT, to get MORE MONEY.
Regardless if the music was re-played thousands, or an infinity of times, the work that it took to create the recording was done ONCE, and the duplications thereafter were INFINITESIMAL to the point of being Zero: They actually do round down a millionth of a cent to Zero on your electricity bill. $500 to $1500 per song not enough for you? Then Charge More, or do more work, more performances: Ask for the money you need up front, agree on the price you need before you've done the work, and leverage your popularity to ransom your ability to work. Oh, not getting the price you need? Well, consider that you may be in an over-saturated market... It sucks for mechanics in an oversaturated mechanic market; It sucks for coders in a market over saturated with programmers too. Join the damn club; Do I have to welcome you to the Real World too?
Know what's fabulous?! Working! Making More Stuff! Performing! Your ability to PLAY and MAKE music is what's scarce, not the bits themselves. Here in the Information Age you should market the scarce things. If you asked for a loan for a start up that Sells Ice to Eskimos, you'd get laughed out the door -- You think you can just sell copies of information to folks with GHz speed information duplication machines and networks? HAHAHAHAH. You must be new here, in the Information Age.
Guess what? Stones were cheap in the stone age! Everyone Had Them! Guess What?! COPIES ARE CHEAP, We're in the INFORMATION AGE! So, if you're not getting paid to make the recording, then you're basically working for free. DON'T WORK FOR FREE, Because that means afterwards you have to rely on ARTIFICIAL SCARCITY of bits, and spread consumer fear of draconian laws that steal everyone's freedom to be ALIVE, to force humans to resist the very purpose of their existence, to ignore our position at the top of the food chain as The World's Best Copy Machines. Seriously, it's bad! Life itself is BASED on copying! The only thing we have over the apes is that we're better at Copying Information! We can't stop copying! That's literally how you DIE. Can't outlaww human nature, nope, that's how you make a police state; In the Information Age, police states are right out.
As a fellow content creator, I say: Welcome to the Future! Non-scarce items are priced accordingly! If you don't like it, then you're welcome to piss right off into the past, and become irrelevant.
The music industry wanted tighter control over content, eschewing music CDs and MP3s (etc.), for streaming services that let end-users play content but not 'download it / save it to a hard disk.' And their tight-fistedness backfires -> users have found ways to legally download those streamed videos / audio, and are apparently totally okay with the decayed quality it represents; it's actually so bad, that many users prefer the weird artifacts present in lossy-compressed audio files to uncompressed clean ones.
Now, the music industry is probably going to think "Ok, then we'll just restrict the quality of YouTube videos / music; except that as I've pointed out before, the people downloading that music do not care about the quality; it could be a 96K MP3 with serious distortions, and, because of the damage done to their ears by shitting iPod headphones, they won't care." Then they might think "Well, then, we'll just limit the number of times that someone can watch / listen to a music video / song; except that they'll just download it with a clean IP address, after they catch onto your new trick." Then they might think "We'll just change the player / encryption so they can't download it; except that someone will crack it again in a few weeks, and you set up an arms race you can't win."
You could try to explain to them that they can't win, they can only hope not to lose. But it would go over their heads.
But yes, selling CDs after a performance, with the artist on hand to sign them / take a photo with fans, is a very good stop-gap idea. At least until the music industry gets things 'right.'
I am John Hurt.
>> Ask for the money you need up front
Ask who?
I started downloading back in Napster days. Back then it had the thrill of sharing. Then came Mininova and bittorrent and the thrill was twofold - the ease of which media was available and a the sense of sticking it to the man. I still do it but there is no more thrill. It is just practical - easy to grab a TV show being as I do not have a TV. But what I have noticed is that grabbing oodles of movies and TV shows I will never watch has devalued them. This has already happened with music. I used to listen to it constantly but now just about never despite having huge amounts of it. There is still a huge problem with content not being priced realistically but when it is priced fairly I now buy. I find that paying for it makes it more important to me. I have had to make a choice in selecting it and so it is more cherished than that which I can download for free in three minutes. I have found that that I am very average so I expect that what I am experiencing is being experienced by others as well and that we are at a transitional point in history. People will pay more in the future. They will be choosier but they will want to pay because paying for content makes it more valuable to the consumer and reinforces what we deem in our own minds to be important. I am not saying file sharing will go away but it will be used more to taste new artists. This all assumes, however, that content providers wise up, that they make content as easily available as it is illegally and that they lower their prices to reflect technological innovations in production and distribution, If they don't, there is still a bit of thrill in 'sticking it to The Man'.
record companies are thieves
There's no "should" in earnings. Some things make money. Some things don't. You can spend the next 8 years working on a book of poetry, and sell a mere 75 copies for $5 a pop. Would such low earnings warrant a Slashdot article on the "tragedy of working poets"? Would poets then demand more money from society with claims that one "should" be able to earn a living wage scrawling free verse?
This is a story about an "avant cellist". Of all the categories of music that don't make money, that sounds like it's right up there at the top of the list. Good music? Maybe! Maybe great music. But great music and a buck fifty gets you a cup of coffee.
How many readers here would rather be designing an indie game for mobile devices, or making a blog about their favorite topic? (Maybe you are doing that). Chances are that's not something you're doing with expectations of a living wage. It would be nice, but to "expect" it would be ridiculous.
This is a topic that is controversial only for soon-to-be disillusioned teenagers.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Why is there no radio station run by artists? No streaming service run by artists? Why did artists not create iTunes? Because they are ALL workshy bastards who only dream of signing a fat contract they won't read and then roll is cash for a few hours work.
And the fact remains that radio stations, music publishers etc keep rolling in it and they do this by squeezing the artists who are happy to be squeezed. The money is there, go and get it.
What is missing from the artist mind is the analysis of what music is worth. The article mentions a price of 0.42 cent per streamed song... and? In what context does this price exist in the artist mind? It is indeed seemingly a small sum of money. If say a baker got 0.42 cent revenue per loaf, he would be out of business in a heartbeat. It should be obvious that the costs in that case would be far higher then the price.
But music is not a physical product. How many cents does it take the artist to deliver the song to the listener? 0 cent. That is the real cost. 0 cent. So she makes a revenue of 0.42 cent per listened to song. In Holland there might be VAT applied (paid by the consumer, in this case the streaming service) but the tax office are such nice guys that if your tax collections or not worth it, you can CHARGE VAT but you do not have to PAY it to the tax office. Nice eh? You can collect 20% extra and can stick it straight into your pocket. For small businesses it is a real boon.
"But it is only 0.42 cent" you say? Supermarkets make on some items as little as a single cent as well, they make up for it with big ticket items and scale. Since they got to have the shop in any case with the whole support infrastructure, selling low ticket items is worth it because a cent is a cent. And these items are typically what people need often like butter, milk, bread. So 1 center every day from every customer soon adds up to billions. Not everyone can be an Apple and sell only to the big spenders, a lot of business has to add up the cents to make their millions.
Because streaming music is NOT the same as buying music. It is 0.42 per song listened to. Once. iTunes rather famously charges 99 cents per song (an outrageous price for a small binary file) so some very rough math shows us that 200 times listening to a song has the same revenue as one song bought... oh wait... NO! That is a COMPLETE and utter lie.
Reason: 0.42 cent is what the ARTIST gets per streamed song. 0.99 cent is what APPLE gets per sold song. The artist gets FAR less. 9 cents according to some. So that is 18 streaming events? A bought song I can listen to many times over. I know I have listened over time to some tracks hundred of times. If I had streamed those songs the artist would be FAR better off. The real reason this artist makes so little money is because she just isn't popular. 131000 plays in a year? Give it up girl, nobody wants to hear your music. Just compare it with youtubes most popular movies. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw4KVoEVcr0 50 million times. At 0.42 cent, that is an income of 21 million dollars. I think most of us would be rather pleased to see that, even if it is before taxes.
If you are an aluminum drinking can maker, you can't say "I want a decent working wage" and then make a thousand cans and go home. You got to make half a million cans at least, each and every shift because an individual can just hasn't enough value but make enough and you get to take home a decent wage for the hours you worked.
Does the artist in question have to work every day in physical labor to produce that one song streamed a 131000 times? No. If she HAD worked very hard every day of the week, could she have produced far more songs and then have gotten payed 131000 times X 365 songs per year X 0.42 cent = 20 million dollars. No, she is bitching that for one shift at the coca cola can factory she wasn't payed a full years salary. Well, screw her. She is just a high class whore upset that she didn't get an i
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The article lacks required info to back it's arguement. The two main areas I have questions about are: music delivery chain efficiency and how it works now compared to pre-internet.
.5 - .7 cents/play on spotify. Assuming the Pandora numbers are relatively close, say .4 cents/play to be conservative, that would mean the net to the recording company was paid about $6000 of which the artist got just over 25%. My questions are:
Where does the money go? In the example they point out that the artist made $1,652.74 on 1.5 million plays. It doesn't list the actual amount per play from pandora but it does give a general range of
1. Who else is in the supply chain taking percentage?
2. What percentage does each entity take?
3. What do they do for that percentage?
It could be someone in the chain is taking the lion share and not doing much work for it. In that case the problem is not the internet delivery or revenue model but the inefficiency in the artist to delivery part of the chain.
If this was "pre-internet" would this artist get any money? I suspect there was a much narrower spectrum of artists that got money at all from recordings but I'd need to see some numbers to be certain about that. I suspect that when compared you might find that more artists get some money in the current situation than did before. Whether there are more or less that can live on the proceeds from recordings is a question I'd be curious to have an answer to. Unfortunately, even though the article seems to make this claim (implied) it doesn't seem to give any revenue information to make a comparison of the old and new models.
I find the analogy to professional athletes striking. It is no coincidence that people "play' music and baseball rather than work at it. Only a very few talented or lucky individuals make a lot of money while many thousands perform for peanuts. In fact it is precisely the fact that many want to play music or sports that is responsible for the low average financial rewards. One should consider themselves lucky to be paid at all doing work one loves.
I'm struggling to see why this is my problem? If I work in a job that doesn't pay enough for me to survive, I find a new job. Why should these people be treated any differently just because they're self-employed musicians?
I am a professional musician/singer/songwriter and the only way I make any money is by playing for people. I don't even bother with the royalty model because there is no money to be made in it.
The way I make money is by singing, playing, and writing songs for people. For example, a young couple who had seen me perform approached me and asked me to write a song for their wedding dance. So, I spent a couple of hours interviewing them about their life together and wrote them a song for their wedding dance. For this week worth of real work, I was fairly compensated.
Recording yourself playing in your Mom's basement and just handing it over to Pandora or Google Play or iTunes is not going to make you any money. It's going to make them money.
Everyone welcomed streaming and self distribution with open arms believing that it would "remove the middleman and allow artists to truly capitalize on their craft."
Wrong. Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.
Value of a digital copy for everyone else equals to value of work you put into making it, which is ZERO.
Even if you factor in the cost of making the initial original, because you can make infinite copies, it is still ZERO.
How many sane people would pay for something they know cost you nothing? Pay you over and over again for the same work you did?
When they know they could make the copy themselves for zero cost?
It is like you picking a rock and trying to sell it to someone who saw you do it for a ridiculously high price, with plenty of other rocks lying around.
Making laws so that only you can do it to make this fly is not fair. Why should you be allowed to make money for free while everyone else has to work?
Forget about selling digital copies as a way to make money. Sell licenses. Sell tickets. Just dont sell copies please. Stop already. Stahp!
Programs have to be designed. Procedures need testing and test data. so while you are suggesting that being at a desk 50 hours a week for 40-45 weeks a year is a pittance compared to how badly musicians have it, let me tell you: you're wrong.
You guys are posting this as if it were some mainstream performer, who is down on their luck because of internet music streaming. Hey, I'm sorry you aren't making Yo-Yo Ma money; but no other cellist is, either. Most cellists work to perform in an orchestra for money, or play for the art. If you wanted to make money in music, you are playing the WRONG instrument.
Seriously, why is it even an issue? She's lucky to be getting that many people even listening to her, or getting paid that much. Yo Yo Ma makes his money in performances. The music industry is, in a way, going backwards. You have a few studio chimps and "lucky ones" who will sell a bunch of albums. Most others, if they want to make money, will do it old school...on the road. Led Zeppelin got their own plane from their tour earnings, not from album sales; though those were big, as well. Most bands in the alt-indie circuit earned through regional venue appearances. In Asheville we have plenty of groups who make their fill touring regionally. Yes, they aren't making coke and limousine money; but it's ridiculous to think you can.
Music performers seem to forget: they are artists and entertainers. Their job isn't a 9-5'er, where they are owed a steady paycheck. Sorry, honey, but the onus of earning money is on YOU. You have a web site. You have a contract with Pandora and Spotify better than any you would get with radio(good luck getting a station to play an "avant-gard cellist", lol). Quit the crying and work on that server job at TGIFriday's, or get out there performing; but don't go crying about how hard it is. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzK5dmZHqr0
She played one song one time and made a couple thousand dollars for it. Here's a thought: if she wants to make more money, play the song again.
then you would be dead of starvation before writing your song.
Opinionated drivel
Since that doesn't make money.
Spend your energy performing live instead of complaining, and see just how much money you could actually make. All these online listens translate to excellent publicity - make the most of it.
I don't have a problem with this. Artists do what they do for the love of creation and performance. Any minimum wage slave can afford the instrument and gear to record and distribute their work. I'm one and I own a guitar AND a bass!
Hell, that's about twice I get for my app store. Hmmm... maybe I should start playing the violin...
That is how a free market works. You have value, you get paid well, if you don't, you go hungry ( or do something that people want )
While the performing artist goes hungry every monkey in the middle gets paid for doing next to nothing. Technology and the modern era are doing to musicians about what was done to musicians before the microphone even existed. Business practices are like a toxic, lethal poison to the performer.
Is that like a reverse economy of scale or something?
Kickstarter/similar site now, or as in the past find a wealthy patron.
Why is this not happening?
Check out www.greenlightmusic.com. Search for a favorite artist, a favorite song. Select a life event video and other use terms.
I think you will find that it is happening.
But $25 isn't happening. Not for any artist more than 10 people have ever heard of. And don't count on it happening any time soon because this type of licensing, called "synchronization licensing", is the last bastion of stable revenue for the big music publishers: Sony ATV, UMPG, and Warner.
The other consideration here is that it is almost impossible to execute such a license quickly. Try 6-8 weeks *minimum* when paying a premium and using a third party agency who has contacts within the industry. Music rights are distributed between multiple rights holders, and can vary based on the territories in which the content will be used. And believe it or no, Madonna is not in a hurry, nor are Madonna's lawyers and representatives in a hurry, to get back to you for your $25 offer, for a use which they will most likely consider damaging to the Madonna Brand.
OK, so the National Arts Foundation already exists and gives money to produce art that no one wants to see. What else is required?
By the way, I disagree that we need professional artists to create beauty. Beauty already exists in nature, and we merely copy it. People have been making art since the caveman era (cave murals in France). Art is a natural expression of humans. Humans will still create art even if there were nobody paying for it. In fact, that's the best kind. Getting a stipend and then sitting around all day trying to make the art come out of your head like Athene out of Zeus is lame. Ideally, art is something that gushes from within and can't be repressed. You have to create it no matter if someone pays you for it, which is the real loss of soul.
Love exists in every family, and the government didn't originate it. Paying for love seems strange. How is the federal government going to create compassion in citizens? Mandatory reeducation programs?
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
...most art is not profitable, but that's why its art. Commercialized art is not nearly as interesting.
Most artists support their life with something other than art. Check out my band.... I'm a stem cell scientist and my emcees are schoolteachers. If we made commercial hip hop, to sell a lot, we would not be able to write honest lyrics. We prefer integrity over populism.
I've been saying this to my pirating, well-meaning, non-&artist and artist friends for years. We are blindly, greedily, slowly but surely eroding our cultural fabric
Music always has been, and always will be shit job that never pays well. Most do it because the like what they do with no disillusions of being some rich and famous person. What sells records and concert tickets is what you hear on the radio and gets play on cable TV. These days it's all about image until you fuck up or get too old (i.e., Leif Garrett). Anything else is just beer money. The labels, producers, writers, and distributors and retaillers get the lion's share of the proceeds of a CD sale. On tour - promoters, the owners of the venues, local hired help (especially if they're union), etc... get their cut too. Everyone has their hands in the pockets of the musicians who actually record and perform for the masses. When the bills are all paid up - they're probably no better off than if they got a full-time job at McDonalds.
I've seen my share of shitty bands in concert, and I would always mention to my buddy something along the lines of "I hope these guys didn't quit their day jobs for this". Sometimes they make it for a bit, sometimes they go back to whatever shit job they had before they hit the road when they realize it's a zero-sum game. Remember the metal band Manowar? Here in the US they're a joke and rarely tour in the States anymore - but in Europe they're revered as the gods of metal. Their music is OK - I listen to it sometimes but nothing I'd go out of my way for either. So they'll fly over there, do a bunch of large festivals where there's money to be made, pack their gear, come back to their shitty little town where they live (Auburn, NY - between Rochester and Syracuse where the only real industry is the state prison where license plates are made by guys serving life sentences), and resume their normal lives doing construction, teaching bow hunting at BassPro and guitar lessons. I once saw a well known bassist for several metal bands working as a cashier at a local BestBuy once.
And speaking of touring, give Henry Rollins' book "Get in the Van" a read if you want to see how most lesser known bands really live on the road. It ain't no glamorous life.
But online sources of music is a godsend for many bands who are no longer actively making albums or touring. They're getting royalty checks for sitting on their asses as guys like me are still stuck in the late 80's / early 90's with our music.
Islam is against music and painting to start. It SHOWS. You think the internet Revolution was not THWARTED and REVOLVED? I am not sure we have real Economists working behind the scenes ANYMORE. Bussines costs are OVERBLOWN for internet, it OUGHT to be very unexpensive as business cost then make a lot of cash naturally. Of course 1,600,000 hits ought to produce a proportional quantity if being paid for. But if the current IDEOLOGY is that money is a NO, and much less give it to sinners like musicians...
People in the music industry NEED to be humbled an snapped back to the reality the rest of us live with daily. They've been worshiped as gods for long enough. Not a popular perspective, I know, but that's my opinion.
And where would your career be without these services? No where. And how much money would you be making from it? None.
Newsflash: being an artist or a musician as a full-time profession and making a good living from it is almost impossible for most people, regardless of your talent, skill, and dedication. It's been this way since the dawn of humankind. You should be thankful you get anything at all for your works.
but there is a simple question - how much of a royalty payment actually goes to the performing artist?
First of all, most of the posters here are not real musicians (you don't earn a living at it). But you consume our product and don't think you should have to pay for it. And you listen to crap because ... guess what? When there is no incentive to be brilliant, the brilliant tend to go away. Personally, I prefer not to have my music on any streaming service. The money is in the touring and sometimes the recording. If I don't have any control over where my stuff ends up -- well that is life. But if I do, it ends up on CD. I own about 500 CDs and I listen to them constantly. I have a very nice stereo and they sound great. I have heard enough live music to know what music should sound like. I don't have an iPod or whatever shit you guys have been sold. I do listen to YouTube stuff (which sounds like shit), but if I like it, I go out and buy it. I am an adult and I can afford to buy a CD. I don't have millions of "Tunes". You guys are bitter because you have to pay for something that you cannot create yourselves. If you don't want to pay for it, then have fun listening to whatever crap it is you listen to. You are in control. Not the musician. Everyone loses, but you should know that it is your fault. And for what it is worth, not that you could possibly understand, it takes years of hard work to be worth listening to. You don't become talented. You work at it. And just like everyone who can pick up a fucking pencil now thinks they are a writer, everyone who can afford a Strat thinks they are a musician. Guess again.
Yeah and when they own most of the stations in your area it REALLY sucks because you change stations but still get the same lame song you were trying to get away from. So I end up turning the radio off and just singing with the windows down. Interesting to see the reaction of old people at an intersection when I'm belting out "Sympathy for the Devil" at the top of my lungs....
What label are you with and how much did they make off your streaming? I don't know how this applies specifically to streaming but music sales should be at a peak right now despite what the studios and RIAA tell you. I read a story recently which points out that the studios and the RIAA keep complaining that record sales are at an all time low as their argument for how piracy is ruining the music industry but then goes to highlight that yes, while record sales are at an all time low, music sales are not. The industries are raking in large sums of cash for individual song sales via iTunes, etc and their profits are steadily growing each year as they always have been. I don't know how this affects streaming but the point is if the artist makes x money on y service then the label / studio that the artist is with makes many multiples of x on y service.
If you're an independent musician who has no label then on the streaming service, look at the numbers of subscribers your streaming to and compare these numbers to other artists, both successful and low key. Additionally, I've never heard tell of any artist surviving solely based on the money they make through a streaming service. Streaming music is like the 21st century version of radio air time. No artist I have ever heard of has ever been known to make a living from radio time. What about sales (records, iTunes, etc)? What about concerts? What about merchandising? These have all been staples of the music entertainment industry for many generations.
If streaming media really is the 21st century version of radio air time then what has radio air time been to the music industry? Promotions! Radio play and now streaming is promotions. People don't know you so you play your songs on streaming media and while people are listening to a hodge-podge mix of Avant Cello they hear your work and say "Hey! I like this artists. These songs are great! I want to buy that CD / iTunes song" or whatever it is that you sell.
Sorry but while listening to someone complain that the money they make from streaming media isn't enough to survive on, I find this to be as empty and one sided of a view as the RIAA saying that pirates are ruining the entertainment industry because record sales are down. I believe you that you don't make enough there to survive and I believe record sales are down but it's only a small part of a bigger story or as far as the artist is concerned it's only a small part of a bigger story for most of them and if you want to make money then you should follow suit and sell elsewhere, as I mentioned sales, concerts, merchandise, etc.
This sounds like a guy complaining not enough people buy Pepsi to support his store that only sells Pepsi or not enough people need new alternators for a mechanic that only repairs or replaces alternators or not enough people eat ribs for a restaurant that only sells ribs. Expand!
Oh and one more thing. If you have done everything you can to expand into the other areas of profit in the music industry and you still don't make enough to survive, I hardly see that as being the result of dramatic changes in the evolution of the music entertainment industry but instead I realize that not every musician will be successful. Not everyone makes music that has a large enough fan base to survive. Another story old as the ages but some musicians put out great music that everyone wants and go on to success and some musicians don't and never become successful artists. Some musicians start off not making the right music and their success comes later with different styles that become more widely appreciated. Some musicians start off making great music but sell out or stop trying afterwards and start making poor music which leads to them falling out of popularity. Some musicians just never make it as successful artists and spend their days writing jingles for advertising or whatever. In the end their is so much more to the story then the sliver being complained about. I know of many successful independent and studio ar
She's getting paid. Will get paid next year, the year after that, the year after that... and so on for the rest of her life unless something changes. For doing nada, nothing, zilch! What about the stuff I did in the 1980s? There is some of my code still running. I don't and won't ever see a dime from it beyond the slave labor wage I was paid. Some of my colleagues wrote code that is in space craft. That will run for as long as it's running. Over 30 years so far. Suck it up, music can pay a lot of money if you're a rock star. Not so much if you aren't. Just another liberal arts field.
She can also make more stuff. Not everybody can be a rock star.
I have been listening to the same 20 songs for 5 years.
Congratulations, you appear to be perfectly qualified to work as program director for any contemporary commercial music-playing radio station. Now if you can just get that down to 15 or even 10 songs, your future with Clear Channel seems assured.
Name me a Clear Channel station that plays Pink Floyd quality music on a consistent basis. And not just the 2 or 3 songs they play on my local CC classic rock station.
All they are interested in is the same pump and dump crap pop stations.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Its time to cut the bloated greedy middle men. I think 90% of the play fee should go to the artist.
50c for a play 45c for the artist. 45 x 1.5 million $675000
FSCK the greedy Music industry fat cats.
Cliff Burnstein, whose company, Q Prime, manages Metallica and other major acts, said that even if streaming hurts sales, all is not lost as long as the number of paying subscribers continues to climb rapidly.
“There is a point at which there could be 100 percent cannibalization, and we would make more money through subscriptions services,” Mr. Burnstein said. “We calculate that point at approximately 20 million worldwide subscribers.”
Metallica recently announced an exclusive deal with Spotify.
So here's a band, and a manager who seem to want everything to become 100% streaming, but are making sure that I have to subscribe to more than one service, if I want to hear their music, as well as the music of other bands with exclusives on other streaming services. Dicks.
I expect you've all swarmed off by now, but in case you haven't I will hopefully either clear up some of your misconceptions.
I am not complaining about my royalties. I put my data out there to show how things work for a moderately successful unlabeled non-mainstream artist. That I am not big was exactly the point. There is little out there in the way of facts as to how regular artists actually make their livings (but lots of opinions on how they should). And as far as streaming goes, most artists are not getting royalties directly, but through a label. Those artists might not be not allowed to talk about royalty splits in their contracts, and in some cases might not even know what they are. I am my own label, and so for better or worse I can talk about these things.
In doing so, I've attracted a lot of attention from the press and that is how I ended up being interviewed by the NYTimes. The author took a snippet of our conversation and used it to his own ends. I am sure most of you have taken a critical reading class and so you must know that you shouldn't believe at face value everything you read. Most authors have a story they want to tell and they use their subjects to prove that story. If I had been more wise and had a PR handler, I would have demanded a transcript to publish at the same time as the article. Believe me, I'll do that from now on.
I was not talking about me in that quote. He asked me: Do you think income from streaming will ever replace income from sales? I remember that I said....as the number of listeners grows it will be lucrative for a mega-artist who has millions and millions of listens. I said in Spotify's case it will be even more lucrative for that mega-artist's label because they have an equity stake in the company. I said that I don't think streaming will ever be a money maker for non-mainstream genres like classical or jazz....because there just aren't enough listeners of fringe genres to reach critical mass. So, given that it takes 200 listens on Spotify to make the same money as the sale of 1 song on iTunes, I said we could be condemning these genres to poverty IF streaming is the only way people will listen to music.
Now here's the other part of that interview that was left out....as awesome as it is, I don't think streaming is the only way people will listen to music. No matter how much of a killer app Spotify is and how Daniel Ek would like it to be how "every single person on the face of this planet" listens to music, I don't think that will happen. But SINCE YOU ASKED dear interviewer, if streaming was the only way we listen to music, then yeah, the fringe could be in trouble. So what fringe artists have to keep doing do is this: make sure fans know they should express their enthusiasm for an artist's music through either direct music sales and/or attending concerts, because streaming isn't enough to live on.
That's roughly what I said. Now, do feel free to tear THAT apart, because I'm very interested in the discussion and love a good debate.
Anyhoo, there are two things miain I'd like to change about the current system....and neither of them is about getting more royalties.
1) When someone buys my music on Bandcamp, I get an email address (and an address if they purchased a physical copy). On iTunes, I get a zip code, from streaming services, I get nothing. I'd like to see music services help artists solve the problem of figuring out where their listeners are...so artists know where to tour. Controversial: who does listener data belong to? The listener, the music service, the copyright holder, some, all or none of the above?Discuss
2) I'd like to make the basic royalty calculation the same for all parties. It's not clear that is is. Also 18% of Spotify's profits that goes to labels (4% to each of the big 4 and 2% to Merlin). On a balance sheet Spotify doesn't have profits today because they're investing in growth (although I'm sure no one works for free). If you can't reverse the label equity problem, and you re
According to the WSJ, Pandora had 1.06 billion listening hours in April 2012. To get the average number of listeners, divide it by the hours in a month and we get 1.4 million concurrent average listeners. Assuming a song is 4 minutes long, so 15 songs per hour, there's 21.5 million songs played per hour. 21.5/1.5 * 1652.74 = $23,700 per hour paid by Pandora in royalties. I don't know how streaming costs are negotiated, but at this rate and assuming only 10% of the cost is royalties, it'd cost pandora over $5m a day to operate? Does that seem reasonable? To me...no.
OMG I'm not making a million dollars playing the Harpsichord! Life is so unfair!
Seriously. You play the Cello. What makes you think you have some sort of entitlement to lots of money?
You are an artist. Most artists are POOR. Only very few are able to be very successful. Be it fire arts, mucic, etc... How much do you think the average potter, painter, or any other antiquated artistic expression makes. If you think they get it in for the money then your got another thing coming, you picked the wrong profession. You should have trained to be a banker or something. Is it hard to make a living as an artist? Yes it is. It is not like this is a new thing. The amount of entitlement that copyright has enabled is absurd.
LOL. I guess I didn't miss much by not RTFA.
Likely the author was trying to make it more contraversal than it really had to be to generate some readership. I know a number of artists, many of them non-musical. It does seem like musicians have more "outs" (gigs, lessons, royalties, sales, etc...) than most to make an actual living at the craft, which is why I guess my response was a bit full of vitrol. Though I have heard of many comprimises some artists have had to make, just to keep doing what they love to do. Like a painter might toll for years before getting reconginsion, finally get discovered, however then galleries only want that popular style not interested in anything else, which they pump out to make a living so they can continue to create art they may find more geniune.
People don't just consume music this way. Has this person never heard the term, "Performer"? Perform. You'll get paid then. Not able to convince someone to give you a performance? Then you're not good enough to warrant that and you should be lucky to get the extra income you generate while looking for a real job.