The end of file sharing

[HKSblade1]

Yes, but if a person wants a Canvas painting they buy it. If they want a portrait they can't do, they find the professional. Still the heated debate over 35mm film and digital photography.. and e book and a hard copy. Digital ink jet photos fade over time. The tech is not perfect, and there will always be an appreciation for the one that works on a professional level. Again, that is why the label produced stuff out sells anything else on myspace or what someone can make at home. We are stuck with it. We asked for it and creating our own monkey on our backs (so to speak). DIY to the extreme.

Buddy of mine decided to DIY his drywalling and painting to save about 20 grand on a property. He spent a load of cash and f'd it all up. Taping and sanding sucked and he went overboard. DIY center said it was easy so did the cable channel. Look here it is, and voila done in the next frame! yeah right. So he had to hire guys to come out and fix what he screwed up. That cost him near 3x what the orig estimate was since now they have to fix what he messed up. He had no appreciation for the craft and tried to save by buying all the materials and tools. In the end, it still had to be done by professionals.

Music should be treated the same. Its deemed easy and has no real value, so why the heck would anyone BUY it.

[Sonno]

Attempting to charge people for a copy of easily-copied digital information is unlikely to work as a business model And there it is. IMHO... I believe we may eventually get to a point where artists give away their recordings for free in order to make money from TOURING. Gee, imagine that.. live performing becomes the primary income source for music artists... again.

 

 

Precisely. That's where it's ultimately heading. The RIAA is on it's deathbed and they know it. And the sooner it gets there the better I think. Sucks for folks who don't want to tour or only do session work, but I'm sure those problems are easily solved as well.

[Instrospection]

Except that the venues will be limited and just as it is now very few bands will even break even touring. In fact a lot of them at the lower level still rely on CD sales to defray expenses. I hear this "money will come from live performance" a lot, usually from people who have never toured, as if somehow bands will magically start being able to draw crowds and earn money in cities and in clubs where they can't now. When I traveled, selling 10 dollar CDs often made the difference between eating and having gas money to get home or not. Give away their recordings? too many bands doing it NOW. This is the genius "marketing plan" of people who have no idea how business works, as if giving away free CDs is the same as Costco giving away free samples of brownies or cream of celery soup. And people giving away CDs STILL can't get people to listen to them, STILL can't get people out to shows in numbers. And if you're touring, who are you going to give your free CDs out to in order to get crowds? The people in the next three towns you're playing? Not likely. And what do you think will happen to the value of music when EVERYONE is giving away CDs?

 

 

+1 million, you hit it right on the head. The clubs here for most bands are a morgue, and even alot of bands are at the impasse of not even bothering to play on offnights like a Monday or whatever.

 

To me, the answer is in having wave files that can be analysed and then tracked to get you streaming or file sharing royalties. This is difficult to do, as someone said, the hackers always stay one step ahead. And the songs travel in information packets that can't be easily identified, rather, it is just an information transfer. Nielsen BDS developed technology in the last couple of years where you get dead accurate ratings of how much you're getting played on radio, as opposed to a random testing of songs during a specific period (ie: "sweeps week", in which stations increase their numbers to boost advertising cache).

 

BUT.....the future of the survival of music revolves around getting paid from streaming and file sharing, in that you get royalties, just like you do on radio. It's not even necessarily an illegal thing....people want music and they want to hear it and lord knows i've heard some songs a bazillion times on the radio and that's alot of free. However, radio pays for that content to register and play it, and the internet needs to find this same way to do it. If not right now, then developing the technology in the future.

 

Another analogy is that people, when they file share, they don't necessarily know how much damage that it is doing. One person, themselves, even if they have thousands of files, most of that they wouldn't have bought, and there would only be a certain amount that they'd be out anyways. And when you have people doing this individually, they assume that the next person is buying enough to float the industry to the point where it can make a profit. But when you have enough people assuming that everyone else is buying, it does become a concern.

 

But even distro is going under--Fusion 3, Pinnacle, Neuton, Cisco (all major distro for indie labels) have all filed for bankrupcy. This means that indie labels may go under....because they're typically the last to get paid behind all the other bigger creditors and bigger fish, and indies have never had big budgets to begin with, so it may just spell the end of alot of them--full of music fans and dedicated people that are doing what they do for obscure and fringe artists.

 

Right now, we need to find a way to provide incentive for content creators to make better records, better art, more risks, more challenges for audiences.....and right now, the industry is holding onto what's sold and what sells, because it's the only thing that remotely covers the bills.

[pjrake]

But the technology genie is out of the bottle. Technology is to blame. Just like with portraits. Used to be you had to hire a painter to paint your portrait. Then photography came along, and the painters were pissed at the pro photographers. Then amateur photography got better, and the pro photographers were pissed at the amateurs. Now anyone can take their own pictures and print them in any size up to 8.5 by 11 that they want. And for bigger pictures they can take a memory stick to Sam's Club and have them printed fairly cheaply. It's only a matter of time before computers are writing the hit songs. Maybe they already ARE. Hmm.

 

 

then Skynet takes over.

 

-PJ

[Goldtopper]

Some of you guys are complaining about how so much music is formulaic and easy to do...

If all recorded music is free (for personal use) it won't matter if your songs were written by your computer or by your own sweat... you won't make money with it either way.

The ones who will make money are the ones who can put on a GREAT live show!

The meritocracy will shift from those good in the studio to those good on the stage.

[BlueStrat]

 

Some of you guys are complaining about how so much music is formulaic and easy to do... If all recorded music is free (for personal use) it won't matter if your songs were written by your computer or by your own sweat... you won't make money with it either way. The ones who will make money are the ones who can put on a GREAT live show! The meritocracy will shift from those good in the studio to those good on the stage.

 

 

 

You keep beating the "bands will make their money in live performance" drum but you have yet to address the reality that's been repeatedly pointed out to you : All but the upper echelon of bands are making little money if any at all, and a lot of them are paying to play. Are you basing your belief on hard numbers, or wishful thinking? There are some absolutely great bands out there now playing for break-even on expenses if they're lucky.

 

Let me ask you again: If bands are having to give their recordings away and also have to play for little to nothing, as is currently the norm, how do they build anything and survive to the make it to the upper level that actually pays them?

[slight-return]

One thing to consider with live performance v recorded music

 

 

In previous times, the performing musician (the "house band", the "touring band", even the parlor pianist) actually was the means of reproduction..."living jukeboxes" (as Greg Osby described the swing bands recently in the "Sound Revolution" docu series)

 

what we may have here is a separation of functions - playback and performance not being inherently tied together anymore

(such as the concept of the "mechanical rights" for player piano rolls)

 

So the performance-centric musician of the near future won't necessarily be returning to yesteryear's model (not that the older model was always that great, I mean Chopin got stranded a lot...cause he was broke all the time)

 

There is the question "would the money currently spent on recorded music be spent on live performance if recorded music was free-of-charge (or would top-shelf liquor or video games see a bump)"

 

It does also raise question (and I believe some concern was already raised about this) about some music that doesn't tour especially well - large orchestra/full cast productions, fixed environment pieces, "constructed" music, etc

[richardmac]

Right now, we need to find a way to provide incentive for content creators to make better records, better art, more risks, more challenges for audiences.....and right now, the industry is holding onto what's sold and what sells, because it's the only thing that remotely covers the bills.

 

 

Agree totally. For the majors, it's only going to get worse. In TV land, the big networks who used to have a monopoly on our viewing habits, well... they're in the same boat. They can't let a show with low ratings stick around for a few years. They need stuff that sells ads, right now. The variety of other channels out there draw us away to Food Network, History Channel, CNN, and so on and so forth. So whatever shows work, well, we're in for more of the same, with a few rare exceptions.

 

The big question is not "are there people out there who still want to write music that is NOT the same slop we're already getting?" The answer to that question is yes. The big question is really "Is there a way to reward artists who create, as you say, better art." Some will do it for the "love of art" and we'll probably never hear them. Some will decide to do other things that actually make money so they can feed their kids.

 

And in the meantime, everyone who can record a CD will, and the real big question is, how will we ever hear the "good stuff?" And no one has the answer. The first company to answer that wins several billion dollars.

[richardmac]

You keep beating the "bands will make their money in live performance" drum but you have yet to address the reality that's been repeatedly pointed out to you : All but the upper echelon of bands are making little money if any at all, and a lot of them are paying to play. Are you basing your belief on hard numbers, or wishful thinking? There are some absolutely great bands out there now playing for break-even on expenses if they're lucky.

I do know some musicians who play in bands and make money. But they play cover songs and they play at clubs, weddings, etc. They don't "tour." I also know a bass player who did tour a while last year, and he made some money... but he played in an Eagles tribute band.

So essentially, BlueStrat, yeah, I agree with you.

[Instrospection]

Agree totally. For the majors, it's only going to get worse. In TV land, the big networks who used to have a monopoly on our viewing habits, well... they're in the same boat. They can't let a show with low ratings stick around for a few years. They need stuff that sells ads, right now. The variety of other channels out there draw us away to Food Network, History Channel, CNN, and so on and so forth. So whatever shows work, well, we're in for more of the same, with a few rare exceptions. The big question is not "are there people out there who still want to write music that is NOT the same slop we're already getting?" The answer to that question is yes. The big question is really "Is there a way to reward artists who create, as you say, better art." Some will do it for the "love of art" and we'll probably never hear them. Some will decide to do other things that actually make money so they can feed their kids. And in the meantime, everyone who can record a CD will, and the real big question is, how will we ever hear the "good stuff?" And no one has the answer. The first company to answer that wins several billion dollars.

 

 

I was thinking about the country station--everything's so Auto Tuned, formulaic.....it would be near impossible to offer anything that deviates from what doesn't sound exactly like what's already succeeded. The recording and production habits are undoubtedly professional and great sounding.....but they have no variance! It's like they put the same presets on every mix. How frustrating it would be. That's why a great album like Fleet Foxes' new one--kind of rootsy, Americana, vaguely country without trying to sound like anything in particular--would never show up on that format. Fleet Foxes really only appeal to the indie cult artist type of fanbase. Tons of great bands doing different things have got cut out of alot of radio stations' formats, because they don't fit in neatly. It's odd that as radio has got more specialized, that more bands have slipped through the cracks these days.

 

You have less crossover appeal now....largely gone are the days of having a rock hit crossover to the pop charts. You won't get another Tom Petty type of writer, simply because artists are advised to narrow down their genre so damned much that it doesn't leave much room for any diversity, and no wonder the album oriented material format (ie: how Led Zeppelin would construct entire albums around themes or trying to push the whole album). A guy like Tom would appeal to rock crowds, pop crowds, folk/ singer songwriter crowds. You don't get that much anymore, because the bands themselves aren't taking those risks, because they're not rewarded for those risks.

[BlueStrat]

 

You have less crossover appeal now....largely gone are the days of having a rock hit crossover to the pop charts. You won't get another Tom Petty type of writer, simply because artists are advised to narrow down their genre so damned much that it doesn't leave much room for any diversity, and no wonder the album oriented material format (ie: how Led Zeppelin would construct entire albums around themes or trying to push the whole album). A guy like Tom would appeal to rock crowds, pop crowds, folk/ singer songwriter crowds. You don't get that much anymore, because the bands themselves aren't taking those risks, because they're not rewarded for those risks.

 

 

I agree completely though I think a lot of this narrowing down has been brought about by musicians and their marketers themselves. Just browse through itunes for a minute and see how many sub-sub-sub genres there are with pretentious sounding names that are designed to set bands apart from one another, but have the unintended consequence of separating them from the public. Things like "progressive grindcore" and "downtempo brutal mathcore" only guarantee fewer listeners, not more.

[Instrospection]

 

I agree completely though I think a lot of this narrowing down has been brought about by musicians and their marketers themselves. Just browse through itunes for a minute and see how many sub-sub-sub genres there are with pretentious sounding names that are designed to set bands apart from one another, but have the unintended consequence of separating them from the public. Things like "progressive grindcore" and "downtempo brutal mathcore" only guarantee fewer listeners, not more.

 

 

Yep. And that's why you don't see a "Stairway To Heaven", "Dream On", "Freebird"....truly emotional, deep, heartfelt songs ("Stairway" and "Freebird" weren't even released as singles back then....fans had to listen to those albums in their entirety to find those gems). Nowadays, when any band attempts that, they release it as single 3 or 4 and say "hey, here's our epic that's meant to make us millions", but back then, I think it speaks the most for the quality of content in that those cult songs were made popular on radio---without being officially released as a single--because they moved people that much in where "Stairway" earns ridiculous amounts of royalties now. There's not that digging to find those gems anymore.

 

I think that music has become about a sub-religious experience now, much like how everyone could believe in one god, believes that their god is better than the next one. I guess that there's only so many updates of "Beatles vs. Stones" type of stuff that you realize that music wasn't intended to unite as many people as it originally aimed to. Now you've got alot of people basing their tastes on intolerance, ignorance and indifference (the three "i's", as I call it), in which they're so into a scene or band or genre or whatever, in that there's no room for anyone else. I have hundreds of cds and records, and they diverge wildly in genres and why I like them and why they could save my soul at any given minute. And the more that scenes pit themselves against each other, the more difficult it will be for anyone in particular to catch on with any sort of wider audiences.....even at the club level.

[soundwave106]

Yep. And that's why you don't see a "Stairway To Heaven", "Dream On", "Freebird"....truly emotional, deep, heartfelt songs ("Stairway" and "Freebird" weren't even released as singles back then.... fans had to listen to those albums in their entirety to find those gems).

 

 

AOR radio often helped back then. Radio however got *killed* by consolidation. When was the last time a DJ didn't use a corporate-picked playlist?

 

The smothering of radio playlists was well underway before MP3 file trading got started; it's part of the reason why MP3 trading became the norm, and why no one under 30 listens to the radio anymore.

 

I have heard some *great* rock and pop tunes in the last 10 years. Much of them broadly fall under the "indie pop" or "indie rock" category. The same thing frankly was going on during the 1980s, which is why alternative rock eventually ended up shoving aside the rest of radio for a while.

 

As far as being popularized like a "Stairway to Heaven" or "Freebird" though... who knows? It's a totally different environment these days. Bands are no longer mega-stars. Indie rock bands usually operate on a hobby or semi-pro level.

 

(It is interesting to look at Billboard charts from that glorious 1960s and 1970s, and realize how many songs are on there that *no one gives a {censored} about anymore*. Chart popularity isn't everything.)

[BlueStrat]

 

When was the last time a DJ didn't use a corporate-picked playlist?

 

 

Most radio stations don't even use djs to play music anymore. A few years ago I did some radio interviews in various places, and in every station I happened to be in, the songs were put on a hard drive by the programming director according to the time they took up between commercial breaks, which were also put on the hard drive by the PD. Programs were in 4 hour blocks. Al the DJ did was some banter between songs and introduce weather and traffic reports etc.

[slight-return]

Actually some "spectacles" sell well... I think most of the continuous appeal of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra is their pyro-filled concerts.

 

I hear ya - some , spectacles (high production cost), sell well (the gross)

[richardmac]

Blue Man Group would be another.

[tjsutton]

The labels suck balls anyway. They have always baited musicians into working their asses off to be a "rockstar" only to have the reality kick in that the label doesn't care. They don't care about the music, they don't care about the musician, and they sure as hell don't care about their customers. Screw the label.

It's a fact, that even with a big record deal, when the label takes their cut of album sales the artist gets ziltch. It's always been a fact that artists make their money off the touring. Unless your Metallica or someone with that kind of big name that can negotiate points on CD sales, your basically like everyone else the "industry" has screwed.

[slight-return]

oh, don't get me wrong - there are certainly some touring companies that can put on a large show (there are even static companies that put on a large show, though this morning NPR was talking about Broadway hurting), but it does raise some questions

1) Is it a viable model that scales and can be used as a "typical" model?

2) Does it work across genre? (say the ,non-spectacle such as a chamber orchestra)

3) Is there associated revenue from recorded (video/album) sales?

4) Is the tour an adjunct to a residency? (in, say vegas/broadway)

 

 

The Blue Man group is an interesting example in that their act has substantial musical elements, but not solely so it may be more similar to musical theatre (as is cirque de soleil)

 

Interestingly, in all three of the examples, we have a type of spectacle

 

We've got some other types of hyrbids too like the "life at night" recording project, specifically binaural presentations like "The Maltese Goddess" , which may be less spectacular

 

 

interestingly, dramatic and non-dramatic musical works already have some legal distinction.

[tjsutton]

What's more...

After they screw you, you find out that they now own the rights to your music. If the label chooses not to produce your album in quantity, but they own the rights to the music, you can't shop it elsewhere. Plus you now owe the label recording costs, etc. that were supposed to be recouped by CD sales on the album that never got released...

I can't believe anyone in this forum is taking up for the poor, poor record labels... Screw them... I'm kind of glad to see them struggling...

If they go down, and no-one is promoting music on a national level then radio stations will be forced to play local music. Hell, they might even bring back real DJ's instead of having pre-recorded crap piped in via clear channel... People hear local bands on the radio, and go to shows. Maybe a few get inspied to pick up a guitar. WHammo... New musicians=new music and the masses will decide who lives and dies...

The further your bands recognition goes, the more stations in your area are playing your music, the more opportunity for gigs and expansion of the fan base.

People need to let go of this notion of the Record Label Gods, and start tearing it up grassroots style. That's where the future of music is headed. First the labels go down, then radio has to re-invent the wheel.

Who's comin' with me?

[elsongs]

IMO the thing that will reduce if not end filesharing will be wireless internet. Once wireless internet is so common and fast that you can accses it from anywhere on the planet with ease people will simply choose to store thier media on a centeral server. The main advantage of that being you can accses your music anywhere with any wireless device. It also means that you could be forced to verify your music to a server every time you play it, thus reducing the ease of file sharing. I'm thinking perhaps it work something like the super version of steam . Maybe I'm to optimistic about the future.

Wireless networks are more popular and mobile is the way to go. Since I got my Blackberry Bold in November, I rarely turn on my computer to go online.
Most smartphones also masquerade as media players anyway, so why bother with the middle man - you can have files d/l'ed directly into your digital media player.

[Mosby]

Precisely. That's where it's ultimately heading. The RIAA is on it's deathbed and they know it. And the sooner it gets there the better I think. Sucks for folks who don't want to tour or only do session work, but I'm sure those problems are easily solved as well.

 

 

Right....Because live music is such a land of opportunity these days. When I left denver, I knew clubs that could put together a solid bill, with 5 bands, and pay out to the bands $300. For all five bands (I doubt every band got paid). Oh, yeah. That's on a Friday night.

Look we all care about the music otherwise we wouldn't even be having this conversation, but I find the notion that you should do it for free because "you love the music" is utter bull{censored}.

 

 

 

There is no one party to blame.

 

labels are to blame for greed, manipulating the market, and deciding that it was easier to manufacture a hit, than to find one.

 

downloaders deserve blame because well, in fact, that they are getting for free what they would otherwise pay for.

 

Ticketmaster deserves the blame for bending everyone over on ticket sales, and thinking that they can get another $5 on that ticket every year

 

club owners deserve blame for not rewarding good bands (good for them, being bands that draw) with decent gigs. Not to mention overcharging for drinks. I mean $3.50 for a PBR, really? On top of my $8 cover to see a local bill.

 

The public deserves the blame for going along with whatever trend was happening.

 

Someone deserves the blame for letting anyone who plays guitar, sings, drums, feel as if they're entitled at a chance to be a "real musician." But hey they love music and they're willing to play for free.

 

Recording equipment manufacturers deserve the blame for telling everyone that they don't need to pay a studio, they can record a platinum album like Chris Lord Alge after spending $600 at guitar center and reading an article on the internet.

 

and we the artist, writers, and musicians, deserve the blame for not doing more, and for allowing something we love to become devalued to the point where it's only worth .99, and to listen to everyone say that that price is too high.

[Mosby]

 

What's more... WHammo... New musicians=new music and the masses will decide who lives and dies...

 

 

I just wanted to say that I totally agree with the sentiment, but I think reality is far different. I mean, do we really think everyone deserves a shot on the radio? I mean, weed through local bands myspace pages. I secretly cringe every time I meet someone in a "band" that tells me to check out their myspace. sometimes I'm surprised, but most of the time I find what I was expecting - which is.... well, politely, disappointing.

[Nijyo]

 

Most radio stations don't even use djs to play music anymore. A few years ago I did some radio interviews in various places, and in every station I happened to be in, the songs were put on a hard drive by the programming director according to the time they took up between commercial breaks, which were also put on the hard drive by the PD. Programs were in 4 hour blocks. Al the DJ did was some banter between songs and introduce weather and traffic reports etc.

 

 

This is somewhat different now on satellite radio (though on the more pop-oriented channels I have no doubt there is a prescribed playlist).

 

I.e. On "Hair Nation", I doubt that "Pretty Maids - Future World" is being pushed by any payola anymore. Nor someone pushing Carnivore songs (Peter Steele's pre-Type O Negative band) on Liquid Metal, or the truly obscure on whatever became of "Left of Center".

 

But I'm sure on Sirius/XM 1 (pop stuff, iirc) there's very much a set playlist generated by dreadfully boring methods.

[Nijyo]

club owners deserve blame for not rewarding good bands (good for them, being bands that draw) with decent gigs. Not to mention overcharging for drinks. I mean $3.50 for a PBR, really? On top of my $8 cover to see a local bill.

 

Off-topic, saw this on the up-scroll. I wanna know who the marketing genius was that turned PBR into a trendy drink over the last few years. Apparently that is one of *the* beers to consume these days, which is just bizarre to me. I've always put the ol' PBR in the same mental cooler rack as Busch and Hamms

[Instrospection]

The labels suck balls anyway. They have always baited musicians into working their asses off to be a "rockstar" only to have the reality kick in that the label doesn't care. They don't care about the music, they don't care about the musician, and they sure as hell don't care about their customers. Screw the label. It's a fact, that even with a big record deal, when the label takes their cut of album sales the artist gets ziltch. It's always been a fact that artists make their money off the touring. Unless your Metallica or someone with that kind of big name that can negotiate points on CD sales, your basically like everyone else the "industry" has screwed.

 

 

For sure the record companies screwed artists. But what alot of people don't realize is that bands have done the same thing. Take this story, for example--a friend that I talked to was recording a band and the band went out for a drug run and then told the engineer to put that on the recording tab as "additional recording expenses". Copyright (Circle C) got signed to Geffen in 1990 or 1991 and took the signing bonus and did a ton of drugs and partied and basically sabotaged themselves and played terribly during industry showcases, at which point, Geffen just washed their hands of it (some of the band members have since came out and said that they regret doing it, that they blew a real legitimate opportunity).

 

For every artist that the label has screwed over, there's been a fair amount of artists that took the bonuses and then weren't willing to play the industry game. If they weren't willing to do it, perhaps they shouldn't have taken the money. Though in fairness, labels have advised image changes, altering of a band's sound, etc....so in those cases, if the band felt strong enough about it, then perhaps it was a good thing.

 

Taking that money and then pissing it away on women and drugs and partying and who knows what else doesn't qualify under that exception. Plus, bands fight and argue and can't keep it together and break up.....what most people don't realize is that for every Pink Floyd that sells well enough before the point that even the GNP of the world couldn't get Roger and Dave to stand on a stage together-- there's other acts that cite "irreconcilable differences" and break up when they're owing the record label a ton of money. When those bands break up, the record label can't really force them to stay together....because there's friction and the band isn't working well together, anyways. Sacking almost an entire band due to disharmony and leaving one or two original members hasn't always worked, either.....tons of bands did that and then put out an album or two and then broke up.