Members Ryst Posted June 19, 2012 Members Share Posted June 19, 2012 Part of me things this letter is too little too late. I remember when Metallica was fighting Napster. And everyone called them greedy. So much so that their bigger point was missed. They didn't like the idea of unfinished work that they hadn't approved getting out into the internet for free downloading. And at that time, anyone else who stood up seemed to be called greedy as well. Now, over 10 years later, we're seeing the effects of not doing something when we had the chance. Maybe it took 10 years to realize the effect? I don't know. I personally don't think it's gonna change. Not now. It seems like a losing battle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members LRon Butterfly Posted June 19, 2012 Members Share Posted June 19, 2012 The title of the blog is misleading. Emily's blog is more about the lack of physical CDs in her collection and that she prefers the digital distribution model. I wish I could say I miss album packaging and liner notes and rue the decline in album sales the digital world has caused. But the truth is, I've never supported physical music as a consumer. As monumental a role as musicians and albums have played in my life, I've never invested money in them aside from concert tickets and t-shirts. She does refer to having downloaded some free (illegal) files when she was much younger. But I didn't illegally download (most) of my songs. A few are, admittedly, from a stint in the 5th grade with the file-sharing program Kazaa. ...and here's is where she does admit questionable behavior. I've swapped hundreds of mix CDs with friends. My senior prom date took my iPod home once and returned it to me with 15 gigs of Big Star, The Velvet Underground and Yo La Tengo (I owe him one). It is more like she owes the artists and labels one here. She could amass a large library of CDs if she wanted for free as NPR gets multitudes of free promo discs each and every day. Those CDs are not part of the revenue stream for artists, in fact the artist pays for these promos (never think that the label does). I have a feeling the blog title should have been - I Never Owned Any CDs To Begin With. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ernest Buckley Posted June 19, 2012 Members Share Posted June 19, 2012 I started a thread several weeks ago about addressing this very issue in my own family. To me, the problem comes down to ones ethics and that is going to be very difficult to change because that cannot be done unless one is willing to look at the situation and understand it. Technology makes it easier to "share" but we are lying to ourselves. This is about ones own ethics, about doing what is right even if you have to pay for it. People have a really hard time with this. I don`t see anything changing from an article even if people are made aware of how much it hurts us in the business. The simple truth is, unless an individual is actually feeling the pain/stress, they have little empathy for another. Most of the buying public thinks music should be free. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members A. Einstein Posted June 19, 2012 Members Share Posted June 19, 2012 As long there are no law legislated which make it illegal getting stuff from the net, as long that Emily didn't do anything wrong. And the other guy is simply a bigot, a moral apostle who has no clue how the music industry works, as well no clue how real life is when you are young, concluding: An academic without experience in the real world. The music industry is doing great, never before has been so much music sold, and every year more income from more sources, more concerts, tours, festivals, and night clubs, more people who consume music in more places... The only reason I see why you can^t see this is, you possibly all live in some ghetto in Johannesburg. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members A. Einstein Posted June 19, 2012 Members Share Posted June 19, 2012 I doubt that it is morally incorrect to get something for free when it is freely available. I would even say it is Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted June 19, 2012 Members Share Posted June 19, 2012 It's much bigger than music. It's ALL intellectual property, anything not physical that people can get their hands on for free. Music, books, programs, movies, photographs, patents, news, information, all of it. Technology made this possible, maybe someday technology will make it impossible again. Or, maybe like Rudy's Star Trek-esque example, maybe they'll just create potatoes from information using free energy and everything will be just intellectual property.In the meantime, while we wait out the tech wars to settle this, what can we do?Well, let's think. Who has all the money and can afford to pay musicians if they want to? Corporations, huge global corporations. What do corporations want? Consumption, higher market share, even bigger profits, fewer laws and restrictions to their operations. They'd also like the world to settle down so they can operate more efficiently, and they'd like people to become even more sheeplike and ignorant to facilitate all the above.How can music help with the corporate agenda?Lots of ways, and already in progress. Advertising is the most obvious one. I can't remember the last concert tour I worked, even small ones, that didn't have corporate sponsorship. Get a few of those or just one big one and it hardly matters what the people are paying at the door. Beer, smokes, clothes, you name it, pays for the tour. Not to mention how much music is used in direct advertising.Then there's network television, it's free. You just have to watch or ignore some nuisance ads in between part of your show. If you don't like that, you can pay a subscription channel like HBO and watch their nuisance ads which come less often and in between shows..Top videos on CNN and YouTube work the same way. The best musicians / video makers even get paid on YouTube.Another slightly more subtle thing corporations buy music for is keeping the sheeple thinking as they want us to. Heard any patriotic songs lately? Seen any patriotic movies, maybe some that the military helped make and pay for? Yes, you have. Constantly. Battleship, for example.Now just think about the deals we don't know about.So music and other art is not going to die, it's just going to be designed for a different purpose and controlled once again by business. This time it won't be Motown and Stax and Capitol, it'll be Exxon and WalMart and Philip Morris. It'll be just as slick, teenagers will love it as determined by focus groups, it will be FREE. It's already happening. I saw a top artist perform in a movie trailer at the theater to the backdrop of an Army recruitment drive. It was available for download on the web, and of course it was FREE.One way or another, free is never free. The musicians, if they don't want to starve, won't be free to write the lyrics they wanted to.Terry D. All of this. Prior to the advent of the phonograph, who made money with music? A few classical composers with patrons and/or jobs working for the government? Writing mostly made-to-order compositions? They found their "art" within the confines of that system. Did any of these guys get rich? The musicians hired to perform the compositions? The singer/songwriter model didn't really exist. Did even guys like Stephen Foster make much money? Things changed greatly after the invention of the phonograph, but even then the only way to really make much money playing music was to work according to the demands of the "machine": writing songs that would hopefully become part of a Broadway hit or Hollywood musical, or something a major recording star might decide to sing. Guys like Cole Porter were certainly trying to write the best songs they could, but it was still all "corporate" and product-driven. He may have been better at it, in many ways, but the reality is he was basically the Diane Warren of his day. The singer/songwriter model started to take hold in the form of guys like Woody Guthrie or Jimmie Rodgers or the early blues/jazz musicians, but how many of them really made much money either? This whole idea of "I'm gonna learn to play guitar and write songs that mean something special to me about my life and maybe put together a band and then go out and sing those songs and become a big star and make millions or even just make a decent living from it" is a relatively new phenomenon and not one I'm sure the basic economic laws of supply-and-demand supports. Yes, it did for a short period of time when the limits of technology were such that the output could be very carefully controlled by a few people/corporations at the very top, but once that control is lifted and the market really does become much more 'free', we see that the easy available of 75,000+ albums a year makes generating enough interest in any one of them to make it a financially viable product a very difficult proposition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members A. Einstein Posted June 19, 2012 Members Share Posted June 19, 2012 Did any of these guys get rich? Yes. But they don't tell you how much they made, brecause you may work for the IRS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Lee Flier Posted June 19, 2012 Author Members Share Posted June 19, 2012 ... that I drink is a saga, I don't drink at all, Ah... so you're just crazy then? what I read is a respond of to an Emily who has 11.000 songs she did not pay for, and then follows and endless blah blah of David Lowery, lncluding assumtions with no precise information, for example: "Over the last 12 years I Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted June 19, 2012 Members Share Posted June 19, 2012 Everyone talks about how much {censored}ty music there is out there. But is that not presenting a scarcity to be settled into? Things are getting ripe for some good ol' fashioned innovation, in more ways than one. I definately agree with this. I think the future of music will be in creative and artistic applications of new technologies. Rock n Roll rose up in the 50s and 60s as a result of a few different factors: 1) pop music had become desperately stale after WWII. 2) new technologies such as electric guitars gave music new "DIY" possibilites and multi-track recording revolutionized the way songs could be written and recordings made 3) the cultural and demographic uniqueness of the 1960s/70s. We have at least the first two happening again: Pop/rock music is horribly stale, and the sky is the limit for creative artists to implement new technologies into their music. I envision things like future live concerts involving 10,000 people all participating interactively via their smartphones. Who knows what the future will bring. The only thing missing is that third factor of a large audience all culturally 'tuned in' to the same stuff at the same time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members A. Einstein Posted June 19, 2012 Members Share Posted June 19, 2012 All people have the right to their own opinion, even when those opinions have no relation to any reality. I may open a thread about cosmochemistry. I have zero clue what cosmochemistry is, never worked outerspace, but I am certain I can post many useful thoughts and precise analysis on this matters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted June 19, 2012 Members Share Posted June 19, 2012 Spotify does pay artists, but it's next to nothing. There are many other services that pay more. Somebody just posted this up on my Facebook page. It's a couple of years old I think, so maybe some of you have seen it before, but it's interesting nonetheless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Lee Flier Posted June 19, 2012 Author Members Share Posted June 19, 2012 Prior to the advent of the phonograph, who made money with music? A few classical composers with patrons and/or jobs working for the government? Writing mostly made-to-order compositions? They found their "art" within the confines of that system. Did any of these guys get rich? The musicians hired to perform the compositions? The singer/songwriter model didn't really exist. Did even guys like Stephen Foster make much money? Stephen Foster died penniless, even though hundreds of people were covering his songs. That led directly to the formation of ASCAP, so that songwriters would be able to earn money from other people performing their songs. I guess the founders of ASCAP were just "moral apostles" for thinking that something was wrong with the then-prevailing business model and doing something about it. Musicians who made money were mostly traveling bands or solo acts doing live shows. Even after the phonograph was invented it took quite awhile for anybody to start making money selling records. They were expensive to make and not many people had players. Things changed greatly after the invention of the phonograph, but even then the only way to really make much money playing music was to work according to the demands of the "machine": writing songs that would hopefully become part of a Broadway hit or Hollywood musical, or something a major recording star might decide to sing. Guys like Cole Porter were certainly trying to write the best songs they could, but it was still all "corporate" and product-driven. He may have been better at it, in many ways, but the reality is he was basically the Diane Warren of his day. The singer/songwriter model started to take hold in the form of guys like Woody Guthrie or Jimmie Rodgers or the early blues/jazz musicians, but how many of them really made much money either? Not very many got rich. But that's not what we're discussing really. Lots of people you may never have heard of make a decent middle class living from music. This whole idea of "I'm gonna learn to play guitar and write songs that mean something special to me about my life and maybe put together a band and then go out and sing those songs and become a big star and make millions or even just make a decent living from it" is a relatively new phenomenon and not one I'm sure the basic economic laws of supply-and-demand supports. It no longer supports the "superstar" model and that did, indeed, seem unlikely to be sustainable. But making a halfway decent living as a working musician, sure. People have been doing that for a long time and will figure out a way to do it again. Meanwhile, the "I'm entitled to free music" mentality is causing them to suffer. Fans are shooting themselves in the foot as well as artists they like. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members A. Einstein Posted June 19, 2012 Members Share Posted June 19, 2012 No record company publishes sales statement to the public. IFPI or its US representative RIAA, publishes sales and marketing analysis statement, but this statement refer all to record companies which are members of IFPI, but 99.9% of all record companies are not a member of IFPI. iTunes only accepts music from labels and record companies. An independent artist can no sell thru iTunes, except he would own his own record label, and a label needs an ISRC code, or no digital sales portal worldwide will accept music for sales No wonder young people are totally confused when they are educated by persons like that professor bloke, ... you see Lee, you have not much of a clue either how music business works, but it is okay, everybody has the right to his own opinion, my mother in law has also an opinion about this and that she has no clue about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted June 19, 2012 Members Share Posted June 19, 2012 Not very many got rich. But that's not what we're discussing really. Lots of people you may never have heard of make a decent middle class living from music. Actually, I think it IS what we are discussing: the financial realities of being a professional musician and the effect illegal (and legal) downloading has on that. I'm sure many people I never heard of made a decent middle class living from music. But mostly as performers or songwriters who worked for "the man". That still happens today. You can make a living playing covers if you want to jump through all the hoops and do it all in a manner that is most commercially viable. Or become a studio musician who can play whatever/whenever. Become a composer for scoring TV shows or commercials. Many Vegas shows still use live musicians Etc. Etc. Those sorts of jobs in music still exist much as they always have. Sure, technology changes the way it's done and limits some of the available work (horn players certainly don't work like they used to) but livings CAN be made. But how many people in those "old days" made middle class livings playing "my music the way I want to"? That's what we're talking about here: the commercial viability of people who want to sell their personal "art". My point here is that I don't think the market EVER really supported that model. It only did for a brief few decades when technology and the business model allowed it to be greatly controlled. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members A. Einstein Posted June 19, 2012 Members Share Posted June 19, 2012 Somebody just posted this up on my Facebook page. It's a couple of years old I think, so maybe some of you have seen it before, but it's interesting nonetheless. But the sales and revenue numbers are totally wrong, I mean wrong as much as 10000% away from reality Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members A. Einstein Posted June 19, 2012 Members Share Posted June 19, 2012 Authors societies where founded for the benefit of the composers and lyricists. Almost all authors societies worldwide are owned by the composers and authors, are a coop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted June 19, 2012 Members Share Posted June 19, 2012 But the sales and revenue numbers are totally wrong, I mean wrong as much as 10000% away from reality OK. I just said it was interesting, I wasn't vouching for its accuracy. If you have the correct numbers, then post them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members A. Einstein Posted June 19, 2012 Members Share Posted June 19, 2012 The universe doesn't care about us, the same is true with any market, including music market. Damn, I haven't see that many hobbyist assembling in one place who didn't sell more then 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members A. Einstein Posted June 19, 2012 Members Share Posted June 19, 2012 OKIf you have the correct numbers, then post them. Two examples: - self-pressed CD - sold 142 copies for $8 = artist revenue about $1123.00 - iTunes sold 1229 albums for $9.99, total $11.233 (100%) ---> then iTuness pays $7413 (66%) to the people who licenced the music to iTunes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted June 19, 2012 Members Share Posted June 19, 2012 But making a halfway decent living as a working musician, sure. People have been doing that for a long time and will figure out a way to do it again. Yep. But I think a lot of people have become a bit spoiled by what took place during the last couple of decades. What sort of living would a guy like David Lowery have been able to make as a musician prior to 1960? Would he have been able to do it as he has: playing songs he has written for his own tastes and in his own way with little regard for the marketplace? I would seriously doubt it. If he wanted to make a living as a musician, he'd had to of learn to become a very skilled player and go join Glenn Miller's band or something. VERY few musicians were able to make livings being so "personal" and "artistic". The only reason guys like Lowery were able to do so for a couple of decades is because the business model worked in a very tightly controlled fashion that created a false scarcity. There were only a handful of Lowerys able to get their product out there. But the reality is that there are thousands of David Lowerys able to write and record their own music and the truth is that, in the face of all that "equality" of exposure and availability, most of them aren't really very interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ernest Buckley Posted June 19, 2012 Members Share Posted June 19, 2012 All people have the right to their own opinion, even when those opinions have no relation to any reality. I may open a thread about cosmochemistry. I have zero clue what cosmochemistry is, never worked outerspace, but I am certain I can post many useful thoughts and precise analysis on this matters. Yes, please send me a link, I would also like to add my $.03 to that forum to further mislead and confuse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Lee Flier Posted June 19, 2012 Author Members Share Posted June 19, 2012 But I think a lot of people have become a bit spoiled by what took place during the last couple of decades. What sort of living would a guy like David Lowery have been able to make as a musician prior to 1960? Would he have been able to do it as he has: playing songs he has written for his own tastes and in his own way with little regard for the marketplace? I would seriously doubt it. Sure, he'd have been able to make a living. He wouldn't be rich, in all likelihood. But he didn't get very rich in the 80s/90s either - Cracker had a couple of hits from which he no doubt continues to earn residuals, but that would've been the case prior to 1960 as well. If he wanted to make a living as a musician, he'd had to of learn to become a very skilled player and go join Glenn Miller's band or something. Nah. ASCAP was formed in 1914, so someone who wrote songs and sold recordings of those songs (as Lowery did) would've been able to make a nice living. The other guys in Cracker wouldn't make as much, because they don't get the songwriting royalties, but they'd still make money from touring and whatever they could negotiate from recording sales. Yes, sales exploded in the 60s through 90s, so some people got rich to a degree that wasn't possible before or since, but Lowery wasn't really in that category. He was in the musical middle class and he could've been in that category at pretty much any time in the past century. Traveling musicians who wrote their own songs, and the other musicians who accompanied them, have been able to make a modest living for quite some time now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Lee Flier Posted June 19, 2012 Author Members Share Posted June 19, 2012 iTunes only accepts music from labels and record companies. An independent artist can no sell thru iTunes, except he would own his own record label, and a label needs an ISRC code, or no digital sales portal worldwide will accept music for sales You are completely out of touch. Anybody can get an ISRC code now and you don't have to own a label. Any independent musician can, indeed, sell through iTunes - I do it myself and it's hilarious that you're trying to deny something that a good percentage of people on this forum actually do. No wonder young people are totally confused when they are educated by persons like that professor bloke . Again... he's not a professor, he's been a successful working musician for 30 years and he simply was invited to teach a class for the past 2 years at UGA, because of his practical experience. You live in a bubble which is pretty much limited to your own experience and others you work with. Which is fine so far as it goes, and I wish you well in it, but you likewise don't have a clue what other working musicians' reality is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members JeffLearman Posted June 19, 2012 Members Share Posted June 19, 2012 So you own a liquor store. Your inventory is protected from theft not absolutely, but enough that it's pretty damn "inconvenient" to the average citizen to consider walking off with a bottle of scotch without paying. You've got heavy glass, alarms, locks, employees, a firearm under the counter, and even the police might help out (maybe.)But someone comes along and invents a gizmo like the Star Trek transporter that lets you sight right into any liquor store, aim a beam on any bottle, and it's transported to wherever they are. Once they have their beamed-in bottle, the gizmo can duplicate it, too. The gizmos sell like crazy, soon there are hundreds and hundreds of millions of these things. Almost one for every person in the city. How long will you stay in business? Will the tiny minority of well-meaning and ethical folks who actually pay you make a difference? It's a tsunami of the most predictable and regrettable aspects of human nature - I'd love to be convinced otherwise....but surely it's all going to have to evolve into some other model that involves a scarcity factor that has, for right now, been factored out.nat whilk iiYou're right, but does that mean it's ethical to steal, just because a lot of people do? I say "no". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members A. Einstein Posted June 19, 2012 Members Share Posted June 19, 2012 You are completely out of touch. Anybody can get an ISRC code now and you don't have to own a label. Any independent musician can, indeed, sell through iTunes - I do it myself and it's hilarious that you're trying to deny something that a good percentage of people on this forum actually do. Selling music via iTunes - Requirements Content Requirements: - At least 20 albums in your catalog. - UPCs/EANs/JANs for all products you intend to distribute. - ISRCs for all tracks you intend to distribute. So you fullfil this and you are a direct content provider to iTunes? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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