I agree. And could some of those content producers have also enjoyed the benefits to offset that gear with crowd funding initiatives (or other support) or are the too proud to accept that sort of assistance?
Maybe. Kind of depends on how good they are at begging. That in and of itself is a skill and takes time which is then not spent making music.
The astroturf brigade is strong in this post.
All music is really busking, probably book writing too. You can hire the services of a large music industry company to sit between you and the busking hat (or begging bowl if you like) but thatās not all they do. They take most of the money as well. And complain when theyāre not getting enough money.
As for sound engineers. Yeah, you had a permanent job, unlike most musicians, lucky you. Technology has made some of what you do redundant. The rest you could contract out to musicians directly.
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Trolling comment? Pot meet kettle. So youāre not only an expert on the music industry but farms as well? Gee, is there anything youāre not an expert on. If I cared enough Iād go out for the day and take shots of all these farm mansions around where I live and post them just to prove a point. These are million dollar homes. Not being built and lived in by city folk moving to the country, but still as active farms. Multi-level 4 car - or rather truck - garages, pools, etc. Many of my friends around here are the tradesmen who build them. So I actually know whatās going on right now, and not 30 years ago when your family was living on a farm. Maybe they were just bad farmers which is why they donāt have a farm anymore. But to cry poverty because that was your experience is entirely part of the problem I was speaking of. A lot of farmers belong to co-ops and collude on prices. Ever wonder why something like maple syrup is so expensive? Itās not like thereās a shortage of the stuff. Pork? Why is bacon so expensive when thereās a GLUT of excess pigs and pig farmers in North America? Thatās easy enough to find with a little research. But no, far easier to believe that all these farmers are just poor working stiffs being kept down by āThe Manā, right?
And the article you cited shows that those who bothered to respond to that survey - and one survey isnāt an accurate reflection of the industry - shows they average $55K per year and that the āvast majorityā of musicians are middle-class earners. Not too shabby for doing something you love to do in the first place. Hardly the abject poverty you claim. I know a lot of musicians and theyāre either professionals or hobbyists. And the hobbyists have fun and make a few bucks here and there as it should be, and the professionals make pretty good livings. That isnāt to say they couldnāt be doing better getting rid of current models and replacing it with something better. Yet, if they donāt care enough to do something about it then itās really there problem isnāt it? I got sick of being treated like wage-slave cattle so I went into business for myself. The money is better and I donāt have to deal with that corporate BS anymore. I may not get rich, but at least Iām not beholden to anyone.
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When major labels stop issuing awful contracts, using shady accounting practices and treating musicians like indentured servants, then maybe, just maybe, I might give the smallest shit about their shrinking revenue.
Iām sure the issue is nuanced as you said, but theyāre also reaping the fruits of 70 years of bastardry. Few people cry when the thief is robbed.
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Small, independent labels have been around for a long time, certainly, and I supported some of those labels back in the day myself. I would say that I probably spent more just on shipping for music in the 80ās and 90ās than I have on music since 2000. As the Internet and social networking have become ubiquitous, itās now possible to produce music and reach fans without even a small label (easier with small labels vs. none at all, sure) - plenty of musicians are out there reaching their fans directly, making a sustainable living without becoming ārock starsā.
As for the major labels and the RIAA, I can and do live without these days. I do have a phone and an internet connection, pretty much unavoidable, but I donāt subscribe to any of the streaming services. I am living on a temporarily free subscription to one service, but I find myself listening to mostly the same music that I have on thousands of CDs down in the basement - itās just easier. When the free streaming runs out, I will most likely go back to my ipod and self-curated playlists. Itās worked well for a long time. I do my best to support artists directly, and I hope to see a positive evolution as more bands strike out on their own.
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Nice to meet you kettle. Iād go as far as to say yesā¦four generations of farmersā¦Iām the first generation that didnāt farm, but left for college. And Iāll go as far as to say yes on the other one as wellā¦I launched a music site for one of the largest media companies in the world and I currently work in the music industry now trying to solve some of the technical issues surrounding licensing and revenue for artists and songwriters.
The $55k per year was a gross based on having other jobs, not exclusively from making music. Those figures are also pre-expenses. And $40-$50k is middle class? Well that really depends on where you live. If you live in the midwest, perhaps. If you live in a major city, not really.
You made a generalization about farmers being millionaires and I corrected you based on my own experiences which wasnāt just one family but entire swaths of families forced out of business by large corporations. Hereās that story: http://www.vce.org/milkpricing.html
If Kraft can earn windfall profits by selling at a loss a tiny fraction of what it buys at rock bottom prices, then it is not irrational. But it is criminal. By dumping carloads of cheese on the Exchange at low prices, Kraft depresses prices. Kraft can then make up for its losses on the Exchange ā and then some ā by purchasing the milk it needs to feed its plants at the low prices it has determined by its manipulative trading.
What I told you was that large corporations (like Kraft) reduced the value of milk and cheese, thus driving the cost so low the small farmer couldnāt compete and had to close upā¦and then during bankruptcy a big corporate farming company came in and bought our farm for pennies on the dollar, along with many others. Thatās why there are a bunch of millionaire farmers in that area now.
It seems like you have quite a chip on your shoulder. I also didnāt like being a wage slaveā¦I worked tons of difficult jobs delivering pizzas, security on the graveyard shift, cheese factory worker, before I started my first company over 22 years ago. I struggled in those years, even had to be on food stamps because I couldnāt afford to eatā¦everything I made went into the business. I had no healthcare and was even evicted once. I know what it is like to struggle.
You complain a lot about the system and how we should do something about it all (which is exactly what Iām working on), and talk about how we need to change how people are paid and then you go on to show your distain for artists and musicians who are in the same boatā¦saying:
This is a bit disingenuous when the real power in the industry is consolidated at the highest levels in tech, venture capital, and the music business. A lot of artists are trying to make a change, but it is a bit hard when you also have large groups of people who donāt want to pay for anything but do want access to the stuff they make. My point all along is that we are beginning to reap what we have sewn, and not just music. Weāve devalued everything because we would rather have superstores with cheap goods and cheap internet and cheap media and on and on. People pay $120 a month on cable bills and then complain that $10 a month is too much for music. Weāve deregulated and consolidated all the money and power at the top and now weāre seeing just what that gets usā¦2-3 cable/internet companies, a bought and paid for FCC, one massive search engine, a tech industry that spies on us about as much as the NSA does (except we willingly do it with social media), and a whole economic system built on a house of cards we call ad revenue.
Another bubble burst is comingā¦and this one is really gonna hurt.
Iām not and havenāt once defended music labels. Iāve said that revenues are down and it is being felt and that weāre facing some dire issues coming up and not all of that has to do with major labels. I have also said though that what weāve seen from the reaction to the online markets and streaming is a consolidation of major and minor labels into huge machines that control enormous catalogues. They will likely reap most of the benefits of streaming revenue.
So it isnāt really a sustainable market for every artist and weāre already seeing evidence that it isnāt going to work. The solution is likely a combination of new revenue sources, but again, that comes down to what people are willing to pay for.
Iām not asking anyone to feel any pity for a label, but what weāve done with music is what weāve seen done with other industries. Just take a look at what you are facing in the US right now with Comcast and its merger plans. There are so few choices anymore for consumers and users.
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Okay, āhuman shieldā is a bit over the top, but they do impoverish artists by stealing money that rightly belongs to them. And I donāt think Pandora and its ilk are techno-geek rebels who are innocent in this whole thing. From what I understand, these sites often take up to 30% of commissions. That may be just itunes, but I thought it was standard. So I do see your point.
I think perhaps you have misused that phrase here. There are a few members here presenting opinions and experience counter to the assertion of the topic. You can see pretty clearly that each is a continued participant in the BBS so its not like a flood of newly created accounts trying to shout down the topic. That might reasonably be called an āastroturfing brigadeā.
Palmer has some reasonable points but perhaps is better to listen to what she spoke of entirely. Sure there are now a greater variety of ways to ask people to pay for their entertainment but you still have to ask. Every one of us who has spent time putting up flyers, asking people to come to a show, going store to store to ask them to stock your band/labelās records/tapes/CDs or even approaching a label to ask for funding is doing the same thing.
When a musician/band sits down across the desk from someone in a nice suit to negotiate a contract, that too is asking someone to pay. You can do it smart and ask for better terms or you can be dumb and take whatever number is offered. Unfortunately most musicians are dazzled by any offer of cash and sign at the first chance, not every band has a Mick Jagger who went to the London School of Economics.
There is a big difference between putting out the bowl/hat or hoping that tonights door money will pay for gas and food to get you to the next gig and having advance money from a label or manager. Not that the two are always exclusive, but knowing that you will eat tonight despite only 5 people coming out to a show is a whole lot nicer than the alternative. Same for being able to replace your gear after it gets stolen from your tour van or any of a thousand other situations like that.
We all ask for money one way or the other. Most of us here probably experience that as a salaried job vs working as a contractor/consultant. Some are better suited to one side than the other, some go back and forth between the two.
Its true that thanks to cheap storage and advances in CPU speeds, the time I spent learning to calibrate tape machines is no longer really part of my workflow when Iām recording. I donāt miss tape edits with razor blades either. The space that a 24 track 2" tape machine and all the tapes would have taken up can be better used for other things. Iām sure there are any number of other things I used to have to do that I donāt any more thanks to technology but the to say
Is a bit silly. I know which end of a trumpet to blow into and that there are buttons to push but that doesnāt make me part of a horn section. Most of the musicians Iāve ever known can work one of these http://www.workingdj.com/wp-content/uploads/Mackie%20402-VLZ3%20DJ%20mixer.jpg but this http://s3-media2.ak.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/Q5oiTH7tMmMoKesWRbqxtg/l.jpg requires a bit more dedication to learn.
Iāve been hoping something like that for decades myself but Iām not holding my breath for any sort of utopia either.
The big lie that started with Napster was that once the masses got easy access to independent music that they would support it more. In the end people donāt want to pay the little guy or the big one.
While Agraham and Israel have posted some of the more thoughtful, insightful and intelligent replies to the topic, the opposing argument seems mainly to be some sort of cartoonish, pseudo moralistic Robin-Hood defense.
It can mostly be summed up as: āWell, record companies are really big and really mean corporations, and they do a lot of bad stuff. Like A LOT! They donāt deserve to make money, and besides they made a whole lot of it already. So itās ok to break the law, and steal from them!ā
If one would extent that particular legal argument and worldview to the rest of society, shoplifting would also be legal, as long as itās done in chain stores who have a suitably āevilā corporate parent.
Commiting burglary would also be fine, if only the burglar targets a really expensive house, owned by someone āevilāā¦ Like a millionaire with stocks in gun and tobacco companies.
The biggest problem is however, that the whole āRIAA is evil mkay!ā argument doesnāt do anything to address the real problems that Agraham points out:
- As evil as they might be, record companies and the old model of the music business helped support whole industries, and tens of thousands of jobs. Many of them not directly related to music. By getting music online for free (or almost free), all those money and jobs disappear.
And yeah. You can āpayā for the record by going to a concert. Letās be generous and assume that 10% of the people who stream or download an album, go to a concert. Thats better than nothing, but thatās not money that help fund a whole ecosystem around music, like it used to.
Andā¦
2: The solution that is suggested as a replacement for the old model, in many cases leave both consumers and musicians worse off.
Consumers will have to take on risks, that used to be the record companyās problem, and the combination of crowd funding and touring that is proposed for musicians? Itāll cost a lot in terms of professionalism and job-security.
Many musicians who used to be able to live off their skills, will have to treat it as a hobby and not a profession. (And thatāll cost the people who listen to music in the long run.)
And the acts who were skilled/lucky enough to have made it big, will be forced to a life that has more in common with the life of an indentured servant, than a rock star: Always out on the road touring, if you want to have a payday. No matter how many hits youāve recorded.
And of course, not one of RIAAās critics who suggest a bright future in streaming, seem to be able to see the irony in the fact that theyre promoting a model, where a third party (whether Pandora or Spotify) who contribute with nothing creative to the music, get their juicy cut of the profit. Which is exactly one of the things theyāve been criticizing record companies forā¦
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The revenues for the music industry is still going up. http://research.gigaom.com/2013/10/musical-chairs/ (old figures now) From Arse To Elbow: His Dork Materials The revenues for ārecorded musicā is falling. Musicians are still producing music and getting paid for it like they always have. And by playing live, like they always have.
The revenue from vinyl records is falling too, and cassettes and CDs.
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Continuing the discussion from RIAA to blame for impoverishment of artists itās using as human shield in anti-streaming lobbying:
@Israel_B wrote:
The big lie that started with Napster was that once the masses got easy access to independent music that they would support it more. In the end people don't want to pay the little guy or the big one.
The big lie is that the recording industry is the same as the music industry. Musicians are still playing and still making more than ever playing live. The total revenue of the music industry is still going up. They still need sound engineers etc. All those thousands of jobs, still there.
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This is why, when you look at history, musicians (and other creative types) had to tour to make a living for themselves. Every once and a while, a patron would support and promote a particular artist (and thatās also why we seeing museums and galleries hosting tours of artists and collections). I have yet to find a creative class of people could support themselves by their wholly artistic means (see also: artisan tiles/breadsā¦ but those lead into hopefully concepts of quality product industries. But letās take an easier example; Orange County Choppers. A lot of art goes into the design but the engineering has to solid for the utility of the art being sold which is very different than an water-colour painting or song).
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This doesnāt challenge my comment, you just made a different comment.
Really? That doesnāt match my experience. Surely you have personal experience or a source for this claim?
Which parts exactly? The studios which have closed because lots of their bread and butter work has been eliminated by cheap recording gear that is āgood enoughā? The live houses in major cities which either closed due to operating cost pressures or have adopted the āpay to playā model? You might be surprised how easy it is to get bands to play for free or to get them to put up a āguaranteeā against the door/bar for the evening. Maybe its the stores selling instruments? Those used to be in every town or at least the mall but the internet has forced many out of business. Maybe you mean the replication companies that make vinyl or CDs? Damn few of those left any more either thanks to the rise of digital distribution.
Except they arent. Lots of hollowing out started in the 90s in the US due to the one two punch of cheap recording gear starting to become widely available and the rise of many for profit schools getting federal funding and advertising ālearn to become a recording engineerā or the like. When all these folks graduated with their certificate and started to go looking for work, studios which were already under cost pressure either took them on as unpaid interns or for minimum wage knowing that when they quit there would be another certificate holder lined up to do the same work.
Of course some people still have part time or full time work in the music industry but I donāt think its honest to say that all those jobs are still there by a long shot.
"This is why, when you look at history, musicians (and other creative types) had to tour to make a living for themselves. "
Sorry, but thatās nonsense and a really disingenuous argument.
Historically youāre correct, but up until the late 19th/early 20th century, hiring a live musician was the only way you could listen to music, so there was a constant demand. Today however, thatās an entirely different story.
15 and 20 years ago musicians would see a fairly constant income from their old records. (The amount obviously depending on how good a contract they had.)
But today, by promoting streaming-
(at the current rates anyways. Yes, the RIAA takes their cut, but the real problem is, that royalty rates and the prices of streaming arenāt sustainable)
- or making the argument that musicians can just ārelease the album for free or close to free, and then make money off touringā youāre cutting musicians off from what used to be a constant, dependable source of royalty income, and force them to either beg for a living through crowd funding (which has itās own issues) or to live a life of tourstitution: Constant, regular touring, in order to see an income of sorts from all the people who download and listen to your music for free.
Touring might sound like great fun, but itās not for everybody. Some people canāt stand it. Itās a notoriously unhealthy lifestyle. And is incompatible with having a family.
And even musicians deserve to settle down, and live of their past successes, instead of being forced to play live, because theyāre creative people, and have a talent and because nobody bothers to pay for music anymore.
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I donāt see how its nonsense.
This is how I get from there to here.
If the medium upon which consumers prefer their listening experience to is essentially worthless in terms of recouping monies, then how else to look at it but to see a world without that medium to begin with? Iām not saying that musicians should or can easily survive in a modern touring sense and Iām not against managing interests in charging a fee for services, Iām simply looking at in terms of practicality.
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SoundExchange NOT an RIAA captive. Seriously, RIAA major labels are not even a majority of its board. Artist reps are half the board, labels the other half, and major labels are only part of the label side. Letās get the facts straight ā and that never happens when Masnick is involved. Often wrong, but never in doubt!
Wow this threadā¦ uh. tā¦topic is great. I saw it at work and am anticipating sitting down with a glass of wine and laughing uproariously at it.
Well in this case it is nonsense, because despite a lot of the profits and revenue disappearing, both the medium and the means of reproduction are still there.
If a club or restaurant needs music, they put a cd on or turn on the radio. 150 years ago that opportunity didnāt exist, so there were a lot more live jobs for musicians.
Music is far from worthless, itās just very easy to steal, and the repercussions and risk of suffering those very small.
On top of that, the music business itself felt poorly with the shift to digital, there was little political will to do anything, and the internet economy to a large degree exists in a bubble where revenues and profits donāt matter, as long as you have enough users because something magical might happen down the road.
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