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Study Suggests Music Industry Embrace Piracy
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon Aug 04, 2008 02:04 PM
from the give-the-people-what-they-want dept.
from the give-the-people-what-they-want dept.
unassimilatible writes to tell us that according to the Financial Times, the music industry should embrace illegal file-sharing websites. A recent study of the recent Radiohead album release found that huge numbers of illegal downloads actually helped the band's popularity and, by extension, concert ticket sales. "Radiohead's release of In Rainbows on a pay-what-you-want basis last October generated enormous traffic to the band's own website and intense speculation about how much fans had paid. He urged record companies to study the outcome and accept that file-sharing sites were here to stay. 'It's time to stop swimming against the tide of what people want,' he said." Update 19:46 GMT by SM: Several readers (including the original author) have written in to mention that it isn't stressed enough that this study was engaged by the music industry itself, making the findings that much more interesting. Take that as you will.
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What "study"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Secondly, it's no longer "pirating" if it's condoned by the copyright holder, eh? So, we're now expecting labels to just let everyone freely copy music? The problem here is that labels own the copyright and make their money from album sales. Merchandising and concert revenue, on the other hand, typically go into the bands' pockets. So of course there are bands out there that would love to use albums as a loss leader for their concerts. This kinda screws the labels though since the only reason so many people attend the concerts or buy the t-shirts is due to a heavy promotional investment by the labels.
I can't actually believe that I'm spending a few minutes of my life to defend major record labels, but we do need a bit of intellectual honesty and middle ground in this discussion.
Re:What "study"? (Score:5, Insightful)
The question though, is whether said labels are necessary to the industry anymore. Can a band sustain itself without a record label, while still releasing music in an album format digitally? I'm not one to pretend to be knowledgeable on the issue but I figure I can at least pose the question.
Parent
Re:What "study"? (Score:5, Insightful)
The question though, is whether said labels are necessary to the industry anymore. Can a band sustain itself without a record label, while still releasing music in an album format digitally?
Let me answer your question with another question; Which band? If you're talking about Radiohead, then yes. However, if you're talking about your buddy Joe's local garage band, no. In the end it all comes down to the individual bands ability to market themselves and actually get their music heard.
Parent
Re:What "study"? (Score:5, Interesting)
I have to disagree...
Here at Brazil there are dozens of local bands that I never heard about, but are able to market themselves and earn money. These bands basically perform at regional shows, sell their albuns themselves and basically are ignored by the mainstream music industry. The music is basically "pirated" by the artists themselves, because it's sold on a such informal way directly by the band or by street vendors that copy and resell the albums as much as they want to.
Eventually some of this bands get attention from the general public and become know nationwide... And some even internationally, see the Calypso band for an example... not my kind of music, but they managed to make some shows on Europe and USA! And this without the help of any major label.
See, if a kitschy band from the brazilian countryside (hey, by countrysite I mean near the f*sk amazon forrest!) can reach international success all by themselves... Well, I think Record Labels are no longer necessary!
Parent
Re:What "study"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Here at Brazil there are dozens of local bands that I never heard about, but are able to market themselves and earn money. These bands basically perform at regional shows, sell their albuns themselves and basically are ignored by the mainstream music industry. The music is basically "pirated" by the artists themselves, because it's sold on a such informal way directly by the band or by street vendors that copy and resell the albums as much as they want to.
Yes, and this is the way it's been done in the United States and England and Japan and everywhere else for decades too. Nothing new there...
Eventually some of this bands get attention from the general public and become know nationwide...
And here you've left out about a million steps, most of which involve a record label or at least some form of professional PR. (I'll get to your specific example in a minute.)
How do you suppose a band that's playing around locally and selling tapes or whatever to local people becomes "eventually" known nationwide? Every local area has dozens or hundreds of bands all trying to do the same thing, so why would somebody pay attention to a local band from 500 miles away?
The answer is they get mentioned in newspapers, they get played on radio stations, they make it into video games, etc. etc. Hopefully at some point before that they get a more professional recording made, which costs a lot of money that most local bands don't have.
None of this happens without a record label.
As for this:
And some even internationally, see the Calypso band for an example...
I've never heard of them. A quick Google search turns up nothing either. Searching for Calypso brings up results for calypso music, some technology company calling itself Calypso, a Calypso catamaran... but no band. Searching for "Calypso band" is similarly barren - lots of results for calypso bands, but no band specific named Calypso in the first few dozen results. So they can't really be all that popular internationally - not many people are mentioning them online or linking to pages that do.
Now, if they'd had a record label, maybe a different story. Record labels have SEO specialists that would ensure they'd be high up in search results. They'd have a nice SEO-friendly official web site with a blog or two. They'd be setting up tours. They'd get them on appropriate radio stations and TV shows. An associated PR agency would be sending out press releases and samplers to various publications.
Like the parent, I can't believe I'm here defending record labels, but the fact is they do serve a purpose. That doesn't mean I support everything they do or that I think their current form is right for the way music is distributed today - their business model is still very 1950's, and they need to get smaller and streamline. They also need to acknowledge that the internet is not going away. A lot of bands might not need a "full service" record label, but then they shouldn't expect as much help either (be it financial or practical).
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Like the parent, I can't believe I'm here defending record labels, but the fact is they do serve a purpose. That doesn't mean I support everything they do or that I think their current form is right for the way music is distributed today - their business model is still very 1950's, and they need to get smaller and streamline. They also need to acknowledge that the internet is not going away. A lot of bands might not need a "full service" record label, but then they shouldn't expect as much help either (be it financial or practical).
I'm in the same boat. The big labels DO have a purpose. When you're working with a major label, it's like having a big corporation standing behind your software project. Sure, you could probably make some dough by putting up a nice website, making things available on sourceforge, selling via Amazon or something. But if ConHugeSoft Inc. decides that they're interested in distributing your software using their resources, you're gonna make a LOT more money (provided you watch your ass).
Now that I think ab
Re:What "study"? (Score:5, Informative)
And here you've left out about a million steps, most of which involve a record label or at least some form of professional PR. (I'll get to your specific example in a minute.)
How do you suppose a band that's playing around locally and selling tapes or whatever to local people becomes "eventually" known nationwide? Every local area has dozens or hundreds of bands all trying to do the same thing, so why would somebody pay attention to a local band from 500 miles away?
The answer is they get mentioned in newspapers, they get played on radio stations, they make it into video games, etc. etc. Hopefully at some point before that they get a more professional recording made, which costs a lot of money that most local bands don't have.
None of this happens without a record label.
I have been in one band from my local area that got into the papers and magazines, onto commercial radio, into video game soundtracks, recorded at the same high-end studios that the record labels use around these parts (north TX, USA), done radio interviews on the top local stations and college stations around the state, sold CDs and downloads locally, regionally, nationally, and on the other side of the world (NZ, to be precise). At the time, the bands showed up adequately ranked at in various search engines, as do my current efforts, with minimal effort for SEO on our part. My current groups all have achieved varying degrees of the above as well. And I know of at least a dozen more bands from this area that have done the same ...
Yes we all busted our asses to get those things done, went into debt, dug ourselves out, and by-and-large nobody I know is rich and famous yet. But we've all played stuff we wanted to play, never had to give away any of our rights to a soulless corporation (oxymoron?), and had a difficult, frustrating, and at the same time fabulous time doing so.
And the best part is, I can keep doing this til I'm 90 .. without a record label.
A record label is only one way to make some of these things happen. Sometimes a record label can provide you a shortening of the path you would otherwise have to take. But its not the ONLY way.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
give away any of our rights to a soulless corporation (oxymoron?), and had a difficult, frustrating, and at the same time fabulous time doing so.
Small point of definition - an oxymoron is a combination of opposites, like 'Microsoft Works' and 'Military Intelligence'. A 'soulless corporation', on the other hand, is a combination of pretty similar terms. An oxymoron in which 'soulless' was better used might be 'soulless immortal', or if you are given to foul puns, 'soulless flip-flops'. What you have in 'soulless corporation' is in fact a tautology, an unnecessary repetition of meaning.
Sorry. I'm not usually an, um, definition nazi. And I'm on my thir
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Ok, quick short answers (because it's late and I have to go home)
1) They got famous country wide because they made shows on festivals during hollydays, and there's a lot of internal tourism here at Brazil. So people from São Paulo and Rio got to know them... and eventually they were invited to perform on a national TV show.
2) No major records or professional PR involved. Their albums are sold directly at their shows, or massively pirated on the streets. A album costs about U$2,00... and that's the reas
Re:What "study"? (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess Google searches are more or less influenced by the country you're at. Google.com.br returns lots of results for "Banda Calypso"... Banda is portuguese for band.
Heh. Looks like the GP poster isn't as bright as he fancied himself:
"I've never heard of them. A quick Google search turns up nothing either. Searching for Calypso brings up results for calypso music.... but no band. Searching for "Calypso band" is similarly barren
Always there are subtle pitfalls when you try to look sharp... like remembering that other countries speak languages other than English, and that when searching for a Brazilian band, perhaps one ought to use the Portuguese word for "band"... and maybe even searching google.com.br...... or perhaps even coming to the conclusion that "calypso", being a a word already heavily associated worldwide with an entire genre of music, might not return a hit on the first few dozen pages for a small, locally famous band in Brazil...
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What "study"? (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually they probably could,they would just have to go back to the "old" way of doing things. My mom talks about the way bands worked when she was a kid,and how you would get one "semi-famous" act,along with up to a dozen smaller acts. The smaller acts would all have self pressed 45 records for sale to the audience after the show,and the concerts were such a good deal price wise that it left the kids with plenty of money to snatch up those 45s the bands were selling.
I think going back to a more "carnival" atmosphere,with the bands having little booths to sell cds,t-shirts,keyrings,etc would work,and they would end up with a lot more money than selling themselves to a record company. I know that when i went on a southern tour with the college band I was playing with we were getting between $400-800 a night easy,just from selling our wares to the audience. And there were plenty of other ways to promote yourself. We would put up "Win one of the bands guitars!" flyers around before a show and take a cheap Kramer that we bought online and play it for the last 3 or 4 songs. After which we would sign it and have a raffle and everyone who bought any of our merchandise got a ticket for each item bought. Sales went up a good 40% and the fans loved it.
So yes,I think it can work for the little guys too,they just can't sit on the butts and expect the money fairy to drop a sack on their lap. They have to be willing to hustle and put in the effort,but the rewards are well worth it. But as always this is my 02c,YMMV
Parent
Re:What "study"? (Score:4, Informative)
On the other hand, it's worth pointing out that Buddy Joe and his Local Garage Band probably can't make enough to sustain themselves with the help of a record label, either.
The reason a lot of garage bands can't support themselves is that a lot of them aren't very good. This isn't to say they lack talent, or can't get good by working at it. On the other hand, if they get good enough to have got an advance from a label, there's a fair chance they'll be able to gather a following on the Internet too.
Really though, that's not anything either of us will be able to say with any certainty for some years to come. This seems to be an emerging trend - how far it develops remains to be seen.
Parent
Re:What "study"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Short answer? Yes. The recording industry as distribution giants are no longer needed. That is not to say that there is no place left for their business, just none left for them to run it the way that they have been. Bands still need help with getting concert venues and promotion. I'll wager that before the large RIAA members figure it out there will be others jumping inline to provide such as is needed by bands who distribute electronically.
The old methods of finding out about new music are slowly failing. Commercial radio is floundering, magazines are not covering all the music available, so the market (roughly speaking) is wide open for competition to large record labels. I listen extensively to Internet radio. I live in a large metropolitan area and there is NOTHING on regular radio that I can suffer through for 6 songs an hour. I say this because if I have gotten to this point, you can bet I'm not alone and as a result the RIAA members are losing out until they start supporting the "New Way" of doing business. It is now completely legitimate and plausible to do without their services IMO.
The real problem for RIAA members is that they don't seem to realize how long ago this boat left the pier while they were partying at the boathouse. Now they have to play catch-up to the likes of iTunes, Napster etc. They have given their business away by being afraid to innovate and change with the times and technology.
Bands mostly sustain themselves on concert generated revenue, not record sales. The smaller the band, the more this is true. The internet sales model is giving some small bands more money than they could have thought possible without a record deal. Direct sales == money. Radiohead, NIN, and others are showing that it's not just a big money pit to throw away your profits in. It DOES work. Some reports say that revenues for a band from CD sales is negligible, so in these terms the Radiohead deal is a big deal. They got all the revenue from music sales. Despite mistakes or blunders, Radiohead and NIN are showing others how to do business in The New Way.
As technology takes it further, the avalanche of music available to users will overwhelm them, and they will look for the New MTV to help them limit their choices and search for the next pop idol. That is where Internet websites will slowly begin taking share from RIAA members. The new nexus of distribution is being the person who knows what is available and can help you find music you like.
So, in both short and long answer... yes!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This is it, exactly.
Distribution has changed, but marketing and promotion needs are still there. While it is possible for an artist to succeed with marketing on their own, no small acts have access to the marketing channels that
It's all about Control, baby (Score:5, Interesting)
Any proposal that lessens their ability to control the market will be opposed quite vigorously. They already know they're obsolete. What makes you think they're going to give up voluntarily?
Parent
Re:What "study"? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not even a good example of an album to study. Radiohead had enormous success with it, but they were hugely helped by two things:
1) They were already a very well-established band.
2) They had a huge amount of publicity given to them because the method of distribution was 'revolutionary' (and they got that publicity largely because of 1) above).
Parent
Re:What "study"? (Score:5, Funny)
I definitely agree. It's problematic to try and draw any sort of industry-wide lesson from the experiences of an already enormously popular, wildly successful band like Radiohead. It's like saying U2 benefits from file sharing. Shit, Bono could fart into a harmonica and they'd sell a million copies.
Parent
Re:What "study"? (Score:5, Funny)
Well, that explains How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb...
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Not only is Radiohead established, they've been incredible popular since the early nineties. They achieved this with big label support the old fashioned way. With that level of fame and wealth they could pick any distribution system they liked. Im curious if any band has achieved this level of fame without a previous big-label fan-base. All high-profile oddball distribution systems are done by established bands like Radiohead and NIN.
Re:What "study"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Who needs labels anymore anyway? If someone is interested enough in truly making music, they should find a way to do it and make money off it.
It isn't like labels are really promoting anything worthwhile anyway. They're more like a marketing machine. Miley Cyrus or Cute Cookie Cutter Female Singer #324,234,465 hardly qualify as "artists".
What's needed is iTunes that let's anyone on and you screw all to the record companies by finding a way to record your music w/o them. Home recording is hella cheap compared to a couple decades ago and there are ways of gettin' real studio time. Until you're good enough to warrant it though, flip burgers and pinch pennies. No different than any college kid eating a case of ramen a week.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Who needs labels anymore anyway? If someone is interested enough in truly making music, they should find a way to do it and make money off it.
Like picking a label that is not evil. Many artists do not enjoy the day-to-day work of finding distribution channels, doing promotion, calling magazines, radio stations, TV stations, etc. Labels CAN provide a valuable service. Nowhere near as valuable as they are making themselves out to be today (with some notable exceptions -- magnatune.com seems to be a decent label, for instance.)
It isn't like labels are really promoting anything worthwhile anyway. They're more like a marketing machine. Miley Cyrus or Cute Cookie Cutter Female Singer #324,234,465 hardly qualify as "artists".
And some truly good artists ALSO are represented by these so-called machines. Stands to argue that those artists produce som
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't underestimate the importance of good recording techniques in addition to having access to high-quality equipment.
There is more to making a well-engineered album than having good equipment, as well. You can sit the world's best musician down in a million dollar studio, and if he/she doesn't know how to record, produce,
The implication is that labels are now useless. (Score:3, Insightful)
Okay, but I think the most important implication of this post is that perhaps there is absolutely no need for there to be record labels anymore.
Recording studios aren't even a hundredth as expensive as they used to be.
This isn't news anyway... (Score:5, Insightful)
BRB (Score:5, Funny)
"Industry"? (Score:2)
The "Industry"? Surely not. Maybe the musicians and the artists themselves, yes, but certainly not the "Industry", which thives on artificial rarity...
RIAA should learn... (Score:4, Interesting)
The RIAA should embrace technology. Because that is where the world is headed. Any idiot can see this. So instead of fighting, go with the flow, because you cannot change people. No matter how much you sue, how much fucking money you waste trying to convince people they are stealing if they think of the song in their head.
I hereby kick the RIAA in the nuts.
Re:RIAA should learn... (Score:5, Informative)
I doubt that the RIAA almost went bankrupt in the 30's, considering it was formed in 1952.
Parent
To the previous posters (Score:3)
The OP was being sarcastic in the first paragraph.
I hope.
Re:RIAA should learn... (Score:4, Insightful)
They feared that radio would kill them (like the movie industry feared VCRs would kill them) but it was untrue; radio ushered in a new age for the record labels, with record profits.
In the US radio never paid royalties to labels (they did pay the songwriters) and in fact "payola", its illegal polar opposite, hapopened - labels paid radio to play their tunes.
Parent
Sorry. trickle down economics don't really work. (Score:5, Interesting)
Is it a coincidence thatI just released an album I made in 2005 a few weeks ago, for free? [trotch.com].
There's a fine line between being a huge band like Radiohead who receive tons of press in the mainstream media, and a person you never heard of doing weird music you probably don't want piled up in the closet money down the toilet.
The music industry is changing that I can agree with. It's very difficult to make money doing music without a live show.
For electronic music hobbyists like myself, a live show is kind of stupid. When I DJ my own tracks it's not a live performance, it's a cheap excuse for showing up and playing music I made on the computer on a computer. I got so fed up with it that the last show I played was a projection of myself DJ'ing, projected onto myself standing there, drinking.
If open source programmers had to tour to make money, programming live on stage while people danced around cheering, it would collapse. Being an electronic musician, in a lot of cases, is just that. It's programming music in a sequencer with the intention to release as a file. The whole touring live show is superfluous and exhausting, and it's not related to the process of music composition.
I'm not against how the industry is changing, but Radiohead as the benchmark for the future? No, I don't think so.
Why the RIAA refuses to embrace piracy (Score:5, Interesting)
It helps their artists (and them as well), but it also helps artists who are not uinder contract with its members.
The RIAA has radio and empty-v to advertise its wares, as well as internet radio and P2P. Their competetion (the independants) only has internet radio and P2P. Killing internet radio and P2P is a blow against the indies, and since the RIAA has radio and empty-v, they can do without the internet. Their competetion can't.
What they are doing is blatantly illegal, but the government is their pawn. We, the People, are defenseless.
Makes perfect sense (Score:3, Insightful)
The industry needs to realize that a person not buying their products is not their customer, whether it is a subsistence farmer on the African countryside or a frequent visitor to the Piratebay and that ilk. So they need to start focusing on the real customers to actually make money.
The difference is that the visitor to Piratebay is MORE likely to actually turn into a customer. So why chase him away through litigation? The fantasy that they are losing money (i.e. has money taken away) is a fallacy, there is just potential income that is less than if they had bought the album. So you want them to do just that.
Turning into a fricking monster is not the solution.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The pirate turns into a customer if/when he decides to buy the product. Until then he is irrelevant to the industry.
I tend to buy music at iTunes for half of what the CD would cost. What makes me buy a CD instead is when it had additional stuff like DVDs or a very attractive packaging.
So: Add extras that make the purchase interesting. Added value compared to the cheaper choice, whether my iTunes purchase or the pirate's free download.
My dream online movies/music "DRM" (Score:3, Interesting)
...would be:
Rights holders would create copies of their movies/music/etc. using a standard program that "imprints" it with a demo indicator. For video, this would mean a message appearing at the start, end and in the middle of the screen every 20 minutes or so saying this was an unlicensed copy and to license it, go to this website. For music, it would take the form of an audio announcement along the same lines at the beginning, middle, and end of the song.
When you go to that website, you can download an app for your particular platform. The app would be fairly simple, so there's really no excuse for not supporting Windows, Mac, Linux, and maybe even BSD. This app is like iTunes Music Store in that it lets you whip out a credit card and pay money for the music/movie. It then downloads from the server the diff that would take those announcement bits out and replace them with the normal audio/video. It also tack on to the beginning and end of any video the purchaser's name, with a short (less than 5 second) screen saying that the following movie was the licensed property of (purchaser's name). For audio files, it would probably be best just to have that put in the tags. Hopefully some place it would be obvious on playback/browsing.
And that's it. No more DRM. No phoning home, no device lock in for the stuff you already purchased. Just a simple screen to prevent casual copying (who wants to give other people stuff with their name and maybe city/state on it). The knowledgeable crowd will know how to fix that, but there's no point in trying to stop them, anyway. They'll always figure out a way around and you can save yourself millions of dollars in creating elaborate DRM schemes and lost sales because people don't like elaborate DRM schemes.
You charge VERY low rates for these files. We're talking 10 cents - 50 cents a song and around $1-$2 a movie. You make up for the price in volume, especially on the movies because now you can really give the movie rental places a run for their money. You not only stop trying to squash bittorrent, you embrace it. You get your imprinted copies on every decent tracker and you help seed them. You make it as easy to download your imprinted copy as it is to get a pirate one.
If you've got the money for development/bandwidth, you can also create your own iTunes-like store where they can directly download from you. But you keep putting it on the torrent sites, too, because this is all about making paying for content as close to as easy as not paying for it and only slightly more expensive. If you're a smaller player, you team up and do package deals. This would narrow down the number of sites that have activation apps that you'd have to download. I figure each of the big music labels would want to do their own (BMG, Universal, etc.) and then you'd get indie collectives.
The payment method could also be abstracted so that you never give your financial information directly to the companies but only get sent through other payment systems like paypal, Amazon, etc. Heck, maybe even the activation apps could come from these "trusted" third parties. The content owners could keep them in line (keep them from trying to take a big piece of the pie) due to the competition between payment systems.
The companies could keep a record of the media you own, so that you could get a new copy activated if your old one got deleted. This would be low traffic on their site if they want because you can get the imprinted media from a torrent.
Note: If doing the diff thing is too difficult (because of the way various codecs work), you can also just create a file where you take out 10% of the information required to play it, basically in a worm-like fashion throughout the file. Enough to swiss cheese it. And you include a standard bit at the beginning of the file that tells you how to "activate" it. Basically like the above but without the free preview.
So, any thoughts? Crazy enough to work? Content sellers just keep trying to build a
Not so simple... (Score:3, Interesting)
The problems with the Radiohead album have been multifold. First, there was a lot of publicity regarding "free" distribution. At release, the Radiohead website was generally considered cumbersome and difficult to use, and was suffering from outages.
The problems downloading the album from the Radiohead site drove many to download the files from peer to peer networks, with the media-driven misconception that this album was "free". Unfortunately, the extent to which the album was "free" was greatly over-exaggerated by the media, as it was not free for redistribution. This is a fact that likely eluded the average consumer not intimately familiar with copyright law.
Above all, a user will take the path of least resistance, legal or not. For some users, they find resistance in prices they cannot afford, but that is not the only reason for piracy. Other reasons include empty store shelves, DRM (digital rights management), and uncooperative websites (as with 'In Rainbows'). All of these barriers to legal ownership result in piracy.
Almost unfortunately, record companies have already realized this. Yet, they have decided to implement these ideas backwards. They are attempting to reduce the relative barriers to legal ownership by increasing the barriers to illegal ownership. This has been done via the legal system, with their infamous lawsuits.
I agree with the general idea of that record companies must adapt and embrace free downloads through peer-to-peer networks, as NiN has done with their release of Ghosts. NiN has released their Ghosts album free for download and redistribution under Creative Commons.
ignores the economics of the recording industry (Score:3, Informative)
The concert revenues go almost entirely to the band and their team (manager, lawyer, roadies, etc.). They also typically keep money made from non-musical merchandise like t-shirts, hats, posters, stickers, etc. The band can profit greatly from wide exposure (like you might get from being popular on P2P).
The record label, on the other hand, usually doesn't get any merchandise revenue or revenue from touring at all. They have to make all of their money from sales of recordings. What happens in practice is that the label will give the band an "advance" so the band can make a recording. This advance might be $200,000 for an entry-level band and the band must use the money to create a suitable recording and buy food, clothing and shelter until it's time to make the next album--and the contract dictates a minimum time frame for this, typically 6 months or a year. The record label is usually entitled to 85% or more of revenues from the sale of record and under no obligation to release the album or spend any money promoting it. Before the band makes another dime off record sales, this entire amount (and any additional expenses the label might incur in getting the record to market) must be recouped from record sales. It almost never is because the label will bill things like air conditioning, coffee, dinners with friends, parties, etc. and because the record label has to pay to have the album pressed and distributed which can be quite expensive. My old record label was making something like $2 off every $10 record sold in a store because the store wanted a cut, the distributor (V2 records) took a huge cut and had to pay their sales team to place it in stores, etc. I think we were entitled to something like 25 cents per $10 record sold according to the terms of our contract. Try paying off $200,000 at that rate.
Given that most bands don't ever see a dime from sales of music recordings, I would imagine that P2P seems like a great option for them. Conversely, record labels are going to hate it because it means giving their product away for free or for optional compensation. It is possible to build a business on optional compensation but I wouldn't want to do it.
I see this helping bands in the long term because it means free distribution of records. I also see it hurting bands because record labels are whithering away - where is that $200,000 advance going to come from? You might see a lot of cheap-to-produce music (like house, rap, or punk) coming out of this situation, but you won't see records like Dark Side of the Moon (which took like 2 years to make) or Pet Sounds coming out of this situation. What you will see is an increasingly splintered industry with gazillions of bands and incredible variety. You'll also see the prefabricated, talentless stars like Miley Cyrus making boatloads in this scheme.
The situation is not totally gloomy because you don't need anywhere near $200,000 to record a good record today. You can get protools or logic for cheap. You can also whore yourself out to some rich patron for the big bucks to do a truly awesome recording if you don't mind a lifetime of indentured servitude which is basically the old way of doing things.
if everyone did it, radiohead wouldn't be unique (Score:3, Insightful)
If every artist followed the Radiohead model, or alternately released their songs for free at a reduced bitrate, then Radiohead wouldn't be unique. For one, they would no longer enjoy a price advantage over similar artists when competing for music consumers' dollars. But they would also suffer in a "public relations" sense. Radiohead's gesture generated a significant amount of goodwill toward the band. Among their fans, sure, but also among non-fans who just happen to want music to be free. Many of these non-fans or marginal fans may have downloaded the Radiohead album simply to reward Radiohead for taking a chance on the new distribution model.
I'm curious whether the apparent success Radiohead enjoyed is not so much due to the distribution model itself, but the fact that they're one of the few big acts to use that model.
It should also be noted that among the pantheon of artists out there, Radiohead's fan base is likely more 1) wired, 2) wealthy and 3) interested in the "politics" of music distribution than the fan base of, say, 50 cent or Carrie Underwood. If true, this would further boost the effectiveness of Radiohead's experiment beyond what an arbitrary artist could expect.
Re: (Score:2)
Now, how do we get them concert tickets for free?
Re:It's good to have wants... (Score:5, Insightful)
People want *everything* for free.
Not really. It's barely worth my time trying to dig up enough iron, aluminum and other metals, as well as finding the oil and manufacturing the plastics, in order to build my own automobile. I would spend my lifetime doing this, and would nowhere near approach the quality of car available on the market today. I have other things to do.
However the perceived cost of a "song" - especially in the information age where anything digital can be copied an amazing number of times for virtually no cost - is very close to zero. Therefore that's exactly what I am willing to pay for it. Sure, the band had to spend a few weeks writing the thing, and a lifetime learning to play their instruments properly - that's why they get to charge willing customers for concert performances. Just like I get to charge my patients for the skills I have honed over the decades. However I don't become an overnight multi-millionaire just because I made a successful diagnosis with a single patient. It takes work, you know? The "entertainment" industry is long overdue for a "correction".
Parent
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You get to charge a lot of money for your skills not because they took so long to develop, but because the years of development means that your skills are rare.
Musicians, on the other hand, are a dime a dozen. The world is full of skilled musicians. It's even full of skilled musicians who can put on a good show, though stagecraft is rarer than people think.
The real skill on that side is in getting people to all want one particular song. The record companies used to be pretty good at that, through a combi
Re:It's good to have wants... (Score:4, Interesting)
People want *everything* for free.
I don't want everything for free. In fact I have very little pirated content in my music collection - there is some, but it's gotta be less than 10%, maybe less than 5%.
Much of my music collection was bought years ago, before downloading MP3 was even an option. These days, I only really "follow" a handful of mainstream artists and buy CDs when new ones are released. I do this only grudgingly, especially in those cases where the artist releases under a RIAA label. My preference is to buy indie music, preferably at a gig where the artist is playing and I can literally hand cash to them and tell them how much I enjoyed the show.
In general, my response to the RIAAs tactics - even though I'm not a "downloader" - has been to shun them and the bands they work with.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The article is making the (increasingly realistic) argument, albeit in a round-about fashion, that the recording industry needs to adapt or die. They've got just about zero chance of regaining the revenue streams they had pre-napster, and so its time to think outside the box. Not a newsflash by any stretch of the imagination.
It's a choice between figuring out how to continue to make money (redesigning your business model) or making none (continually declining revenues for major labels until they can't af
Re:Why would I want to give away my product when.. (Score:4, Insightful)
So why are we paying for the middleman?
Parent
Middlemen? Yes and no. (Score:4, Insightful)
As an idealistic independent musician, I dream of staying indie, making free music for the fans and having the fans support me out of the goodness of their hearts. And maybe it can happen.
On the other hand, I just recorded an album (not released yet), and I value the producer/engineer's work tremendously. I would also be ecstatic to have someone take over many of my business/marketing tasks for me. It would be worth it to me to pay those people - not 90% of my income, but definitely some.
Assuming fans will continue to be willing to support the music they love, I can see the industry moving from "labels employ artists" to "artists employ a business staff." Those people would cease to be middlemen, but they wouldn't cease to be needed.
Parent
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Don't blame me (Score:4, Informative)
So was the pay-what-you-want part illegal? Is there a law that requires you to charge for music? Damn..
I think the point is that Radiohead wanted you to register with a credit card and get it from their site. I might be remembering incorrectly, but I think they wanted a minimum of 1 cent.
Regardless, just because a copyright holder doesn't charge money doesn't mean they cannot control other aspects of a work's use and distribution. Or have you not heard of a "GPL?"
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And as for bands who pump out multi-platinum albums who don't make a dime? I'd really like to see the books in that case. If it's true than there is so swamp land I want to offer these people. If you really have a serious fan base and you're not smart enough to go in and say "I sell records, I want a cut or you won't get any more recordin
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't forget the "Hollywood accounting" principals that say if you don't show any profit, you don't get taxed. That check for $500,000 the band got was for "unreimbursed expenses" and such. No, there isn't any profit here, none at all. Check Mr. IRS Man, and you will see all our books are clean. No profit.
Are there bands that make lots for their manager, agent and record company without ever getting a dime themselves? Sure, they spent their entire advance (and then some) and finished with less than ste