Ask a Music Producer/Publicist About Filesharing and the RIAA

Bill Evans is one of those people in the music business who doesn't get a lot of public exposure, but keeps the wheels cranking behind the scenes. He's not just a musician and techie, but a publicist whose clients include Numavox Records artists Kerry Livgren and Michael Gleason as well as progressive rocker Neal Morse; he's produced (among many others) songs for the Burning Annie soundtrack and the Kansas Tribute Project. Naturally, since he makes his living in the music business, Bill is not 100% in favor of unrestricted filesharing. But what might work? And what might not? Let's find out what this music biz insider thinks -- one question per post, of course. Answers to the "Top 10" questions will be published soon after he gets them back to us.

Re:ummm...

[radiumhahn]

It's not a troll. Its a valid question.

He is going to take one of two stances:

1) He likes file sharing but there needs to be a way to protect digital rights so record companies can make money.

2) He is againt file sharing.

At the end of this exercise what is he going to bring to the table?

I guess I was unaware of the ask a question so long as it's a sugar coated fluffy soft pitch of a question policy.

Slashdot (Score: -1, Censorship)

Re:how much

[BrynM]

"how much percent does the recording company take from sales profits?"

That's actually determined contract by contract and is a question of how much of a percentage the artist gets (the royalty). The artist portion is usually small (usually 7% to 15% of the final sale margin - 15% being estabalished superstar status).

Re:Where does the money go?

[iapetus]

Just in case this one doesn't get answered, here's one answer [wordworx.co.nz].

Re:The RIAA's claims

[aardvarkjoe]

My maths therefore concludes that if you deducted the 14% piracy, then CD sales have actually RISEN by around 7% over the last year!

Your maths are wrong (unless you're basing it on more numbers than you're presenting here.) You're trying to equate [percentage of CD sales] with [percentage of pirate CD sales], two values which aren't equivalent. Trying to add/subtract them like you're doing just leads to nonsense statistics (in this case, the "actually risen by 7% number.")

Re:CD Sales are up in Britain.

[burnetd]

Here's a link from the horses mouth [bpi.co.uk]

wait

[happystink]

This guy is the publicist for ... Numavox Records, Neal Morse and the Burning Annie soundtrack, and he qualifies as an insider? Has anyone here ever heard of any of these people/projects? I'm not saying this guy sucks or anything, but what distinguishes him from the average slashdot reader, he's just some guy with a not very important job who goes to university and likes Ogg Vorbis, what's the deal here?

Why can't we buy MP3's?

[Slashdolt]

MP3's have been around for several years now, and yet, for the most part, you still can't purchase them anywhere. MP3 is the current defacto standard. To me, it doesn't make sense that we can easily buy a CD and rip it (unless it's a copy-proof CD) and make MP3's, and yet the music industry seems afraid to produce MP3's.

Again, MP3 technology is not that new. I can recall using it at least as far back as 1997. 6 years have gone by. The consumers and the CD/DVD-players all want to have MP3's, and yet there is (for all intent and purpose) no way to buy them.

As John Dvorak said in his PC Magazine column, around 1997, no one would want to buy 10 rock-a-billy CD's for $100, but there might be a market for one MP3 CD with 12 hours of rock-a-billy hits for $10-$20. Why hasn't this happened?

Re:wait

[dreamt]

Well, actually, I was pleasantly shocked to see Neal, the former singer for Spock's Beard [spocksbeard.com] up on slashdot. (Listening to Snow [spocksbeard.com], Spock's last CD w/ Neal right now).

While many never have heard of Spock's, they are pretty big in the Progressive Rock scene.

It should be rebuilt from the ground up.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Copyright law in this country is totally broken. It needs to be totally scrapped and rebuilt from the ground up. Want a clear picture read Digital Copyright by Jessica Litman .

Meanwhile continue to fight the borg.."
Bill Evans
founder boycott-riaa.com
( It should be rebuilt from the ground up. [chewplastic.com])

Is this the Bill Evans you ask about RIAA etc?

Re:RIAA logic

[Funkeriffic Toad]

The article linked to in the parent makes several very interesting points. First, it focuses on the slump in singles sales, something that has been very under-reported at least in US media. It should be noted that this slump was already apparent when Apple's iTunes went online, and it almost certainly can be attributed in significant portion to filesharing services. After all, the idea of a single is to get a sample of the tracks available on the entire album, often before the album as a whole can be purchased. With filesharing making this possible for free (or for cheaps, via Apple and similar services), as opposed to a hefty $4-6 per disc, the choice for consumers seems to be an easy one. To reiterate, singles are almost definitely a market in which the effects of filesharing have been felt strongly.

That being said, Mr. Evans, do you think that this is a Bad Thing? Given the availability of new technology that improves the listening experience for consumers, not necessarily at the cost of artist compensation, does the single still have a place in today's music market? (If so, what is that place?)

The article linked to in the parent also mentions a surprising decline in UK album prices, apparently in response to supermarkets which can offer extremely low prices. It is interesting to note that as far as I've noticed, a similar price-war phenomenon has not manifested itself in the US. For Mr. Evans: do you have any thoughts on competition and pricing in the music industry? To what extent do the major labels operate as a music cartel? Also, I've heard that the major three labels control a ridiculous percentage of the market. I get the impression that you a somewhat smaller producer. As such what is your personal attitude towards this situation in music publishing?

Finally, as a music industry insider, what is your perception of the industry's attitude towards technology as a whole? Is enthusiasm to embrace services like iTunes prevalent, or do many distributors/producers of music still wish to cling to what many consider outdated business models for music publication?

Re:Filesize/Quality per price

[RetroGeek]

That's not what lossy compression means at all.

Lossy compression means just that. Compression where part of the original information is lost.

Lossless compression means that ALL of the original information is preserved.

Lossless is used for storing information that MUST have completeness, such as programs, documents, source code, etc.

Lossless compression can be used where the missing information is not critical. For instance, the human eye cannot see 16 million individual colours. So a lossy compression (JPEG) can drop certain colours without apperant loss of image quality.

Similarily audio lossy compression drops things that the human ear cannot hear.

The amount of information lost can be altered, but the less information lost, the bigger the file, and the closer it is to the original.