Study Suggests Music Industry Embrace Piracy 293
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.
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?"
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.
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.
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.
Re:What "study"? (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 third beer, so I may easily be wrong.
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.
Re:What "study"? (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 reason of the popularity, it's cheap and poor people can afford it. Also, "piracy" (not really, their music IS copyleft) is a great distribution channel that will reach places where regular channels woudn't
3) 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.
4) I don't expect anybody from Slashdot to know them, unless you're REALY into bad brazillian music... ;-)
Re:What "study"? (Score:3, Informative)